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关键词：giraffe/长颈鹿，lesson/教训，get up/站起来 |
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目录：Success/成功 |
话题：
成长，历练，磨难 |
类型：记叙文 |
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难度级别：初级 |
词汇要求：1000 |
文章词数：400
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[ 生 词 可 拖 选 或 双 击 ] |
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When it doesn't
get up,
the violent process is repeated over and over again.
如果它不站起来，
这种残暴的动作就会一次又一次地重复下去。 |
Learning to get back up
学会站起来
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作者：Craig B. Larson |
来源：www.getmotivation.com
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日期：2008-5-10 |
责编：Emma |
Bringing a giraffe into
the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe falls 10 feet from its
mother's womb and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it
rolls over and tucks its legs under its body. From this position
it considers the world for the first time and shakes off the
last vestiges of the birthing fluid from its eyes and ears. Then
the mother giraffe rudely introduces its offspring to the
reality of life.
In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a
newborn giraffe learns its first lesson.
The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick
look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She
waits for about a minute, and then she does the most
unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward
and kicks her baby, so that it is sent sprawling head over
heels.
When it doesn't get up, the violent process is repeated over and
over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf
grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts.
Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs.
Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She
kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how
it got up. In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as
quickly as possible to stay with the herd, where there is
safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all enjoy
young giraffes, and they'd get it too, if the mother didn't
teach her calf to get up quickly and get with it.
The late Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime
studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of such men as
Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles
Darwin.
Stone was once asked if he had found a thread that runs through
the lives of all these exceptional people. He said, "I write
about people who sometime in their life have a vision or dream
of something that should be accomplished and they go to work.
"They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified, and for
years they get nowhere. But every time they're knocked down they
stand up. You cannot destroy these people. And at the end of
their lives they've accomplished some modest part of what they
set out to do."
Discussion/讨论：
Did you think the mother
giraffe is too cruel?
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