我们从今年第七期开始陆续刊登第二届“北外杯”中学生英文写作大赛的部分获奖作文。本期选登的是贵州省贵阳市清华中学高一(4)班范迪同学的文章。

　　范迪

　　Last summer, as soon as school was over, I thought maybe I could spend the summer in a way different from previous ones. But how? Perhaps I could take a part-time job and make some money. I was offered an interview soon after I filed my application to Kentucky Fried Chicken.

　　The interview was three days ahead. To prepare for it, I went through Interview Skills, a book which prepares readers for job interviews. My mom and dad tried to help by giving me simulated interviews one after another. They made me answer all the questions they believed the manager would ask. I was all ready the day before the interview.

　　I answered all the manager’squestions well. After all, my mom and dad had expected all of them and I just needed to repeat the answers I had prepared. Besides, I had carried myself well throughout the interview. My facial expression, my voice, my... all were excellent. I felt the job was already mine. That night I calculated how much money I would make, and I planned the ways I would like to spend it.

　　Two days after the interview, I was watching television light-heartedly when the phone rang. It was my classmate Yukun, nicknamed Pirate because he just loved sailing. He invited me to his birthday party the next evening.

　　“Happy birthday!”I said to Yukun as I entered his house.

　　Then several others arrived.“Happy birthday and congratulations on finding a job!”I was glad that someone else had the same idea as I on how to spend the summer.“Yukun, what kind of job have you found?”

　　“Well, just taking orders and stuff like that. At the Kentucky Fried Chicken.”said Yukun.

　　“Kentucky Fried Chicken?”I was a little surprised.

　　“Yeah. I was so lucky to get it. You know, there was only one vacancy.”He was all smiles.

　　“When I mentioned I liked sailing, the manager showed great enthusiasm and asked me some questions relating to sailing. Then I knew the job was mine,”he went on.

　　My heart sank. No wonder I hadn’tgotten a word from them so far.

　　I could no longer stay at the party and left saying that I had a terrible headache.

　　On my way home, I kept asking myself why the job went to him, not me. Anyway, the manager definitely smiled at me until the end of the interview. And I had excelled Yukun in all the subjects at school. In fact, he had often asked me for help with his homework. Everybody including the teachers agrees that I am a much better student than he.

　　I didn’tknow how I got home. I went directly into my room and threw myself onto the bed, still trying to find the answer.

　　Obviously, it was not what he had learned at school that helped him find the job. According to Yukun, the manager’sdecision to take on him was influenced by the fact that they shared the same hobby. True, Yukun loved sailing. He had read volumes and volumes of books on sailing. On top of that, he had several times sailed in the Hongfeng Lake with his uncle who was a member of China’sMen’sSailboat Team. But why in the first place did Yukun mention his interest in sailing which seemed to have nothing to do with the job? And how did he get to know that the manager was fond of sailing?

　　Still I couldn’tfind an answer. Not wanting to bother any more about it, I went into the living-room, turned on the TV and tuned in to CCTV Channel 10, my favorite channel.

　　It was a talk show. The panel was made up of the hostess and two high school principals. The focus of the discussion was on quality education in China. They talked about the differences between the conventional concept of intelligence and the new idea of multiple intelligences which emphasize the ability to solve problems that one encounters in real life, and the ability to make something or offer a service that is valued in one’sculture. One term they used that particularly struck me was interpersonal intelligence which refers to the capability to understand and interact effectively with others.

　　That’sit. Yukun exhibited greater interpersonal intelligence than I in securing the job. Before the interview he must have done some research about the manager and found that he happened to love sailing. So he deliberately mentioned that he liked sailing just to impress him.

　　It was not just good luck that Yukun was given the job. Actually he had been much better prepared than I. He had been preparing for many years while I had just taken a few days to prepare. Yukun is interested not only in sailing but also in many other things. He just loves to find problems to solve.

　　How I wished I knew a lot more than what the textbooks had taught me at school! And how I wished I had taken care to nurture my interpersonal intelligence, besides schoolwork!

　　What a valuable lesson! Bookworms will never function well in this world of opportunities and challenges. The world will no longer only reward those academically better ones. It will favor those who have all-round abilities, those who love to find problems and know how to solve them, and those who get along well with other people and the environment. As a first-year high school student, I have no time to lose. I must prepare myself for the world outside the campus, for the life ahead. I must prepare myself so that I can help make the world a better one.