Inside the Dictionary Eleven oclock at night, putting aside Sun Tzus The Art of War, I open the

New York Times as I do every day. New York at this point of the day has finally come to rest, giving me an opportunity to read with a peaceful mind. After a while, I stumble onto an unfamiliar word. Before I know it, my electronic dictionary is in my hand. As I am going to solve another mystery, my attention is suddenly drawn to the surface of the dictionary. How battered it is! The shiny metal skin has dulled and at several points peeled off, and the sapphire color is darkened irregularly by fingerprints and sweat. With the dictionary in my hand and the newspaper laid out before me, my mind flows back to that old me four years ago who could hardly finish reading an article in a day. On a typical foggy Beijing morning four years ago, I embarked on my first transnational flight and was thrown into a boundless sea of unknown 13 hours later. Being uprooted from a country that had nurtured me for thirteen years was overwhelming. There were tons of adjustments to make and obstacles to overcome. Because I unexpectedly passed the ESL exam one month after I arrived in America, I was shoved into the regular middle school literature and Spanish classes where I was completely dumbfounded. The same me who derived great happiness from participating in class discussions just a month ago could no longer utter a word and felt for the first time helpless. I soon realized that learning English was about deciphering and absorbing a new culture and standard of thinking. To survive, I had to improve my English proficiency at lightning speed. That was when I started plodding through the New York Times. I would spit out a few words, highlight a word I dont know, input it into my dictionary, scribble the Chinese definition in the margin, spit out a few more words, stumble over another word, highlight, inputthe cycle repeated itself again and again. On a good day, I would go through two paragraphs in two hours with only three-fourths of the words highlighted. Unsurprisingly, the first few weeks were very dispiriting. I found myself drowning in a wave of new words and unfamiliar sentence structures, and when I finally withstood the wave, another wave hit me again, harder. However, as an ancient Chinese proverb states, Difficulty is like a spring: it shortens if the power you exert is tremendous and extends if your force is weak. Gradually, my hard work paid off. There were fewer pencil marks on the newspaper and the dictionary was turned on less often. I also started to enjoy the articles. From each one I absorbed something new, whether it was a fact about a current event, an explanation of a progressive theory, or, of course, a new vocabulary. Once in a while, I was fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of China. Unconsciously, my eyes broadened as if I saw my old life again. Staring at the sweat-stained dictionary, I am reminded of how hard I have worked and how many hurdles, high and low, I have leaped over. Challenges are no longer barriers to me; they help me get stronger and bear witness to my maturation. I put aside my trusty dictionary and welcome sweet dreams, getting myself ready for a brand-new day of challenges and opportunities.