Bad Habits, Bad Grades

Author: Qin Yu / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Do you want to know why some people feel a shiver when washing dishes in the sink? Then read "I Want to See" by Beryl Markham. The author is a blind woman who had been sightless for nearly half a century. In the book, she describes: "I have one eye that can see, but it is covered in scars, and I can only struggle to see through a small part on the left side of my eye. When reading, I have to hold the book in front of my face and force my eyes to move to the left." However, Beryl did not want to be pitied or seen as different. As a child, she really wanted to play the game of "hopscotch" with other kids, but she couldn’t see the lines drawn on the ground. So, she waited until the children went home and lay on the ground alone, looking for the lines and memorizing their positions. When she played with the other kids again, she became an expert at this game. She loved reading at home and would hold large print books close to her eyelashes to see them. Yet, she earned two degrees—a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Arts in Literature from Columbia University. She began teaching in Twin Valley, Minnesota, and later became a professor of journalism and literature at Augustana College in South Dakota. She taught there for 13 years and also gave speeches at women’s clubs and hosted a radio program called "Books and Authors." In the book, she writes: "Deep down, I have always been afraid of being blind. To overcome this thought, I chose a joyful, almost playful attitude toward life." In 1943, at the age of 52, a miracle happened! The famous "Mayo Clinic" performed a successful surgery on her, and she could see again—clearly, hundreds of times better than before! A brand-new, exciting, and beautiful world was presented to her. Now, even when washing dishes in the kitchen sink, she would feel a shiver, afraid that everything would disappear from her sight again. "I played with the soap bubbles in the dishes," she writes, "I stuck my hand into the soap bubbles and picked up a cluster of them. The small bubbles, catching the light, showed beautiful colors." Above the kitchen sink, through the window, she saw: "Swallows with gray-black wings flying over the snow-covered ground." As she was immersed in the sight of the soap bubbles and the swallows, she ended the book with these words: "Dear God, our Father in heaven, I thank you." Think about it—just because she saw a rainbow in the bubbles while washing dishes, just because she saw swallows flying over the snow, she could thank God and praise Him. And we, the ordinary people who normally enjoy all the gifts of nature, have always lived in Beryl’s wonderful fairyland, wasting those invaluable gifts without even realizing it. Are we numb? In Beryl’s world, what is more important or precious than a pair of healthy eyes? Yet we, every one of us with healthy eyes, often take them for granted, thinking they are endless and inexhaustible. As civilization advances, we gradually realize the importance of every tree and flower, yet we ignore our own health. Many adults who cannot take off their glasses worry deeply as their children follow the same path. Fun computer games and TV programs mercilessly drain children’s precious eyesight. Although this is an era when glasses are as varied as clothes, the real problem is getting worse: the importance of eyes for learning is obvious, so it’s high time we helped them break their bad habits of using their eyes. Improper eye use includes many things: fatigued eye use, like "pulling all-nighters"; incorrect reading posture, such as lying down or squinting; prolonged eye use in poor lighting, like using insufficiently bright desk lamps; and long hours of playing computer games. P2-3