it is a creative writing which is to create a character reflecting attributes of an animal by making subtle comparisons
Life cycle
Eva sat against the flower bed with a simple wrap over her ballet clothing and perfect hair knot on her head. She was so concentrated in reading the book that she did not notice the butterfly flying around her. Gardens, flowers, butterfly and Eva were just like a beautiful oil painting.
“Eva, what are you doing here? Did you forget the Madame Butterfly is in this Friday? You need to practise harder.” a thin and straight woman said in her British accent, low in voice but sharp.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Strict.” Eva quickly closed her book, and ran to the practise room.
Spin, jump, hopping-split…….she practised them over and over again. She had already got used to it because that was her life before.
In a deep tussock grass along the meandering garden road, a beautiful butterfly perched on a leaf quietly but alertly. It did not stay too long but left some tiny, oval and drops-like objects which called eggs. They were shining under the sun which made them more like crystals. Suddenly, a huge flurry spider came, and some of the eggs were swept away in a rush.
When Eva was four, her mother first took her to a ballet school. She was accepted by that school easily because of good appearance and balance. However, she was too young to understand the situation she had.
A few days later, the survivors became small caterpillars. They were long and worm-like. The only thing the caterpillars did was to find food and eat them so that they became big and fat. A strange wind blew, some stronger caterpillars moved away quickly; follow on, a big hungry bird with combativeness came over here, and carried off some caterpillars. It happened too fast to make sense of it. However, life should keep moving. Their caterpillar tissues are broken down, and they kept onto pupa stage.
Eva’s school life was extremely cruel and hard. She had to spend more than half of a day on Ballet, no long breaks, no holidays. Her sweat and tears could probably make a stream. Her pointe shoes always sticked with her toes because she worn them too long and the sweat sticked them together. It was such a hurt to tear down the shoes, sometimes with blood. It was very common to break toenails or wear out toes or get injured legs. But, she never thought about giving up because that was her dream. She tried her best to do every single movement well, ignore other girl’s cynicism and jealousy. Finally, hardworking will be harvested. One of the best Ballet College-British Royal Ballet College only enrolled 20 dancers among thousands of competitors. And Eva was one of the one.
Two weeks after, in a mysterious dark corner of a lovely garden, the ravishing quiet was been broken by a pupa in slowly torn, its soft and tight wings came out, but it seemed weak and it could not fly until the wings be unfolded. It had to wait. However, when the sun warmed up the air in the morning, the wings suddenly opened, a butterfly tried it best to make a fly proudly. It showed a creature’s beauty of breaking through.
In British Royal Ballet College, she saw the real challenge. Every girl is brilliant and outstanding; the competition between them went extremely intense. Unfortunately, she’s not old enough to get a chance to performance in public. She had to wait. She imagined she was spotted on the stage; thousands of eyes all focused on her, that made her feel excited but a little nervous. She could not wait to stand on the stage any more. So she practised harder. Time passed, she got a lot of small roles to perform on the stage which helped her to gain experiences. Finally, when she got 20, she was approved by a famous ballet director and won among other competitors who made her get the biggest role ever----the major character in Madame Butterfly.
Under the sunshine, the butterfly was flying happily among the flowers.
Under the spotlights, Eva was dancing in a butterfly costume.
When she jumped with open arms gracefully, her dress flowed and flapped in the air which made her look like a real butterfly flying in the sky; When she used her tip toe beat the ground gently but rapidly, just like the butterfly gathers pollen; when she did the pirouettes, it seemed the little fairy butterfly were showing off her excellent flying. She sometimes danced softly, sometimes passionately along with the music. And at the end of the ballet the audience leaves thrilled with what they saw and the entire cast and crew is relieved that it was a success and all congratulated for Eva.
However, the glory days for Eva did not last for too long, her physical strength could not keep up due to growing age and there were a lot of new young dancers who were talented and displaced Eva gradually. She had already known this potential rules, the age will always be her biggest enemy. Although she doesn’t want to let it go, she has to. That is her life.
The scales of the butterfly cling somewhat loosely to the wing gradually and come off easily without harming the butterfly. It died.
[/b]
TOEFL listening lectures: A lecture by a professor of Archeology