They can reach the limit

本文讲述了参与一次伟大的冒险经历的四名妇女：安班克罗夫特，苏安妮吉勒，达维拉和索比的故事。她们在某种领域达到了极限，因为他们必须在每一个方面都经历了无数的挑战和斗争：身体，情感，精神。

Where Are Their Limits?
“Where are their limits?” would be the question asked after reading “Endurance on Ice,” by Anne Dal Vera, from the book A Woman’s World (1997), which vividly represented the experience of an Antarctic expedition  for four courageous American women who skied to the South Pole. Bearing the goal of traversing the Antarctic without any external assistance, they left on November 9, 1992 and reached the South Pole on January 14, 1993 after 67 days of struggle and weariness.

The four women involved in this grand adventure were: Ann Bancroft, Sue Giller, Anne Dal Vera and Sunniva Sorby. Apparently, they must have experienced a myriad of challenges and struggles in every aspect: physical, emotional, spiritual and financial.

At the very beginning, it is worth noting that such a major undertaking received no corporate funding and most of the budget was paid by the donations from supporters. Most of the companies were reluctant to sponsor this expedition, worrying the detrimental effect of the potential injury on the company image. Confronted with this financial pressure, the four women still embarked on their marvelous trip. 

They scarcely regarded the financial pressure as their limits. The physical challenges posed by the extremely cold conditions, nevertheless, were believed to be their obstacles to continue. Illness and injury, for instance, turned out to be the major causes of physical exhaustion. Sunniva Sorby, the youngest member of the team who coordinated the research on the expedition, suffered muscle spasm in her neck for the first week, followed by bronchitis and tendonitis. Later, she sprained her ankle. She remained determined to continue the grand adventure. Sue, Ann and Anne all had minor frostbite on their thighs.

For the four female expeditors, marching ten hours a day in the frozen air was a demanding job. At times, they found it difficult to decide whether to rest some days or not. In most cases, their hands became numb and the terrible tendonitis made them painful with each step. On the 39th day, Anne felt extremely exhausted, for she had pulled the sled more than 69miles with tendonitis. In the face of adversity, they sometimes felt depressed and wondered where would be their limits, but ultimately they learned to deal with pains and push their limits.

Skiing in the white wildness was both energy-consuming and boring. Some of the four may be weary of the spiritual exhaustion, since they were surrounded by the boundless land of ice and snow. The cold climate, as well as the tough expedition, would invariantly bring them to mediate on the question: why am I doing this? Their spiritual sources were consumed by the up to seven days of struggle. However, they were capable of finding ways to refill their power and refresh themselves. On November 15th, they held a small party to celebrate Sue’s birthday in their little tents. Also, they made for themselves a special breakfast to celebrate the Christmas. They gradually, developed a strong attachment to the beautiful white land.







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Report& Reflection
Having completed the Part I assignment, I came to realize how difficult to write a well-structured, concise and precise short article. In order to meet the 500-word constraint, the structure of the article must be carefully designed. Unnecessary details should be avoided.
Before starting to write the summary, I read thoroughly the passage referred several times and looked for the information related to my analytical framework that to be adopted. I wrote down the necessary details and tried my utmost to find the connections between them. 
When the draft was finished, I came to realize that I failed to meet the 500-word constraint. Then I kept editing my draft, deleting the unnecessary details, redesigning the sentence patterns, and changing the inappropriate words and phrases. During the editing of the draft, I focused on the completeness of the structure and the conciseness of the article. I was clear that there must be several defects in my assignment.
It is not difficult to find the noticeable differences between the Part I and Part II, with the former requiring a higher standard of writing skills and capabilities. Comparing to the Part I, Part II is obviously much easier to complete, for it does not put many demands on the structure, and framework.
Frankly speaking, I have learned a lot about writing. Briefly, writing things is no big deal, however, to write a good story is another thing.