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【英文原文】
This month, at the 2010 commencement ceremonies for Mills College, 94-year-old Hazel Soares Soares will become a college graduate, 78 years after her high school graduation from then-Roosevelt High School in East Oakland。
Soares has been married twice, raised six kids, seen two economic depressions, 15 US presidents and two world wars. She's been a working single mother, a nurse, a concert event organizer and an art lover. She has more than 40 grandchildren。
Born in Richmond on June 21, 1915, Soares traces her interest in art history back to age 11 and the impression made on her the first time she saw Michelangelo's "David" in the Book of Knowledge. In 1996, at age 80, she traveled to Florence, Italy, to see the sculpture for herself。
But setting records isn't what motivated Soares to renew her lifelong quest for education when she enrolled at Chabot Community College in the mid-1980s and settled on an art history major in Mills College in 2005. "I've always had a basic curiosity about how to do things, whether it's a (cooking) recipe or identifying pieces of art in historical context," she said。
Then she plans to start looking for a job where she can use the skills and knowledge she acquired at the prestigious, private women's undergraduate college. "I'd like to be a docent in a museum," Soares said. Soares still drives and she is as healthy as a horse。
Soares just might qualify as the second-oldest student in the world to ever earn a college degree. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Nola Ochs, 95, is the oldest person to ever graduate from college。
