One morning, I was on my way back home and was very   (1)   and hungry after working a 12-hour night shift (夜班). I   (2)   at a local restaurant to have breakfast. It was really a truck stop and I was the only   (3)  . Right after I placed my   (4)  , I saw a man come in. He was carrying a small backpack. He   (5)  in his pocket and pulled out some

  (6)  . He asked the waitress if 38 cents was   (7)   to buy a cup of coffee. She looked at his

  (8)   and said, “  (9)  . Have a seat.” (Coffee was 50 cents a cup at the time.) It really   (10)  

me how she had tried to protect his   (11)   from being hurt and how he had not asked for any help.

    Shortly before my   (12)   came, I asked the waitress to come over. I said, “You know, I am not feeling   (13)  . I don’t think I am going to be able to eat my breakfast. Do you think there is anyone here who might   (14)   it?” She first asked if I was OK and then she   (15)  . She said, “I think so. Are you sure?” I told her that I was sure.

She then walked over to the gentleman and told him that I had ordered food and it was too

  (16)   to stop the order but I didn’t feel like eating. Would he be so   (17)   as to take it so that they wouldn’t have to   (18)   it away? I walked to the cash register (收银台) and was

  (19)   for the meal. At the cash register, I asked if they had gift cards. They did. I   (20)   one for $25.00 and asked them to give it to the gentleman after I left.

Going out of the restaurant, I felt so proud of myself with all my tiredness gone. Helping people in need sometimes makes a difference to others and at the same time to ourselves.

My grandfather was probably the toughest man Iˈve ever known.   (1)  , as a child I didnˈt realize it. To me, he was just a(n)   (2)   grandfather. But his   (3)   changed the way I thought about him and it is the event that has had the most   (4)   effect on me in my life.

He died on Thanksgiving Day. At his funeral, his brothers began to   (5)   stories about their lives. They recalled their childhood, when they were poor and   (6)   in the countryside, their hunting adventures in the woods and their happy family get-togethers   (7)   festivals. In their eyes, my grandfather was understanding and kind-hearted. He was always there,   (8)     happiness to the family. They drank and continued telling stories, and then I noticed the   (9)  ; not polite smiles, but loud laughter.

  (10)   laughed. The louder their laughter was, the more   (11)   I felt. I pulled my mother aside.

“Grandfather is dead. How can they laugh?” I said in   (12)  . 

“What is the most important thing you   (13)   about your grandfather?” my mother asked. “ He wouldnˈt want us to be   (14)  . Thatˈs not how he would want to be remembered. He would have wanted   (15)   this kind of party.”

I   (16)  . Out of all the things I remember about him, the most   (17)   thing is his laughter. He   (18)  all the ups and downs in his life. No matter how hard something was in his life, he always   (19)   it with laughter.

I don’t know what   (20)   looks like, but I believe it is filled with his laughter.

I was driving to the grocery store on a warm morning in May. I smiled as I watched the golden sunshine   (1)   off the leaves. It was such a   (2)  and heavenly time.

My calm was broken,   (3)  , as I rounded a curve(拐弯处).A huge U-Haul truck was coming my way several feet over the center line. I swerved as far onto the side of the road as I could to   (4)   it. It was followed by not one but two other U-Haul trucks just as   (5)  . I wondered if all the stuff inside of them   (6)  the same person. I slowed down my car and waited for my heart rate to   (7)  . It was then that I   (8)   a self-storage business along the side of the highway, building new units for all the people who couldn’t fit their   (9)   into their houses. I saw a (an)   (10)   couple carrying boxes into one of the units. It seemed   (11)   that a couple just out of their teens could already have too much stuff.

I lost my own   (12)   for owning stuff when a house fire in the middle of the night destroyed everything my family owned. The only thing I had left was the underwear I was wearing. Yet, our whole family had awakened   (13)   to escape. In the weeks that followed friends and family gave us a lot of stuff to get us back on our feet, but none of it seemed as   (14)   any more. What was important was seeing Mom’s smile, giving Nana a hug and a kiss, and watching Dad snooze（打盹）in his chair   (15)   a hard day’s work. What was important was the stuff of   (16)  , not the stuff of this world. Since then I have tried to limit the things I   (17)  . I didn’t want too much stuff to   (18)  my life. I wanted to only buy what I needed and to spend my days in learning, growing, and   (19)   my family and others.

I assumed that only by doing so could I make my   (20)  .

Johnny Smith was a good math student at a high school. He loved his computer. Hecame home early every day, then he worked with it till midnight. But Johnny was not a good English student, not good at all. He got an F in his English class. One day after school Johnny joined his computer to the computer in his high school office. The school office co-mputer had the grades of all the students: the math grades, the science grades, the grades in arts and music, and the grades in English. He found his English grade. An F! Johnny changed his English grade from an F to A. Johnny' parents looked at his report card. They were 

very happy. 

 "An A in English!" said Johnny's Dad. "You're a very clever boy, Johnny." 

 Johnny is a hacker. Hackers know how to take informationfrom other computers and put 

new information in. Using a modem, they join their computers to other computers secretly. School headmasters and teachers are worried about hackers. So are the police, for some people even take money from bank computer accountand put it into their own ones. And they never have to leave home to do it! They are called hackers.  

I had just spent the last 99 cents on my burger at Wendyˈs drive-through (可开车点餐的外卖窗口) when my phone rang. My mind was still on the young man ____  (1)  ____ there,wearing just a T-shirt because he couldnˈt ____  (2)  ____ a coat. My friendˈs husband asked if I was home ___  (3)  ____ he had something he wanted to drop off.

    I ____  (4)  ____ home to find him standing in my entrance way with a big box. "Every Christmas our church does food baskets for a holiday meal. I ____  (5)  ____ you and your son," he explained. Then he ____  (6)  ____ me two envelopes, inside one of which was a very ____  (7)  ____ gift card to the Walmart Supermarket. I tried ____  (8)  ____ to hold back the tears as I thanked him.

    With my face still wet, I ____  (9)  ___ my son from his Christmas party and told him the ____  (10)  ___ of the night as he listened in ____  (11)  ____. Then I looked at him and said " Nathaniel, I think we need to go to Walmart." "I was thinking the ____  (12)  ____thing, Mom."

    We examined every coat in the Menˈs Zone before we ____  (13)  ___ one and then made our way to the gift package area for a big bag. I pulled up to the drive-through for the second time that night. When the ____  (14)  ____ opened, I pushed the bag at the bewildered-looking (困惑的) young man. "Itˈs for you. Merry Christmas. "

    "But you donˈt even ____  (15)  ___ me."

    " Doesnˈt matter. I know you needed a ____  (16)  ____. Stay warm and have a good night."

    As I waved and ___  (17)  ___ drove away, Nathaniel watched the young man try the coat on in front of his co-workers, who were smiling and admiring the coat, a few even ____  (18)  ___ quietly. My

 son spoke the words I was feeling: "Mom, Iˈve never felt so ____  (19)  __ before!" "Me too, because no money could ever buy that feeling of helping someone who really __  (20)  ____it."

When our restaurant business failed, we headed north in a camping truck to Texas, hoping to have a “fresh start”.

At the  (1)  of Palo Duro Canyon (峡谷) State Park, I  (2)  a job advertisement hiring park hosts. The position offered a  (3)  , permanent campsite in the park, and  (4)  , the hosts served as a link between the park’s guests and the rangers (护林人). It was the perfect solution: a rent-free place to reorganize our lives. We entered the park and I made an  (5)  for the following day.

The park was  (6)  , so it took us some time to find an available site. That evening, as we finished our dinner, my wife saw two large skunks (臭鼬) walking toward our table. We  (7)   climbed onto the table and, for the next four hours, waited for them to  (8)   our camp. 

Having survived that night, we were  (9)  that everything else would be all right. The next day we met with the people who ran the park. They explained our  (10)  and gave us a beautiful campsite. 

That evening,   (11)  , we learned about the canyon  (12)  . They were strong and cold, rocking our little camping truck violently, and we lay  (13)  in the dark until the winds died away. 

  (14)  the weeks that followed, we learned to survive in our truck and  (15)  the little money my wife  (16)  by substitute teaching. Building a successful business and then losing it had left very little time for building a successful  (17)  . For a time after our business  (18)   I thought I might lose my family as well. 

  I still remember being a little 4^th-grader looking up at my mother asking if I could be a cheerleader. Now as l was  (1)  my cheerleading career. I donˈt think of all the competitors I  (2)  or the dances I danced, but all the life   (3)  I learned from the sport.

       First comes trust. Cheerleading is one of the most  (4)  sports in the world. Without trust in a stunt group, everything could go wrong and someone could get  (5)  .

       To gain a skill in cheerleading you have to have  (6)  . It takes a while for hard work to kick in. Sometimes l would have to  (7)   a skill 100 times until I finally   (8)   it right. Patience is an important skill to have in life, especially if you plan to have a   (9)   one day.

       As a cheerleader, I have also learned to  (10)  my action and be careful about how I represent myself. Being a leader is  (11)  in life because that is what most jobs look for in a person. Also, who wants to be a(n)  (12)  anyway?

       Cheerleading required a lot of time and  (13)   . It was important to always be there 100% physically and   (14)  . I gave up a lot of special  (15)  in my life for it because how dedicated I was toward the sport.   (16)  is important in life because it teaches you to always do things 100%.

      Cheerleading  (17)   a lot of time. I usually had practice for two hours every day after school, plus weekend games or competitions, my schoolwork and many different extracurricular activities. This helped me learn to manage my time and become a little more  (18)  

Last but not least is teamwork. If one part of the stunt isn’t working, itˈs teamwork that helps to  (19)  out why. Without it, the performance could fall  (20)  or someone could get hurt.

Every week in China, millions of people will sit in front of their TVs watching teenagers compete for the title Character Hero, which is a Chinese-style spelling bee(拼写大赛). In this challenge, young competitors must write Chinese characters by hand. To prepare for the competition, the competitors usually spend months studying dictionaries.

Perhaps the show’s popularity should not be a surprise. Along with gunpowder and paper, many Chinese people consider the creation of Chinese calligraphy(书法) to be one of their primary contributions. Unfortunately, all over the country, Chinese people are forgetting how to write their own language without computerized help. Software on smart phones and computers allows users to type in the basic sound of the word using the Latin alphabet(字母). The correct character is chosen from a list. The result? It’s possible to recognize characters without remembering how to write them.

But there’s still hope for the paint brush. China’s Education Ministry wants children to spend more time learning how to write.

In one Beijing primary school we visited, students practice calligraphy every day inside a specially decorated classroom with traditional Chinese paintings hanging on the walls. Soft music plays as a group of six-year-olds dip brush pens into black ink. They look up at the blackboard often to study their teacher’s examples before carefully trying to reproduce those characters on thin rice paper. “If adults can survive without using handwriting, why bother to teach it now?” we ask the calligraphy teacher, Shen Bin. “The ability to write characters is part of Chinese tradition and culture,” she reasons. “Students must learn now so they don’t forget when they grow up.” says the teacher.

       My fiance (未婚夫) and I were excited about shopping for our first home. But our funds were   (1)   , and none of the houses in our price range seemed satisfactory.

       One agent   (2)   a house in particular. Although her description sounded wonderful, the price was   (3)   our range, so we declined. But she kept urging us to have a look    (4)  .

       We finally did and it was   (5)   at first sight. It was Our Home, small and charming, overlooking a quiet lake. Walking through the rooms and talking with the owners, a nice elderly couple, we felt the warmth and   (6)   of the marriage within that home. As perfect as it was, the price remained too high for us. But every day, we would sit by the lake, looking at the house and dreaming of   (7)  it would be like to live there.

       Days later, we made a(n)   (8)   —far below the asking price. Surprisingly, they didn’t   (9)   us. They renewed their offer   (10)  . It was also much more than we could afford, but far   (11)   than the original asking price.

        The next day, we got a   (12)  message that another buyer had offered a much higher price. Even so, we decided to talk with the   (13)   directly. We made our final offer, which   (14)   was thousands of dollars less than the other buyer’s bid. We knew it,   (15)     we had to try.

       “Sold!” said the owner. Then he   (16)   : He’d seen us sitting by the lake all those times; he knew how much we loved the place and that we’d   (17)   the years of work they had put into their home; he realized he would take a   (18)   by selling it to us, but it was worthwhile; we were the people they wanted to live there. He told us to consider the   (19)   in the price “an early wedding present.”

        That’s how we found our home and how I learned that when people are   (20)   they are not strangers, only friends we haven’t yet met.

 I don't remember exactly why I occupied in this journey to learn German, but I remember I had no idea how to learn German. I spent months using a dusty grammar book removed from my grandmother's bookcase, Gothic(哥特语的) letters poured down the page begging me to repeat vacant grammar drills. I quickly lost hear.

   Then I saw a commercial on TV about a language series in 4 languages and decided to give it a go once more. After a year and a half, I met a bunch of Germans while on vacation. I will always remember their faces as they repeatedly asked, "Wie kannst du so gut Deutsch?! (How can you speak German so well?!)" this reaction and the resulting connection were enough to fuel my passion to perfect my German. From that moment on I started reading as much as possible.

   Language learning offers you great insights into your own native language. If you learn a language similar to yours, speak it from the beginning.

   Spanish and Italian are like two sisters: different and yet similar at the same time. One common saying in Italy is that Spanish is easy: that you just have to speak Italian and add an "s" to every single word. The overall structure of the two languages is similar, but there are a fair few differences in terms of pronunciation, intonation(语调) and idiomatic usage. In 2007 I did an exchange in Barcelona. Although I was absorbed in a mainly Catalan environment. I was living with a lively Spanish girl from Malaga and often went out with a lot of other Spanish people. By the time I came back to Rome. Spanish had become a part of me.