【推荐2】It had been a few weeks into lockdown because of the COVID-19. My father’s_________ had become in desperate need of help. So I_________ to work part- time as a tea lady.

_________ I also wanted to keep an eye on my father. Ever since he_________ from dementia (痴呆), I had become concerned about his well- being. So I_________, wheeling a teapot around the ground floor.

It was a peculiar kind of_________ at first. I saw how we were_________ every day. I would often come away sweating. And saddened, for the home lost a lot of_________ to COVID-19 in a short span of time and seeing the suddenly empty beds was_________.

But it was also surprisingly good__________. Joking and stories made time easy. I began to__________ to see the old lady who would say “ Thank you ” and give me a__________ every time I left her a cup of tea. And my father, who was almost paralyzed like a stone, __________ looked cheered up at seeing me around with the tea trolley (推车).

The figures I had__________ so often taught me that sitting by a sunny window drinking a cup of warm tea held its value. It is simple, and wholesome, and brings clarity and__________, helping me handle everything peacefully. To me, this has been lockdown’s greatest gift.

【推荐3】We first met Tom and Gee in the early days of our marriage. Someone had been returning our garbage cans to the garage, and Jim and I had _______ who. Then we spotted him: an elderly man living across the street.

I left some cookies outside the garage with a thank-you _______. When we got home，a letter had replaced the _______. It was from Tom and explained how he had returned cans for people he _______ knew. Back when he’d been fighting a war I wasn’t _______ to see, his wife, Gee, had lived alone. _______ had taken time to handle her garbage cans, and he never _______. Now he paid it forward by doing the same for us.

Then Tom died. We photocopied that _______ and attached it to one of our own for Gee. We told her how special Tom had been to us and how _______ we were to have known him. She wrote back and invited us over to ________ Christmas decorations. She told us that she and Tom ________ their decoration collection piece by piece and sent them to us as a gift. I realized how hard it must be for Gee to ________ with them, a piece of Tom.

These days, we’re planning a move. The boxes are all neatly packed in our ________, but we agree to wait until January. This Christmas, we’ll ________ our tree with Gee’s gift. I'll talk to Tom, “Thank you for teaching us what it ________ to be a neighbor.”

【推荐1】“Everything happens for the best,” my mother said whenever I faced disappointment. “If you _________, something good will happen someday.”

Mother was _________, as I discovered after graduating from college, I had _________ myself for a sports announcer. So I went to Chicago to knock on the door of every station and was _________ every time. In one station, a _________ lady told me that large stations wouldn’t employ a person without _________ since I just graduated. “Go out of the town and find a small station that might give you _________,” she said.

I returned to Dixon, where I had finished my high school education and had _________ in the school football team. My father said that our town had built a store and wanted a man to _________ its sports department. The job sounded just __________ for me but I wasn’t hired(雇佣).

My disappointment had __________ as if by design. “Everything happens for the best,” Mom __________ me. Dad lent me his car to look for a job. I tried WOC Radio Davenport. The program director told me they had already __________ an announcer. After I left his office, I asked aloud “__________ can a fellow get to be a sports __________ if he can’t get a job in a radio station?” __________, I heard the director calling. “Do you know anything about __________?” Then he asked me to __________ an imaginary game. It was easy, and I did it without difficulty. The director was __________ and told me I would be broadcasting a game on the __________ Saturday.

【推荐3】When I was about ten, my family moved to a neighborhood near a public library, Every evening, I would_________to the library soon after school. On weekends, I would be there five minutes earlier than the opening hour of the library. Instead of_________for the librarian to tidy up this area, I would_________the kids’ section’s seats, turn on the lights and start my reading.

I was_________of the librarian at first, as I used to hear him being hard on people who had late returns. Every day, fifteen minutes before the_________closing time, he would start to ask people to_________.Because I did not have a library card, I wasn’t_________to take my half-read books with me. After a few days, the librarian must have silently_________my long face, because he started making_________about closure only in other sections. He would leave the__________on just enough for me to read while he tidied up the rest of the place.__________,this gave me another ten minutes to read. Five minutes before closing, I would put the books back and join him in __________the doors. Very soon, in my head, we formed a team that opens and closes, the doors of the library.

I lived there for about five years and the librarian and I had become __________.He would simply point at the new books and smile at me. If I missed going to the library, the librarian would be__________ and ask why I had missed my routine.

I love books,__________the silent librarian.

【推荐2】In December 2013, photojournalist Wood set out to become the first person to walk the length of the Nile River.

Wood’s journey began in Rwanda, took nine months and ______ 3,750 miles. It was necessary to make the trip on foot, he says, because “______ is the only way you can really get under the skin of a country.”

Wood acknowledges that his ______ was often dependent on the hospitality (好客) of local villagers. The people of the Sudan, he says, were probably the most ______ of all. Even sharing water, he says, ______ an incredible act of kindness.

“The biggest challenge was the sun ______ down. Most of the day I had to be ______ to the sun,” he recalls, “My guide had a catapult (弹弓). He would shoot pigeons. Other times we’d eat with villagers. The local ______ could vary, from grasshoppers to rats.”

The journey wasn’t without danger. Civil War in South Sudan ______ shortly after his arrival. He made it halfway through the country, to Bor—the front line of the war. It was there that he was arrested and ______ before an army commander, who told him he was not ______, and threatened to kill him if he crossed the border. He was evacuated to the capital, and flew to North Sudan.

“I ______ out 400 miles of the journey,” he regretted.

Had he made the trip ______, he would ______ have achieved a Guinness World Record. But he says it doesn’t matter.

“It was never about breaking records, it was about taking the biggest ______ in my life, and it was certainly that.”