【推荐1】When Pete Eckert started going blind, he decided to channel his feelings of loss into art. In his 20s at the time, Eckert would spend whole days preparing drawings and woodcuts before asking his wife to ________ the results to him. But the process was driving his wife ________. So, in search of a more instant medium, he turned his hand to photography.

“When I started out, digital cameras hadn’t ________ traditional photography shops yet,” Eckert said on the phone from his home in Sacramento, California. “I would go to those photography shops and buy two rolls of film and ask ten ________ questions. I went every day. And by asking questions and getting ________, I learned.”

More than two decades after entirely losing his sight from an eye disease, Eckert has ________ a successful career as a self-taught photographer now. When he first ________ the world of photography, Eckert would go on short trips at night with his dog for ________. He began by photographing statues, though he soon ________ more interesting subject matter. “To take photos of sculptures isn’t really ________ because the art is already there,” he said. “What I was looking for was a way of showing what ________ is like.”

This new focus resulted in a ________ kind of photographic beauty — images ________ of ghostly figures and artfully vague (模糊的) lines that no one had ever tried before.

Eckert’s images aren’t ________ metaphors (暗喻) for blindness. Many of them have been shot to literally represent what his mind sees, offering sighted people a clear ________ into his world.

【推荐2】Ten years ago when I suffered from anorexia nervosa (神经性食欲缺乏), I was depressed. It wasn’t until I was well enough to _______ that I realized how much of my life was _______ by my anorexia.

Today, I am _______ for the struggles I endured. The day I realized this I was sitting in a small _______ that I had just started attending with my boyfriend at the time. The preacher (牧师) came up to me to see how I was. He asked me how school was, and I said I didn’t like it that much. He then _______, “Well, if you hadn’t gone there, you wouldn’t have met him，” and pointed at my _______ who later became my husband.

This really _______ my eyes, and after I left I started seeing everything in my life through this perspective. At first I didn’t see how having anorexia could have ever been a(n) _______ thing. But when I looked at it as a(n) _______ for me, I started to see that I had a lot to be thankful for.

I grew closer to my mother while ________. I learned how to take care of my wants and ________ in a way that made me happy.

I found doing sports, which allows me to ________ my body and move through my life with more ________. I also found my purpose, which is to help others in some ways with their own struggle with food and ________. There is something in your pain or struggle that is helpful to you.

Challenge yourself to look for the light rather than the ________. I promise you can find it. And if not, you can create it.

【推荐1】Whether you knew the pianist’s story or not, Meng-Chieh Liu’s concert was brilliant. His performance was so________that the entire audience clapped their hands in excitement.

Meng-Chieh Liu’s success today is by no means ________. His backstory is a(n) ________of “triumph over all odds (战胜困难)”.

Once a competition-winning piano genius in Taiwan, Liu was on his way to a performing career after his________from Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. ________, he came down with a bad cough at the age of 23. Soon his situation got ________. His hands grew stiff (僵硬) and he began losing ________and strength. Within months he could hardly lift his legs and thus could not ________unaided.

His doctors were ________. Neither the prescribed physical treatment nor chemotherapy (化疗) could________the advance of his mysterious disease. Soon he was ________in an intensive care at a hospital in Philadelphia because he ________a rare disorder of the immune system. For six months he remained in his hospital bed. His body was________to 90 pounds of skin over bone.

His hands were so weak, particularly his right hand, that following a 1997 operation, he could ________press the keys on an electronic keyboard.

“It was very difficult for me to________I would ever be able to play the piano again,” the pianist recalls.

Only after anti-cancer drugs were used did his condition begin to ________. He put on weight and started to regain strength and ________. Two months later his right index finger had an operation. He was practising the piano again. It was the________practice he made day after day that enabled him to ________his playing and teaching career.

In 1998, Meng-Chieh Liu gave his first public concert after his recovery. Although doctors ________he would never play the piano again, Liu is back making music.