【推荐2】It was a hot Saturday at the community center. I sat in the chair, and closely watched my _____ area. Suddenly, a little girl _____ the water slide (水滑道). I noticed her _____ was under the water. Soon I was in the water with the girl in my arms.

The other lifeguards (救生员) congratulated me on my first _____. I thought back to the day I first started working here. Would I have been able to _____ as quickly as I did just now?

“Corinne, we need to talk,” my boss said six months ago, with a ____ look on her face. “You’re a nice girl, _____ you need to be more focused on what you are doing and pay attention to your _____,” she said. Tears forming, I feared I would _____ my job. Then, she said, “I’m going to give you another chance.” I sighed with _____.

After that, I realized I wasn’t paying attention when I was _____. That was the turning point not only in my _____ career but my entire life. I began to _____. When the next training came I was _____ to find I had been announced “Employee of the Month”.   _____ this award made me work even harder. Soon after that I was asked to be a head lifeguard, which made me realize that I had not only got out of my ______ habits but I was now trusted to make very important _____ for myself and others as well.

I can announce that I have been _____ all throughout my job experience. The insights(见识) I have gained from my job have _____ so many aspects of my life. The experience has not only made me a better lifeguard but a more _____ person.

【推荐3】“Please don't wake up,” I plead silently to my 10-month-old son as I log into another Zoom meeting from my tiny New York City apartment. I use a virtual________—a picture of my university office—to________the fact that I'm in my kitchen, where it's easier to avoid the loud calls for “Mama!” from my 3-year-old daughter and the hunger________of my infant son. Such meetings—a byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic—________the stress I feel as a working mom, trying to hide the messy reality of my life as a parent. It has led to a unique type of Zoom burnout, one I fear is ________to working mothers.

I've always tried to hide my motherhood________ from plain view. I don't have photos of my children on display in my university office,________some of my male colleagues clearly feel comfortable doing so. I haven't wanted my colleagues to________me as less committed to my work because I have children. ________now, working from home, I feel unable to control whether my children are________.

My workdays are________with meetings to discuss research projects. When the pandemic started and the meetings________ to Zoom, I felt an unspoken________ to turn my camera on. Almost everyone else had their camera on, and I feared that if I kept mine off, I wouldn't be viewed as “present.” The________I experience during Zoom meetings compounds other stressors in my life. However, reduced anxiety and a chance to take care of household duties while still contributing to the meeting—is________it to me.

【推荐1】Traveling is fun and it gets more _________ when we take a long trip for the first time, all alone.

We had planned that I would visit my grandparents with my parents. But since _________ unexpected job came up for my parents, I chose _________ alone. From then on I was nervous and excited about _________ the trip would go.

_________ the day of the trip, my mom packed my bags, prepared food for me and then _________ me a 30-minute lesson on being careful and staying away from _________. She also told me that I should phone _________ at every station that I went through. Throughout the journey, I was not sleepy at all. I kept _________ my book, and didn’t say much to anyone asking me questions.

I kept phoning my mom at every station. __________, I reached my destination (目的地) after the three-hour journey. There, my grandparents were waiting to collect me. I was very happy to have completed my first trip alone and loved it.

【推荐2】I’m Grace, 13 years old and in seventh grade in Florida. I was in the six grade last year. That school year was _______. My family and I spent that year _______ all over Europe, seeing amazing places, meeting all kinds of people, understanding different cultures, and getting _______ in the process.

When my _______ decided to travel to Europe, we were excited. _______ we had a problem. We couldn’t rent a car that had enough _______ to work for our five-member family, so my dad bought a bigger one. It became our new _______ during the trip. I had to leave a lot of my things behind because so little of it would _______ into my tiny new room. We had to be careful to save our water. And we were doing homeschooling, _______ worked out great. We lived in a (n) ________ home, but my family ________ got along really well.

No matter what, I made sure to ________ my window every morning, because the view was ________ every day--- England, then France, Italy, Greece … each special in its own way. We toured around country after country, tried to pick up little bits of the local ________, but that didn’t help us much. Luckily, we kept ________ people who knew some English. Everywhere we went, we saw the most amazing things. I love reading about places, in my text-books and then getting ________ our car midway to look right at them. I can’t pick a favorite one, because every place we were at seemed to be the ________.

After our ________ ended, we moved back to Florida. But it makes me ________ that my family had this great year long ________ together. I’m thankful for that.

【推荐3】Though Armenia isn’t exactly ready for groups of foreign hikers, the country rewards those who make the effort. When my son recently finished graduate school, I seized the_________to spend a week hiking_________him in my own father’s homeland. Not long ago, no outsider would have considered such a_________through the former Soviet Republic. But we_________the paths with hikers from Australia, Canada, England and France,_________we left hoping to return.

Armenia isn’t for every_________. “You often will not find marked trail heads, and if you find a map, it will_________be written in Armenian — which doesn’t_________the Latin alphabet.” We couldn’t find a guide until we arrived in the country, and then we had to_________. After spending a day in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, we visited the Dilijan National park. In the forested national park, we__________, the ruins of a 1,000-year-old monastery (修道院)__________in a mountain top clearing. That__________me of the people who hiked to the site to__________when it was built. “It seemed such a very different__________from driving to a church parking lot these days.”

Marc and I never did reach the summit (山顶) of Aragats, Armenia’s__________mountain. That would have__________the climbers to cover 6,000 feet in one day. and when a storm__________, we settled on the mountain’s secondary peak.__________so, “we weren’t disappointed.” A mountain doesn’t always__________to a climber’s first attempt, and a country doesn’t reveal all its treasures in a week. Our adventure, we know, had “only scratched the__________.”

【推荐1】Bobby, a poor guy was famous for his tries to climb the big snowy mountain. He had tried at least 30 times, but had always_______. Every time, he began the climbing at a good pace. But as he went on, he would look down at his painful_______more often. Finally when the clouds had gathered round him, he understood that he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the_______from the top.

Last month, he went up the_______with Peeper, who gave him a pair of________sunglasses. “If it starts clouding over, put these________on, or if your feet start hurting, put them on too. These are special glasses; they will_______you.” Bobby________the gift without thinking much, but when his feet started_______again, he remembered what Peeper had said and he put on the glasses. The pain was pretty bad, but with those new sunglasses he could still________to continue. This time the______were so light that he could still see the top through them. And so Bobby kept climbing,________the clouds behind, forgetting his_______, and finally arriving at the top. It was certainly worth it.

Peeper had drawn a light__________on the lenses (镜片), in the form of the snow-covered mountain top. It was made in such a way that you could only__________it if you looked upwards. Peeper had understood that whenever Bobby lost sight of his_________, he would similarly lose sight of his dream, and his________to continue would weaken.

Bobby realized that the only difficulty of reaching the top had been his own_______.When he could no longer see the top of the mountain, the problems________. He thanked Peeper for using that little________to help him see that his aims were not impossible, and that they were still there, where they had always been.

【推荐2】Many years ago, Christmas was just around the corner. It looked like it would be a(n)________ one for my family. The factory where I was working had laid off (解雇) many of us workers, so we didn't have much ________. My wife and I had saved to buy our young children some toys, but an unexpected car repair had taken most of our cash. We decided that we could only ________ to get one small gift for each of our children.

We arrived at the ________, walked down the parking lot and saw people putting gifts into their cars. We searched all through the store ________ to find one thing each of our small children would like.________, we were able to get one for each of them. We headed for the checkout (结账台), bought the toys and were ________ that we even had a few dollars ________ finning. As we walked out of the store into the winter air, I stopped and dropped those ________ into the charity box. I didn't have a dime (一角硬币) left but that didn't ________. Suddenly, it felt like Christmas.

I think the ________ actress Dale Evans ________ it best when she said: “Christmas, my child, is love in ________.” It doesn't have to be a gift of money, either. When we ________ our smile, it's Christmas. When we give others our ________ and compassion (同情), it's Christmas, When we do anything at any time to help another, it's Christmas. May you do all you can to make it Christmas every day of the year and every day of your life here.