One sunny Monday, I went for a walk and wore a special diamond ring that day. It     1     (give) as my 25th birthday gift last month. As I was walking in the park, I found the diamond on my ring was     2     (miss). I went back to look for it. I knew how small     3     chance was of finding it,    4     I still wanted to have a try.

As I was searching the ground, I ran into an old gentleman by accident. ‘‘What’s the matter?” he asked     5     (nice). “I lost something. I’m really worried. ” I explained and showed him the hole in my ring     6     the diamond had been. “I take a walk here every day. I’ll keep my eyes open for it. ” The old man said.

I thanked him,    7     (expect) nothing. A few days later, I met the old man again. “Guess what,” he said with a happy     8     (appear). “I found your diamond!” I couldn’t believe what I saw in his hand when the gentleman handed the diamond back to me.

The old man could keep the diamond or sell it, but he didn’t. Now thanks to this man, I’ll spend more time     9     something nice for others. All I have to do is to look at my ring and remind     10     (I) that there are still kind and generous souls out there.

We sometimes want     1    (be) alone with our own thoughts, yet we have to be     2    (care) that we do not always escape into our own world. Social life is also important to     3    (we), and close friendships will help smooth out the rocky road that we may sometimes take.

    4    (general) speaking, close friendships have three “fruits”. The first fruit of friendship is the peace that     5    (come) from sharing with friends our joy, sadness, success and failure. The second fruit of friendship is     6     better understanding and judgment that may be achieved through conversations with trusted and wise friends. The third fruit of friendship is the help     7     a friend may offer in many different     8    (way).

It should be pointed out that     9    (enjoy) the company of a crowd is not the same as being with friends. Friends should be strictly chosen. In this way, we can better walk the “path of life”     10     the help, advice and support from our friends.

When I married into a Chinese family, nobody ever warned me about the complicated " Chinese relatives name game". I would need     1    (explore) a world of completely novel terms for family members that have no exact equivalents in     2     (me) native language of English.

Consider this exchange that happened a few years ago while I was living with my     3    (in-law) in their rural village     4     Zhejiang Province during the summer holiday.

During dinner one evening, my sister-in-law said our mother-in-law     5    ( spend) the entire day planting the fields with     6     "jiujiu" , the Chinese term for uncles on the mother's side of the family.     7     as I understood, we only had two uncles we addressed with this term—Older Jiujiu and Younger Jiujiu. Neither needed help in the fields, especially the younger one     8    had just begun working as the village secretary. How could our mother-in-law     9    ( possible) have assisted someone     10    (call) jiujiu?

On our way to the house, it was raining    1    hard that we couldn’t help wondering how long it would take    2    (get) there. It was in the middle of Pearl City.

We were first greeted with the barking by a group    3    dogs, seven to be exact. They were well trained by their masters    4    had great experience with caring for these animals. Our hosts shared many of their experiences and    5    (suggest) wonderful places to eat, shop, and visit. For breakfast, we were able to eat papaya (木瓜) and other fruits from their trees in the backyard.

When they were free from work, they invited us to local    6    (event) and let us know of an interesting competition to watch, together with the story behind it. They also shared with us many    7    (tradition) stories about Hawaii that were    8    (huge) popular with tourists. On the last day of our week-long stay, we    9    (invite) to attend a private concert on a beautiful farm on the North Shore under the stars,    10     (listen) to musicians and meeting interesting locals.