【推荐1】Gratitude: Gifts from the heart

According to legend (传说), a young man while travelling through the desert came across a spring of delicious water. The water was so sweet that he _______ his leather container so he could bring some back to a tribal elder who had been his teacher. After a four-day journey he _______ the water to the old man who took a (n) _______ drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student for the sweet water. The young man _______ to his village with a happy heart.

_______, the teacher let another student taste the water. He spat (吐) it out, _______ it was terrible. It_______ had become stale (不新鲜) _______ the old leather container. The student _______ his teacher, “Master, the water was stale. Why did you ________ to like it?”

The teacher replied, “You ________ tasted the water. I tasted the ________. The water was simply the container for a (n) ________ of loving-kindness and ________ could be sweeter. Heartfelt gifts deserve the ________ gift of gratitude.

I think we ________ this lesson best when we receive innocent gift of love from young children. Whatever they are, the natural and proper ________ is appreciation and expressed thankfulness because we love the idea ________ the gift.

Gratitude doesn’t always come ________. Unfortunately, most children and many adults value only the thing given ________ the feeling hidden in it. We should remind ourselves and teach our children about the beauty and purity of feelings and expressions of gratitude.

【推荐2】Personally I think trains are exciting and romantic. I must ____ that trains are not important means of transportation in the US, but I do have some ____ with them.

When I was a child, growing up in a small town with very little ____, we used to go to the station to watch the passenger trains coming in. There was something ____ about the steaming, roaring string of cars coming into view around the mountains, ____ growing larger and louder and finally ____ crowds of strangers onto the platform.

I took my ____ train trip when I was ten years old. I went with my elder sister to visit our cousins six hundred miles away. The train — so loud and violent on the outside — was ____ and rocking inside. We were very excited, and as that was also our first time away from our parents, we felt somewhat frightened too. However, because I had ____ so much, I was a little disappointed when I was finally one of the passengers I had ____ for so long.

As a college student, I ____ ride overnight train to my roommate’s hometown. We could never afford a ____, so we played cards, sang, ate, read and talked _____ we finally fell uncomfortably asleep in the straight-backed seats.

My idea that trains are ____ may come from the fact that my husband and I took the train on our honeymoon (蜜月假期), spending extra money to eat in the dinning car, and ____ the window as the desert scenery slid past.

Now, when I make a trip, I always fly or drive, and ____ are not a very important part of my life. ____, every time I hear the train whistle faraway on a quiet night, I can always feel the sudden ____ in my heart to pack my bags and jump on board, entering a ____ world of motions, sounds, sights and experience which just aren’t ____ in the dull environment of an airplane.

【推荐3】I used to hate being called upon in class mainly because I didn’t like attention drawn to myself. And unless otherwise assigned a seat by the teacher, I always _________ to sit at the back of the classroom.

All this _________ after I joined a sports team. It began when a teacher _________ I should try out for the basketball team. At first I thought it was a crazy idea because I didn’t have a good sense of _________, nor did I have the team ability to keep pace with the others on the team and they would tease me. But for the teacher who kept insisting on my “going for it”, I wouldn’t have decided to give a try.

Taking the _________ to go to the tryouts was only the half of it! When I first started attending the practice sessions, I didn’t even know the rules of the game. Sometimes I’d get _________ and take a shot at the wrong direction—which made me feel really stupid. _________, I wasn’t the only one “new” at the game, so I decided to _________ learning the game, do my best at each practice session, and not be too hard on myself for the things I didn’t know “just yet”.

I practiced and practiced. Soon I knew the _________ and the “moves”. Being part of a team was fun and exciting. Very soon the competitive part in me was winning over my __________ confidence. With time, I learned how to play and made friends in the process— friends who __________ my efforts to work hard and be a team player. I never had so much fun!

With my improved self-confidence comes more __________ from teachers and classmates. I have gone from “__________” in the back of the classroom and not wanting to call __________ to myself, to raising my hand—even when I sometimes wasn’t and not 100 percent __________ I had the right answer. Now I have more self-confidence in myself.