【推荐1】One morning when I was sending a package to a poor woman, I noticed a little dog in her yard. He was _______ from a terrible case of mange (疥癣). I asked her if he was her dog and she said yes. I asked why she didn’t _______ him and she told me there was nothing she could do about him for being short of money.

My heart broke as I watched him slowly trying to stand his _______ from the illness. I asked her if she would mind if I tried to _______ him. I told her I would try to get some _______ to make him feel comfortable. Instead of going to a regular chemist’s shop, I went to the local animal doctor and told him what the dog _______ like and he told me what I needed. When I _______ to the woman’s home I asked her if she would be sure to _______ the dog in the liquid medicine every day until it was _______. I made her promise because I knew I could not ________ every day to make sure it was done.

Two weeks later when I returned to the house, this ________ little ball of dog with red fur ________ me at the door. It was him, shaking his tail ________. I smiled and told the woman she did a great ________. I asked her if I could call him Firecracker (爆竹) because his fur was so red and lively. She ________ her head yes with tears in her eyes too. Every time I went to her home Firecracker always greeted me with a wave of his tail. That was the best $16 I had spent.

【推荐2】Since the age of three, Chelsie Hill had dreamed of becoming a dancer. However, her _______ nearly ended in 2010. A car accident left her paralyzed (使瘫痪) from the waist down.

For most people, that would have _______ any hope of a dancer’s dancing career. For Hill, it was the beginning.

_______ Hill did it, rolling her wheelchair right alongside her high school dance team. “It feels as if half of my body were _______ from me, and I have to move it with my hands,” Hill said. “But it’s not easy to do it. It definitely took a lot of _______ and patience.”

After graduation, Hill wanted to _______ her dance network to include women like her. She began to meet people online who had suffered similar injuries. Then in 2014, Hill moved to Los Angeles and formed a team of dancers with disabilities called the Rollettes. “I want to _______ the stereotype (刻板印象) of wheelchair users and show dance is dance, whether you’re walking or you’re _______.”

In disabled dance competitions, her team danced to the popular tunes, _______ their upper bodies, shaking their heads to the special beats and __________ their wheelchairs in well-timed, highly designed routines. They were having fun, and as the audience’ exuberant (热情洋溢的) reactions showed, the fun was __________.

Hill has attained what many of us never will obtain: her childhood __________. She’s a dancer. And the Rollettes have helped her find something else just as __________. Every year she holds a dance camp for other wheelchair users to help them find their inner __________. For participants, it was the first time they’d felt __________.

【推荐3】I was a self-employed writer. But I had been in a bad ________ since my new neighbor moved in. Whenever I became ________ to write, I could hear a girl singing next door. She didn’t sing well at all, even ________ it was absolutely a headache for me. ________, it became a daily routine for me to ________. How could I keep up my ________ and go on writing?

One day, it was too noisy and my thoughts were entirely disturbed. I had my husband go to ________ her about the matter. Minutes later, he returned. “That girl is only 17,” he ________ with a sad look, “but she has bone cancer.” My mind suddenly went ________. “Her mother said that the more hurtful it is, the louder her daughter sings. It helps her ________ the pain. The poor mother begs our pardon for interrupting us.” In a flash, I felt guilty about my thoughtless ________.

From that day on, I no longer felt anything wrong, and even got used to her singing—I felt as if ________ by the smell of flowers. Afterwards I was on business and happened to know the girl had been admitted into a hospital. When I returned home in late summer, I somehow felt that something was ________. I couldn’t hear the girl next door sing anymore.

“However hard the winds blow, you will stray ( 走失) no more from my ________ … You shall believe that I am brave only with you…” Her singing always ________ in my mind. I hope the voice is everlasting for you, me, and everyone.

【推荐2】In 2020, Nancy Ballard, a 60-year-old retired entrepreneur, went for a routine checkup at her doctor’s office that turned into something extraordinary. In fact, she was carrying a painting of a plant she’d done when she arrived there. “It would be great if we had ___________ like that for our chemotherapy rooms (化疗室),” the nurse said. Ballard asked to see one.

She was ___________ by what she found. The walls were grey and bare, and the paint was chipping. “___________, the patients here have nothing to look at while taking chemo drips,” she said, “I couldn’t imagine how anyone could even get healthy in such ___________rooms like that.” She made it her mission to ___________ the place.

She started by e-mailing 20 local interior ___________. She wrote, “You don’t know me. But my heart ___________ after seeing these rooms.” She then asked whether they would ___________ their time and money to transform just one of chemotherapy rooms each.

Six of them leapt into ___________ action and each designer chose a theme: The dragonfly room, for example, ______________ bright artworks and dragonfly wall ornaments. Most rooms got new ______________, lights, artworks, and furniture. When the transformation was done ______________, Dr. Hufford was delighted. “All the patients feel ______________ by it,” he said. He even noted that his own tone of voice was ______________ in the rooms and that he was better able to connect with his patients. Ballard was so encouraged by the patients’ reactions, but when praised, she said, “What I did paled ______________ the patients’ courage to fight cancer”.