2 . The Seychelles — that remote island chain off the coast of northern Africa is heaven for scuba divers (水肺潜水). With more than 100 islands, most of which are uninhabited, and a relatively small amount of tourists impacting the oceans and beaches, the Seychelles has some truly best scuba diving.

Fisherman’s Cove Reef

If you’re a beginner diver who loves gentle drop-offs and sea turtles, make sure Fisherman’s Cove Reef is on your scuba diving radar. The site is very popular as there’s rarely a current, it’s very shallow, and has a colorful reef with everything from eagle rays to small leaf fish, which can be very difficult to find against the seagrass and coral.

Ennerdale Wreck

If you love wreck diving, head right for the Ennerdale, a British oil tanker that accidentally sunk in 1970. Because of the medium-to-strong current and depth, it’s for divers with advanced open water cert. They’ll be able to swim around the wreck’s propellers, penetrate the frame, and likely see reef sharks and the occasional bull shark.

Baie Ternay Marine Park

The shallow, protected area of ocean has healthy and varied coral, and a lively reef. Both snorkelers and beginner divers are likely to see sea turtles grazing on the seagrass, coaching reef fish, and small eels poking out of the sandy ocean floor.   

Aldabra Atoll

It doesn’t get much more remote than the Aldabra Atoll, a UNESCO site. The coral reef continues underwater, which makes all the island’s dive sites stunning. Advanced divers can do drift dives in a channel with a chance of seeing sharks, while beginners can stay closer to the reefs, checking the various species of marine life in the Indian Ocean off their must-see list. The island is home to nearly 100,000 giant tortoises, as well as several other rare species

4 . My mom loved to pass her wisdom to me: ”Nothing beats a good bite that bites back.” She was referring to her bitter-taste foods like dill pickles and rhubarb (大黄叶). But I was not a big fan.

Three years ago, I finally decided to ask if I could ________ out her rhubarb while weeding the garden. “________ not!” Mom gasped, throwing me a(n) ________ look. Clearly, I had underestimated her________ for it. However, as I continued ________, I thought about how rhubarb is one of the first to appear in spring. It ________ the snowy ground before the arrival of other plants. How can anyone fail to ________ it? When those first sprouts (嫩芽) appeared, Mom would count them like a ________ counting a newborn’s fingers and toes.

When I was a kid and my mom gave me that pie, it made me ________ to try. In my teens, it made me complain about the bitterness. Even ice cream or candies did not ________ the deal for my young taste buds (味蕾). Rhubarb was something to be ________ at all costs.

Then, last summer, I came across the ________ for her rhubarb pie in an old drawer. So I decided to give it a ________. A few attempts later, I served rhubarb pie to family and guests. All agreed, including me, that it tasted incredible.

Since then I’ve come to a ________ about rhubarb. Rhubarb’s taste may be lost on children, but adults can________ it. Like my wise mother, I now understand that “Nothing beats a good bite that bites back.”

8 . At 28 years old, I lost my job as a full-time magazine editor. I’d always dreamed of becoming a self-employed writer, but I _______ doing it at 35 or even 40 years old, _______   I had a more solid(坚实的) financial footing.

Despite the fear I felt at _______ this dream before I was ready, it was my best, most practical _______ at the time. With my husband’s encouragement, I took a leap of faith, _______ my fear and jumped.

I’ve been working for myself full-time for two years. Not only am I happier thanks to a(n) _______ schedule and the freedom to take on the projects I want, but I’m earning much more than I did as a _______ editor.

When it comes to big dreams, many of us plan out every last detail so that we feel     _______for success. But often, this over-planning prevents us from ever taking action. No matter how much planning we do, we’ll never feel 100% ready.

When Jennifer Qiao got _______ , she struggled to find a modern version of a cheongsam, a traditional Chinese wedding dress, and an idea was________. Neither she nor Vivian Chan, her co-founder, had experience in entrepreneurship(创业). They didn’t even know if there was a ________ for their products in the U.S. But they decided to just start small and test out their idea ________. They never truly felt ready to start a(n) ________ , let alone make custom wedding dresses. However, through hard work, trial and error, they’ve   ________their team to a successful company.

Never let over-planning get in the________ of you taking action.

9 . Although Cuban built a tech company that would finally make him extremely rich, he never showed off that. “I never, ever thought about _________,” he said. Instead, Cuban said his drive was something else _________. He said, “I always think about time. That’s always been my driving force. How can I control my own _________?”

At the beginning, when Cuban sold his first company for 6 million dollars, he never thought he’d have to _________ again. It made him so _________. He saved most of his _________ so he could live freely without worrying about future job. When he did _________, he spent on traveling with friends and family.

Five years later, the stock (股票) he had was highly _________ at the time. However, he hadn’t _________ most of his stock just months before the bubble (泡沫) ________________, and then the share (股份) price dropped quickly. “It taught me a ________________: When you just go after money, it never ________________ well,” Cuban said. “However, if you value time, it can work out quite well. The most valuable fortune we can ________________ is our time. The only thing we can do is ________________ time and make full use of it. In that case, we can get amazing results.”

I couldn’t agree more with Cuban’s views. A person’s life is short. We should make the best use of time to do meaningful things, so that we won’t ________________ a thing before death.

10 . Desperate to help his 96-year-old mother to speak her mother tongue again, Keith McDermott made an appeal on social media and was met with a flood of kind responses. The old lady, Ray, was moved to tears after talking on the phone with one of the enthusiastic respondents in Welsh.

Ray moved to America after meeting her husband when she was only 18, hence waving goodbye to her life in Wales. She continued to speak Welsh with her mum-keeping a little bit of home. But she lost her beloved mum four decades ago and hadn't spoken Welsh ever since.

Despite suffering from short-term memory loss and sometimes not remembering what she has done recently, Ray's childhood memories in Wales remain clear. “She wants to return but I know, given her age, such long-distance travel is out of the question.” said Keith, “Once she mentioned ‘I wish I could speak Welsh again but I suppose I never will.’ It was then that I thought I should make her wish happen.”

So Keith, 70, posted on social media in the New York Welsh area asking for any Welsh speakers that could speak Welsh with his mum. And he was touched, as well as a little shocked, to receive over 30 responses within half an hour. Keith thanked everyone and eventually asked Melisa to give his mum a phone call. “Speaking with Melisa, her (Ray's) Welsh was a little rusty. A few more Welsh conversations and I think she'd be fluent again,” added Keith.

“When you have a parent in their nineties, you will find you two have something in common: you're both old, so I am very sympathetic to my mother's feelings of loneliness and isolation (孤立). I'm feeling it myself.” Keith hopes to set up more Welsh phone conversations for his mum and Melisa has promised to send Ray some short stories in Welsh to remind her of her life in Wales.