1 . As a traveler with a disability, I have always avoided cruises. This expedition-style small-ship cruise changed my mind.

When our expedition leader ________ we would make a Zodiac (卓迪船) ________ at Jan Mayen, a tiny island in the Arctic Ocean, I stepped out onto my balcony aboard our ship, ________ to find clear skies and calm seas. ________, I was met with a gust of wet wind and a view of mist-covered mountains in the distance. Jan Mayen wasn’t on our itinerary (行程), and due to its ________ location and often unpredictable weather, very few people ever ________ the island. I knew the ________ weren’t ideal, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

In fact, the possibility of ________ adventures was one of the reasons I chose this small-ship cruise. So I ________ joined my shipmates in the mud room, where we put on waterproof clothes and life jackets before hopping in the Zodiacs for a bumpy ________ to a black-sand beach. Even the fierce wind and rain couldn’t ________ our excitement as we ________ our way to the beach and hiked to a viewpoint, pausing to photograph little purple flowers ________ the volcanic rocks.

Our visit there wasn’t about what we could do or see. It was an opportunity to just be—to exist in a brief ________ on a tiny, often inaccessible, volcanic rock in the Arctic. And that’s something I never thought I’d ________ in my lifetime.

2 . The walk I’d plotted was 22 miles to the coast. It is enough to get the legs _______ and the mind cleared. But the real _______ for me was walking to a definite point in our country’s outline.

I was wondering if I’d have the endurance (耐力) and determination to do it. I am, after all, in my late 40s. I _______   the coast at 7: 00 am. I was, for the day, an arrow. My line of flight was as straight and short as I could make it.

_______ the five-hour mark, I was in a good state of body and mind. The_________of the usual routine had been eased by daydreams. From this point on, the   _______ seemed to change. The banks on either side were larger, and the grasses longer, even though the sea was still miles off.

Things were getting _______. Despite feeling like I was nearly “there”, I still had four miles to go. I was hurting, my knees. I   _______ the painkillers down with my secret weapon: coffee. Studies have shown caffeine _______ endurance and it kept me going.

Try as I might, I still couldn’t see my walk’s end. I could even smell a(n)________ in the air, but the horizon remained ________ in salt marsh (盐沼地). Then, almost without realizing it, I was “there”.

Where I had hoped to see the________, I saw salt marsh, like the chocolate milkshake of the North Sea!

Feeling like a bit of a fool, I headed down into the nearest marsh and left my boot prints in the mud. The seven-and-a half-hour walk had hurt my ________ , but I’d acted on an old idea, done it, and ________ it off my list. I was now free to think of new ones and move on, in this dawn of possibilities we all face. Life is too short to let ideas stagnate (停滞); now’s the time to turn them to ________.

3 . Camping is a rite of passage (成人仪式) if you grow up in Canada. It’s a child’s first_________of what living in the wild really means. But growing up as an immigrant from India, I thought it was ___________ .

Then I __________26 and started trying new things. I had been __________mental health issues for quite some time and I discovered being out in nature helped me calm down._________, I decided to try camping.

Then I overheard a(n)__________ between my father and mother. “Why does she have to do this? Doesn’t she know she can just stay at home?” my father asked. “This is what Canadian kids do, it’s okay, she’ll be fine!” my mom__________ . My parents had no___________in me surviving one night in the wild.

My friends and I___________our campsite in the woods. As the day went on, we ate, played by the water and met our camping neighbors. Time felt like it __________; life felt gentler and easier. As the day turned into night, the stars came out and I was amazed by all the__________lights above me. Morning came. I didn’t even realize I was __________ to leave until we started packing everything up.

I wasn’t just leaving, having accomplished something I ___________thought I would do. I was leaving with a real sense of community, a real sense of __________for what the great outdoors had to offer, and a completely different __________ to an activity that I had thought strange for so many years.

4 . I spent my teenage life in Sichuan province. Outside, there was the Sino-Japanese war. However, it could not hold back my ________. What lay ________ the war? I was eager to explore.

I always lost myself in ________ thoughts by looking at maps with eyes ________ to countries with seacoasts and islands. I felt I could easily satisfy my thirst for the outside world by drinking the seawater on those islands, watching the river flow southward, I ________ when the water would carry me to the sea. ________ drawing maps was my favourite, I was recognized as a map-maniac of my class. My ________ even spread to the teachers. One would ________ turn around to check my response whenever he drew a map on the blackboard.

One winter afternoon when I was 14, attracted by a map of Turkey, I spent all my pocket money. I ________ it was a symbol of intelligence, a code of beauty and a cheque ________ by the wealth of the world. I wished I could explain the symbol, ________ the code, and restore the map to the magic lands it represented. Later, I went to America. Wherever I went, I only had highway maps to discuss my travel with. The relationship I felt towards them was not different from what I felt towards a/an ________. As my interest in traveling ________, the American maps in my collections slowly ________ those from various European countries. As if walking in my sleep, I entered another world I seemed to have come across long ago.

The map that I owned in youth did not lie to me. That beautiful cheque was finally ________ when I visited Europe.