1 . It's strange, but I don't really remember the hurricane (飓风）itself. It all happened so________. I was sitting in my room when the roof (屋顶) just ________. All of a sudden, there was the sky where the roof had been and I was very________. Without a roof, staying inside was really ________. It was August, so it was really hot and it smelled so________everywhere because much rotten food was thrown on the streets! Living in the ________air, we became breakfast, lunch and supper for the mosquitos(蚊子). We had lost our home and everything in it. But Mom kept on ________us that whatever happened, we should always try to see the good side of things. Anyway, we were all together and safe. Mom's words made us feel ________ . I remember us all lying under the midnight ________and looking up at the stars. Even though we had lost a lot, moments like those gave us________for the future.

Although it was only a few days before we were ________, it felt like months. We were taken to another town in a faraway county. Now, one year has________and I'm back home in New Orleans. We are working together to ________our home and our lives. Now we have another chance to look up at the ________of New Orleans, their beauty inspiring us and giving us ________ to move on.

3 . It was a cold, rainy day, and I had no desire to drive up the winding mountain road to my daughter Carolyn’s house. But she ______ that I come to see something at the top of the mountain.

So here I was, ______ making the two-hour journey through thick fog. Nothing could be worth this, I thought as I ______ along the dangerous highway.

Turning down a narrow track, we ______ and got out. We walked along a path that was thick with old pine needles. Huge black-green evergreens (常青树) ______ over us. Gradually, the peace and silence of the place began to ______ my mind.

Then we turned a corner and stopped at the top of the mountain and I was entirely held in ______. There across fields and valleys were rivers of fully-opened yellow flowers from the light one to the most brilliant. It looked as though the sun had tipped over and ______ the mountainside in gold.

______ occurred to my mind. Who created such beauty? How? When? As we approached the house that stood in the center of the property, we saw a sign that ______: “Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking.” The first answer was: “One Woman-Two Hands, Two Feet and Very Little Brain.” The second was:“______ at a Time.” The third: “Started in 1958.”

As we drove home, I was so moved by what we had seen that I could ______ speak. “She changed the world,” I finally said, “one small plant at a time. She started almost 40 years ago, probably just the ______ of an idea, but she kept at it.”

The wonder of it would not let me go. “Imagine,” I said, “if I’d had a dream and ______ it, just a little bit every day, what might I have accomplished?” Carolyn looked at me sideways, smiling. “Start tomorrow,” she said, “______ yet, start today.”

4 . I argued with my sixteen-year-old son Anthony again. I rushed out of the house with_______.Shaking my head in disappointment and seeking (寻求) _______, I walked toward Clara, my elderly neighbor. I told her it was for his _______this time. Anthony and I were always _______about his clothes, his messy room, or his loud music.

Clara _______and said, “It’s only a small thing.” Then the smile disappeared from her face, and she became _______. During her hard life, she had _______to say, “But It’s only something, and tomorrow will be _______. Everybody has enough heartaches and _______in their lives, so we shouldn’t waste time and energy on the “it’s only things” that come their way.” she continued.

I walked back with Clara’s words going around in my head and ________in my heart. I prepared a piece of cake, Anthony’s favorite ________.He stared at the plate eagerly, but there was still a hit of ________in his eyes.   He looked at me and ________asked why I had no one word about his hair.

I said it was only hair. He ________a smile as he took the cake and said that was what he had been trying to tell me. Now I realize that he actually didn’t want to fight with me but just wanted me to hear the ________he was making.

5 . 23-year-old Taleigh Loven walked downstairs to her graduation party last October. She was ______ balloons, treats and congratulations from her family. What didn’t cross her mind was her ______ wearing the same graduation cap as she did. ______ him carrying a certificate (证书) with his name on it, she instantly burst into tears.

Mike Loven, 47, decided four years earlier that he was going to restart his study in Grand Canyon University, the ______ school his daughter had just been ______ to. A few weeks later, Mike was taking his first______ course while Taleigh was getting settled in her dorm — with no ______ that Mike was a fellow freshman.

“There was no real reason for ______ it a secret from the family—I merely thought the _______ would be fun,” Mike said. “I work a lot and I’m always on my computer, so no one ______ knew that I was working on stuff (材料) for ______ all those years.”

The ______ part about the whole thing, Mike said, was during ______ midterm seasons when his family would constantly ask him for help with tricky (棘手的) school-related issues. He had his own ______ as well, but he couldn’t tell them. That, he said, ______ many late nights at the computer.

6 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

7 . Dylan Virtudazo is a little boy living in Houston. With his 7th birthday party ____ because get-togethers were not allowed at that time, he received some _____ instead of beautifully packed gifts. ____ , he was uncertain about what to do with that. But when his teachers asked students about their New Year plans, it ____ to him that he could use his birthday money to ____ the homeless and buy them some other things.

“He’s always been like that,” said Dylan’s mother, Nancy. She ____ a time when Houston was under a hurricane (飓风) and Dylan showed her a handful of coins, saying he had a ____ to give them to the victims (受害者) for hurricane supplies. During trips to the ____, Dylan always makes sure that if he gets candy, so do his brothers and sisters, ____ they don’t come to the store. That_____ attitude led Dylan to create “blessing bags” for homeless Houstonians.

Extra ____ from teachers gave him enough money to ____ 50 of them. The “blessing bags” contain     ___ like masks, water and snacks and a sincere message, “You matter!” On New Year’s Day, Nancy and her children drove to homeless shelters to give ____ the bags. People there accepted the bags       ____ — some even cried.

Dylan’s act was   ____, but it made a big difference, helping _____ the homeless people’s holiday. Nancy said, “We are so   ____ of him. I hope his story never ______ and that he continues to set an example to his generation. We adults need to ____ the seed of love put in kids’ hearts — for a better future.”

10 . Right after World War II, a U.S. army officer lived in Japan. That country had been destroyed by the war. Many people _______ their jobs, so they came to the officer’s door every day _______ to get employed (雇佣). One man told the officer that he could create _______ for his garden if he could give him a(n) _______. For the first time in his life, this army officer _______ a gardener. The man spoke no English, so the officer could _______ communicate with him through body language.

As the man had promised, the garden soon became the _______ in the neighborhood. One day the gardener came with an interpreter (口译员) who expressed the _______ but the pity of the gardener. “He will no longer be able to _______ your garden. He must leave.”

The officer _______ his pity and thanked him through the interpreter for making him such a fine garden. Out of _______, he asked the interpreter, “Where is he going?”

The interpreter replied that the gardener was going to _______ his old job as the Professor of Horticulture (园艺学) at the University of Tokyo.

The officer was greatly _______. No wonder he _______ so much about gardening! Imagine having someone at your garden with that amount of _______. What a beautiful garden you could have!