2 . Twenty-five years ago on July 1,1997, I woke up very late in my apartment in Singapore. l jumped out of bed in ______ . I woke up my 8-year-old daughter Avy. ”We’re late for school,“ I half-yelled at her. We finally ______ it to the nearby bus stop in time. ______ , the school was only two stops away. We got in, _____ our eyes as the sunlight streamed into the bus.

Her mom had flown to Hong Kong several days earlier on assignment for a newspaper to ______ the handover(交接) of the city’s return to China.

l had ______ from work for a week to help look after our daughter. I would ______ my daughter from school around midday. At the end of the day, I would watch the news on TV, which had led the entire week with the ______ events happening in Hong Kong. I would wonder ______ my wife was in the crowd that was gathered to ______ the handover.

The year, 1997, was ______ because the Asian financial crisis began. For that week though, that was the least of my ______ . I just made sure we did not have a ______ of July 1, when we were nearly late for school. My wife was very busy during the handover, chasing down stories in Hong Kong as the British flag was ______ for the last time.

I later spent a few years working in Hong Kong, but my enduring memory of the days surrounding its return to China was the time I spent as a ______ , although it is kind of hard to call an 8-year-old a baby.

3 . “Ladies and gentlemen, the time train has arrived at the terminal!” It felt like I had woken up from a dream, _________ soon discovered I had come to 2035. Suddenly, I heard a strange voice calling my name. I turned around, only to find a robot _________ to me enthusiastically. “I’ll show you around the city in 2035!” I nodded immediately, _________ what the city would be like.

Once I walked out of the train station, many crossed air lanes came into view. The robot, seeing how _________ I was, explained the new traffic system to me. The system was put into place by many famous engineers using highly _________ technology. In fact, it eliminated (消除) the issue of traffic jams entirely.

Next we made our way to a restaurant nearby. Just as I _________ that there was no menu, a waiter began to scan my body with a special _________, which gave me a big fright, so I _________ out of my seat immediately. The robot explained it was just a machine that was able to figure out what our body needed and chose the recipe that _________ us most. The waiter then introduced me to the electronic screen that allowed me to choose the environment according to my __________. I pressed the “beach” button on the screen and __________ I felt a sea breeze. I couldn’t help but __________ at how rapidly technology had advanced.

We __________ returned to the train station. Just as I __________ the train, I heard a familiar voice calling my name. I opened my eyes to see my mom standing over me. What a __________ dream!

6 . I log onto a computer at the doctor’s office to say I have arrived and then wait until a voice calls me into the examination room. There, a robotic nurse ________ me onto the scales and then takes my blood pressure. Some time later, in steps the doctor, who is also a robot. He notes down my ________ and gives me a(n) ________. I pay for my visit using a credit card and return home without having met another human being. This is my nightmarish vision of the future, which hasn’t happened ________ yet.

I should say I really do like many aspects of ________. I am a big fan of air conditioning in summer and heaters in winter. But I am writing this because I don’t want machines to ________.

When I call my dentist’s office and actually get a human being on the line, I am ________. And when I see the introduction of yet more self-service checkout stations at the grocery store, I feel like ________, “When it comes to cashiers, make mine a(n) ________, please!”

After all, human cashiers sometimes ________ you a store coupon for items you are buying.

Even more than that, real-life cashiers often take an interest in particularly cute children, which can ________ young mothers’ day. A cashier may also show compassion for an elderly person ________ to get that last penny out of his purse.

Machines can be ________ and cost-effective and they often get the job done just fine. ________ they lack an element so important to everyday life.

Call it the spirit, the soul or the heart. It is ________ no machine will ever have. It is human being that encourages us to smile at others, which may be what they need at that moment.

7 . Every Friday evening when the sun looks like a giant orange and is starting to dip into the blue ocean, Old Eddie comes to his favorite pier with shrimp. Before long, dozens of seagulls fly to diet and _________ him. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, you can hear him say with a smile, “Thank you. Thank you.”

_________ in World War II he was a famous hero. On one of his flying _________ across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. _________, all of the men _________, crawled out of their plane, and _________ into a life raft. Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. By the eighth day their foods _________. They were hundreds of miles from _________ and no one knew where they were.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a _________! Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly __________, planning his next move. With a __________ of his hand, he managed to __________ it and he, and his starving crew made a meal, a very __________ meal for eight men of it. Then they used the intestines for bait(诱饵). With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait and the __________ continued until they were found and rescued.

Eddie Rickenbacker never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull. That’s why almost every Friday night he would walk to the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a feeling of __________.

8 . A parent’s hopes for 2030

When 2010 arrived, my son was only a year old—tiny and_________, the master of a few basic words, but still mostly the baby we'd welcomed into the world,_______ all his first times.

Now my baby has grown into a(n) _________—tall, strong, stout, and smart, a(n) _________ of Akira Kurosawa samurai movies.

A _________from now, in 2030, he will be an adult. I expect the next 10 years to fly by, and be filled with _________. As 2020 begins. I am thinking about the kind of world my son will_________ and experience. I _________for him, and for all the young people of his age. So I have several   _________for the world my son and his generation will live in：

I hope we finally get__________about climate change. Polar ice is melting. The oceans are __________ . The question is __________whether we can stop climate change, but whether we’re willing and able to do anything to __________ it.

I’m not sure what a warming planet will mean for my son's life. I__________ it means he will live in a world where nations and groups __________   limited resources like clean water and food, which means that the danger of climate change won't come just from warmer climate, but from other humans competing for control over what’s __________.

The world is always going to be full of __________about how to solve the challenges we face. I hope, too, that my son’s generation learns to __________justice—but to do so with big heart and humility, recognizing our common humanity(人性) even with people who __________ us.

The world of 2030 won’t build itself. We are__________ it now, so my final wish is that we build the kind of world we actually want our children to live in.