1 . Morning tea is a family tradition. It is nothing less than an art form, with the ______ laid down by my late grandmother. Her ______ had been formed during her childhood years ______ in the border state of Punjab, the land of five rivers, the bread basket of India. After her marriage, she eventually ______ to Mumbai, located on the western coast of the country. She lived here for nearly 70 years, bringing with her the ______ of home.

Each morning started with a cup of tea boiled in a kettle. Her favorite was a(n) ______ of fine black Assam loose leaf tea, to which a small amount of CTC tea was ______ for color and flavor. This mix would be ______ without a little crushed cardamom(小豆蔻).

Accompanying the tea was milk, ______ to boil. Both were served in stainless steel pots in quilted(有夹层的)covers, keeping them ______. The final touch was her cup, prewashed in boiling water, so she could ______ a steaming cup of tea.

Adding a spoonful of ______ sugar and a spot of milk to the beverage, she would drink it with her biscuits. Occasionally it would be sweet grape biscuits dipped in the tea, but with age, she ______ moved on to digestive biscuits packed with fiber. Depending on the ______, her tea would be ______. On hot days, she would drink iced tea, and on cool windy days, she’d mix up the spices.

2 . For four long years, Owen Connors had to spend his Saturday afternoons playing rugby(橄榄球) at school. He’d be out there in all weathers. As a teenager, he _________Saturdays.

The boy would walk home in the dark,_________ in mud(泥浆) and frozen to the bone. So, imagine his_________when he opened the door of the family’s small house to be_________by the delicious aroma(香味) of Guinness pie. Outside, the cold wind was blowing, and the cold rain was_________the windows. But in the_________kitchen, Owen and his parents would_________the homemade pie with mashed potatoes(土豆泥) _________.

“It was the exact_________of standing on a field in the rain and wind,” says Owen, who now works as an editor. “It was the__________of home and it felt like a warm hug.”

For some reason, Owen had__________really fitted into Dublin society. So after graduation from college, he left his hometown in search of a(n)__________life. On a short visit to Munich, he felt a sudden__________ to stay. He can remember thinking: “This place is__________— it’s clean, safe, near the mountains and lakes.”

Owen doesn’t eat Guinness pie very often in Munich. Recently he tried to make one with his mum and daughters — it was a(n)__________! Three generations shared the food of his childhood.

“I’d like to show my kids more of that kind of food,” Owen said.

5 . Do you know what will happen in the future? Life in the twenty-first century will be very ________ , I suppose. Many changes will take place, but ________ will the changes be?

As we all know the population in the earth is growing ________. There will be a great many ________ in the world and most of them will live ________ than people in the twentieth century.

Computers will be much smaller and ________ and there will be at least one in every ________. And ________ studies will be one of the important subjects in school then.

People will work ________ and they will have more free time for taking exercise, reading, watching TV and traveling all over the world. ________ will be much easier and cheaper. And many more people will go to ________ countries for holidays.

There will be changes in our ________, too. May be no one will eat meat every day. Instead, they eat more fruit and vegetables without pollution. Maybe people will be ________. Work in the future will be different, too. ________ and hard work can be done by robots. Because of this, ________ people will not have enough work to do. This will be a problem.

6 . Once upon a time, there was a man who believed he could see the future through the stars. He called himself an astrologer and got used to _______ at the sky all night. He was always busy worrying about the _______ . The _______ often came to him, hoping to know what their future would be like.

One evening he was _______ on the main road outside the village. His eyes were fixed on the stars. He thought he saw that the end of the world was near. He was concentrated on thinking about the future. When he looked up at the stars, he walked without looking _______ . Suddenly he fell into a ditch (沟渠) full of _______ and water.

He was _______ in the muddy water, and _______ trying to climb out. Being unable to crawl (爬行) out and fearing for his _______ , he started to shout for help and his ________ soon brought the villagers running towards him.

As they pulled him out of the mud, one of them said, “You ________ to read the future in the stars, and yet you ________ to see what is at your feet! This may teach you to pay more attention to what is right in front of you, and let the future take care of itself.”

“What use is it,” said another, “to read the stars, when you can’t see what’s right here on the earth?”

We all want our future to be ________ and happy. However, the time doesn’t stop for anyone. There is always a tomorrow to look forward to and ________ , but you can’t go back to yesterday. So, maintain your ________ life while you work for a better tomorrow.

7 . Modern inventions have speeded up people’s lives amazingly. Motor cars ________ a hundred miles in more than an hour, aircraft cross the world within a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of ________ seems never-ending. Every year motor cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boasts(吹嘘) of ________ precious seconds in handling tasks.

All these save time, but at a cost. When we lose or ________ half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag(时差). Our bodies feel that they have been ________ behind in another time zone. Again, spending too long at ________ results in painful wrists(手腕) and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers: too much use may transmit harmful ________ into our brains.

However, how do we ________ the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so used to constant activity that we find it ________ to sit down and do nothing or even just one thing at a   ________ . Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen ________ to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.

There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation(耕作) of the ________ or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace. There is much that we might envy about a ________ of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestors ________ . Modern machines have ________ people from that primitive(原始的) existence.

8 . What will the future be like? Good or bad? A lot of science fiction writing imagines a dark and _______ world. Planet of the Apes shows a miserable future for humankind.

There's a word to _______ the kind of future world which often appears in science fiction: dystopia (非理想化的地方), a(n) _______ unpleasant or bad place. The _______ is utopia. But does tomorrow's world have to be so disappointing?

No. A new project wants to use the power of science fiction to _______ a better future. The _______ of Project Hieroglyph is to bring together writers, scientists, engineers and artists to create optimistic stories about a _______ society in the next 50 years,

It's _______ to create a dystopia than write a feel - good story. There's more conflict in a world full of problems, and stories are interesting when there are a lot of problems to solve. No _______, no story! But the project produced a book with some ________ plots. One of them is about environmentalists who fight to ________ people from building the first hotel in the polar areas.

But will these stories actually change anything or merely keep us entertained? A good science fiction story can be ________. It is plain to see that stories can inspire hundreds thousands millions of people to ________ something that they want to do. The influence of science fiction has already been well ________ in modern research.

Time will tell how far we can go. Let's dream big and think ________ the box.

10 . More than a decade ago, I wrote a letter to myself—A Letter to My Future Self._________, I put it away and completely forgot about it. It wasn’t until 16 years later that I _________ it again. I decided to open it. This is _________ it said:

Dear Sherri,

When _________ this letter, you will be 32. At the age of 18 I have so many hopes and _________ about where you’d be, what you’d be doing and with whom you’d _________your life.

Right now, I hope that you have _________ to many countries and maybe even settled down _________ in Australia doing some research in the field of _________. I hope you’re married to the man of your dreams. The man of mine is Gwynn. You’ll __________ have two children of your own—a girl and a boy.

If everything goes __________ plan, you’ll be living in Australia in a big house with Gwynn and your two beautiful __________. Hopefully you have a career __________ the medical field, maybe doing research in genetics. However, if things doesn’t __________ as planned, I wish you all the love, __________ and joy in the world.

Live long, be happy and __________ life!

Love Sherri “18”

After reading it, I find it __________ to see how the dreams of a young girl could come true. I’m curious if you have __________ written anything to your future self. If you haven’t, will you __________ me in writing a letter now to yourself 10 years from now? It’s an interesting __________.