3 . Summer Day Camps

Join the Environmental Learning Center this summer for adventure in the outdoors! We can’t wait to be part of your summer!

5 . I finally climbed into bed at 1:20 in the morning after my 31th birthday celebration. I was about to fall asleep when I was awakened by the sound of ______ water, as if I were lying beside a waterfall instead of in my bedroom. When I got off the bed, I was ______ by the cold water rising to my knees and rising fast.

It has to be from a burst pipe in the ______, I thought. Shaking and in darkness, I grabbed my cellphone and ______ the flashlight. When I stepped from the bedroom to the bathroom, I saw it wasn’t a burst pipe at all. ______, water was shooting through the gaps of the door from outside. All around me, things were ______ -the lamps were shattering (破碎), the cupboards were being torn apart.

I ______ that I began to panic. Any effects of the celebratory drinks I’d had earlier were now gone; ______ cleared my head. And the water was now ______ my waist. I struggled to wade (趟过水) to the door. Finally, I made it to the door, through which I squeezed into the street. I stood there in the ______, wet and panting (喘气的). What was once a lovely, cozy street was now a waterscape, with ______ furniture and trees. The flood had drowned the neighborhood. Many of the houses around us were ______. Luckily, I was ______ by rescuers.

I came close to drowning that day. But rather than dwell on (沉湎于) that in my head, I prefer to ______ what my mother told me afterward: “Christian, don’t remember the day when you ______ everything. Remember the day you survived.”