3 . Sometimes people around you can change your life. The change may not be sudden or _______ , but little habits can produce big _______ that make you think about what is important in your life. The person who changed my life is Julia Masi. She has _______ me so many things that I will carry with me _______ my life.

One thing I've learned from Julia is how to balance   _______. Julia has shown me how to _______ ahead so that I can finish all my school work, enjoy sports and_______ have time for my friends. She has taught me that you can do anything if you are _______ and if you never give up. I've also learned that you can find anything fun or _______   if you connect it with something that you enjoy.

Last year I hated studying vocabulary, but I loved playing on my computer. Julia ________   the two and showed me a website called “freerice.com” where you can ________   a word game that gives you 5 grains of rice to donate to the poor with every correct word. She ________   me to learn a hundred new ________   by filling up the rice bowl. I liked playing the game so much that I ________   about 1,000 words in just one month.

Julia has always ________   me to try new hobbies. She showed me that going to the theater could help me become a better writer. ________ , she taught me that discussing a play can excite an interest in reading.

________   it wasn't for Julia I probably wouldn't have ________   how easy it is to help the poor. There are so many ways that one person can ________ . I've learned to be more appreciative of what I own. I am ________   for the opportunities that I have been given. I will continue to think of ways to help those less fortunate for the rest of my life.

4 . Facial expressions carry meaning that is determined by situations and relationships. For example, in American culture (文化) the smile is in general an expression of pleasure. Yet it also has other uses. A woman’s smile at a police officer does not carry the same meaning as the smile she gives to a young child. A smile may show love or politeness. It can also hide true feelings. It often causes confusion (困惑) across cultures. For example, many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even improper. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places (although this is less common in big cities).Some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don’t smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover painful feelings. Vietnamese people may tell a sad story but end the story with a smile.

Our faces show emotions (情感), but we should not attempt to "read" people from another culture as we would "read" someone from our own culture. The fact that members of one culture do not express their emotions as openly as do members of another does not mean that they do not experience emotions.

Rather, there are cultural differences in the amount of facial expressions permitted. For example, in public and in formal situations many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do. When with friends, Japanese and Americans seem to show their emotions similarly.

It is difficult to generalize about Americans and facial expressiveness because of personal and cultural differences in the United States. People from certain cultural backgrounds in the United States seem to be more facially expressive than others. The key is to try not to judge people whose ways of showing emotion are different. If we judge according to our own cultural habits, we may make the mistake of "reading" the other person incorrectly.