2 . In the dining room of my grandfather’s house stood a large clock. When I was a child, the old clock interested me very much. I was surprised at how the clock would chime (敲响) three times, six times or more, with a wonderful _______sound. I often _______ it instead of the _______ when I had meals. And always the clock stood like an old family _______, watching the family. I found the clock comforting and _________. Year after year, the clock became a part of my _______.

It was even more wonderful to me when my grandfather carefully wound that clock with a special key each day. The key was magic to me. It kept the clock running. It kept the clock chiming. How did it do that? I watched as my grandfather took the key from his pocket and opened the door in the old clock and used the key to wind it. He never let that clock wind down and stop. When I got a little older, he _______me how to open the door, and let me wind the clock myself. I remember the first time I did, I felt so _______.

After my grandfather passed away, every time I saw the clock, I couldn’t help _______. Never could I see ________again. The hands on the clock were ________. It stopped. I took the key with my shaking hand and opened the door. All of a sudden, I was a child again, ________my grandfather. He was there,________me. I stood there, lost in the memories. Then ________ and carefully, I wound the clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock… The dining room and the ________ seemed to be filled with life. In the image of the clock, my grandfather also lived again.

3 . A few years ago, I walked into Panera and placed my order. After I paid and filled my plastic cup with water, I walked further into the cafe. As I sat down, I ________ an older man eating his soup alone. The chair in his front was ________: he wasn’t saving the seat. He was genuinely eating all alone. As this fact settled in, a feeling of sadness began to ________ me. Why was he eating alone? Was he lonely?

This wasn’t the first time I’d felt ________ when spotting someone eating alone. I ________ assume they’re lonely and need someone to be there for them. For some reason, eating with others is the ________. Modern society has evolved to the point ________ most people do almost every activity together. If we’re getting lunch after class, we’d rather ________ to see if someone will come with us. But is it possible we just don’t want to appear lonely?

Many people are always ________ someone else, and that may make people think we always need someone with us to feel ________ about ourselves. But that’s not true. We can enjoy being alone— not everyone needs to be ________ surrounded by friends to be happy. And we shouldn’t be ________ to eat alone if that’s what we want to do.

I don’t think I’ll ever not get sad if I see someone eating alone, but I’ll ________ in mind that maybe they just want a ________ from the world, or maybe they prefer it that way. It’s important to ________ seeing someone doing something alone doesn’t always mean they’re lonely.

5 . The rangoli (印度传统地画艺术) was a giant good-luck charm. Grandma used to make one for the start of the new year. First, she would draw on the floor with chalk. Then, she would fill the drawing with uncooked _________ rice.

This year, Manju was old enough to help. He _________ paper into a cone (圆锥体) and filled it with rice. Side by side, he placed rice across the drawing together with Grandma. Sometimes his rice skittered (轻快地跑跳) outside the drawing; sometimes he used the   _________ color. And sometimes he rubbed away the _______, so Grandma had to redraw it. But _________, the bright swirls of rice were transformed into a beautiful peacock. When Manju admired the peacock, he _______ a small piece of tile(瓷砖) peeking through on Grandma’s side.

A _________? But Grandma was away to answer the telephone. Should he fix it?

“I’ll surprise Grandma!” He decided. He _________ across, trying to reach the gap. Almost. His left leg inched up. There! Suddenly, Manju began to _________. His proud smile vanished. “No!” He crashed down on to the rangoli, scattering rice ____________.

Manju rose to his feet and pushed the rice back. But the colors were __________.When Grandma came back, Manju   __________. He said, “I’m sorry. I should have waited for you.” Grandma shook her head. “You saw a __________ and tried to fix it. I’m proud of you.” They picked up the rice, __________ each grain by color.

Just before nightfall, they finished fixing the rangoli.

Grandma lit candles around the rangoli. In the flickering light, the peacock seemed __________ with mystical powers. Manju smiled. The new year felt full of good luck, thanks to Grandma and him.

6 . When I was 19, I was in a really bad car accident. I woke up with a severe _________ injury and I learned that my IQ had dropped. Worse still, I had to _________ from college, and people said to me, “You’re not going to finish college. There are other things for you to do, but that’s not going to work out for you.” I had identified with being smart, and had been called _________ as a child. Having my _________ taken from me, I felt entirely _________.

I worked and worked, and _________ graduated from college, which took me four years longer than others. After that, I applied to a graduate program and _________ someone, my advisor Susan to take me on, and so I _________ at Princeton. I still felt I was not supposed to be there. The night before my first-year _________ I was so afraid that I called her and said, “I’m __________.” She said, “You’re going to stay, and this is what you’re going to do. You are going to __________ it and do every lecture that you ever get asked to do, even if you’re __________ until you have this moment where you say, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m doing it. I have become this.’”

So that’s what I did. I spent five years in graduate school and got my __________. Now I am a public speaker. I realized that I had not just faked it till I made it, I had faked it till I became it. Our __________ can change our behavior, and our behavior can change our __________.

7 . Miles Hilton-Barber had read books and seen photos and listened to his father’s stories. He dreamed of being a(n) _______ just like his father when he was a boy. But in his twenties, he was hit by a disease that destroyed his _______. After that he tried to live as well as he thought a blind man could. His brother Geoffrey had the same _______.

Miles give up his dream. His heart was filled with _______ and it took him about 30 years to return to a _______ state of mind. And then his brother, Geoffrey, as blind as him, _______ a boat by touch and feel. Geoffrey started to sail it alone across the Southern Ocean from South Africa to Australia.

When Miles flew out to Australia to meet his adventurous brother, he was told not to focus on the _______. Miles was inspired and started with his _______ again. At that time there were no flight instruments with _______ outputs (输出). Miles realised he needed to find someone who could ________ this. He spent four years ________. It was a long way for him.

In April 2007, after 55 days and 21,000 km in a light small plane, Miles touched down       the airport in Sydney. He flew with speech output technology and a co-pilot. In the process he also ________ the blind children in developing countries, which enabled them to go to school.

“________, I thought I could achieve nothing,” Miles said. “The only ________ in life are the ones you make. Get out there. But don’t do it from a self-centered point of view; do it always with the idea of being able to ________ other people.”

8 . My philosophy professor was a typical odd philosopher, whose behavior was a bit _________. His disheveled (蓬乱的) appearance was _________ by a well-worn tweed (粗花呢) sport coat and poor-fitting thick glasses, which often _________ on the tip of his nose. Every now and then, as most philosophy professors do, he would dig into one of those existential “what’s the meaning of life” discussions. Many of those discussions got _________, but there were a few that really hit home. This was one of them:

“_________ the following questions by a show of hands,” my professor instructed.

“How many of you can tell me something about your parents?” Everyone’s _________ went up.

“How many of you can tell me something about your grandparents?” About three-fourths of the class raised their hands.

“How many of you can tell me something about your great-grandparents?” Two out of sixty students raised their hands.

“Look around the room,” he said. “In just two short _________ hardly any of us even know who our own great-grandparents were. Oh sure, maybe we have an old photograph stored away in a musty cigar box _________ know the classic family story about how one of them walked five miles to school barefoot. But how many of us really know who they were, what they thought, _________ they were proud of, what they were afraid of, or what they dreamed about? Think about that. Within three generations our ancestors are all but __________. Will this happen to you?”

“Here’s a better question. Look ahead three generations. You are long __________. Then it will be your great-grandchildren __________ you sitting in this room, What will they have to say about you? Will they know about you? Or will you be forgotten, too?”

“Is your life going to be a warning or a(n) __________? What __________ will you leave? The choice is yours. Class is over.”

Nobody __________ from their seats for a good five minutes.

10 . Draper was the owner of a secondhand bookstore. One day, when he was sorting through a pile of old books, an envelope _______ from one. Inside was an undated letter and a faded photo of a woman holding a little girl on her lap. The letter said if Bethany was _______ it, it meant the author had died.

Tears were welling up in Draper’s eyes. These were a _______ woman’s last words to her child. He had to _______ Bethany. “Whoever it is will keep this.” he thought. “You wouldn’t throw away a letter like that.”

He supposed if the book ended up in his shop then Bethany was likely from around Bishop Auckland. And he thought he would _______ the little girl’s face. Even if she’d since left the area, there might be someone in the town who would recognize the picture.

He started with the local newspaper. The Northern Echo ran the story of the _______ letter.

Meanwhile, Bethany Gash, now 21 and a(n) _______ herself, was on Facebook about 10 miles away when a close friend messaged her to check out the _______. As she read her mother’s _______ which she thought had been lost forever, she said she thought she must be ________.

Bethany was only 4 when her mother ________. Five years later, her family moved to a new home and the letter, put away in the pages of a book for safe keeping, was unintentionally ________.

She remembered unpacking and looking for the letter, and then ________ searching through everything in the hope that it was there. “That’s when I realized it was gone and I’d never see it again,” she said.

Draper ________ the letter in person. He also brought her a children’s book for her son. Bethany was greatly moved to have the letter back, and also touched by the stranger’s ________.