1 . At 20 years old, I was a confident and handsome student at the University of California at Berkey.

But that year, I ________ a bump (肿块) in my right nostril (鼻孔), and when it didn’t go away, I made an ________ with a doctor. It turned out to be a tumor (肿瘤). Then I underwent surgery. Fortunately, the procedure was ________, and I returned to classes soon.

But six months later, a new bump appeared. Numerous ________ confirmed it had reproduced a horrible, life—threatening tumor. I was advised to have another operation and ________ that I might lose part of my nose. I was too young to think about death then, but the thought of disfigurement (毁容) made me feel ________.

I awoke from the surgery with a scarred, disfigured face. As I re-entered the real world, I noticed adults ________ and children pointing—and sometimes laughing—at me. The occasional and ________ negative reactions from my friends also hurt me. My self-respect sank increasingly lower, and I constantly asked others, “Do my looks ________ you?”

Five years and 20 reconstructive surgeries later, I ________ a man receiving treatment. After hearing my question, he criticized me. My problem, he ________ me, was not my physical appearance, but my emotional insecurity. His ________ helped me realize my mental scars were far more disfiguring than my physical ones.

I began examining myself from the inside out. Later, I volunteered at a cancer support organization to offer inspiration and hope to those ________ cancer

Now, I am ________ for who I am—a much stronger person than before. To you, I offer this message: Avoid making judgements about people at ________.

2 . When handball was introduced to Sri Lankan schools in 2010, I wanted to bring it to my school in a remote village. This became a(n) _______ task as the sports teacher was unwilling to initiate anything _______ traditional sports like basketball. Despite being an English language teacher before _______ my post as deputy principal (副校长), I was _______ to start this game at any cost.

40 students aged between 13 and 19 _______ to play. I had the support of their parents but I still couldn’t _______ the sports teacher to agree. _______ , I used my position to get the game going.

Heshan Pradeep, an alumnus (校友) and member of the Air Force handball team, volunteered to _______ the team. Although handball is an indoor game, we trained outdoors due to limited _______. Training started early in the morning before class and ________ after school until it was dark. The boys loved the game and were ________ training. After three months of devoted training, we were able to send an under-19s boys’ team to ________ with 50 other schools. Our boys played remarkably well and ________ the semifinals. The following year, nobody could ________ our team from winning the all-island schools handball championship.

The ________ sent the whole village into carnival mode. Heshan and I were much honored to have shown the boys that dreams can be fulfilled.

3 . Even when you have confidence in yourself, your goals will sometimes seem out of reach. When that happens, get hold of the people who _________ you and your goals and don’t let go!

When I was younger, I _________ because life felt so hard. I had _________to become a teacher or a business administrator. I knew I needed a college degree, but I had _________ believing in myself. Then a teacher in my high school _________ me. He told me three things: First, if you don’t believe in yourself, it will be _________ to get anyone else to believe in you. Second, never let other people’s _________ to see your brilliance prevent you from being brilliant. And third, despite life’s _________, stick to creating the future you want.

Early in my _________, I was teaching a workshop when a person in the audience yelled out to me. He told me I had __________ made a job choice and had a bright future. This __________ feedback (反馈)came at just the right time, because while the audience didn’t know it, I was __________ self-doubt.

Even now, I __________ myself that I have a bright future. That’s what I tell myself when I __________ success and failure. You have a bright future ahead. Think about this every single day. Remember your talents, skills, and interests. Explore the jobs that interest you, and have courage—and most __________, believe in yourself.

4 . The email hit me like a punch in the gut. It came from my ________ and when I saw it had several paragraphs, I frowned. Quickly scanning for the vocabulary of bad news, I discovered words like “________”, “I’m sorry”, and “end”. Sure enough, my column—Science Careers was being canceled.

But despite my________ shock, I wasn’t as sad or mad or ________ as I might have been in the past. Previously, when I have been ________, I embodied (表现) the loss by ragging on and thinking________ about myself: “They” don’t value me because I don’t have value. And indeed, when I got the message about the________, my instinct was to immediately blame myself, dumping me into the familiar hopeless desert of ________.

But then, I surprised myself by quickly ________ to a new mindset. It wasn’t actually a failure, was it? Instead of letting the disappointing news start________, I was able to take a positive ________.I set out to make this not the day I was fired, but the day I was fired up and________to move my career to the next level.

Sometimes life sucks and things happen, and we cannot ________.Business decisions often impact our careers and yet have very little to do with our outputs. This decision wasn’t a ________ of me and my value. So when I heard that the column was a ________, I knew I was going to grow.

5 . A mother with cancer has been moved by the kindness of a stranger as she fights with the terrible disease. Jerina Edwards and her family were _______ at a Chinese restaurant when a customer offered to _______their bill.

In a touching note written on the bill for the meal, the _______ explained the inspiration behind his Christmas kindness. The kind­hearted stranger who offered help _______ how his own life had been affected by cancer five years before. “I lost my _______ to cancer five years ago,” he _______ on the bill. “I know how _______ it can be going through this. My children lost their mother. Your meal is on me.”

Ms Edwards _______ the kind stranger alongside a photo of the bill posted on the Love What Matters Facebook page. The widely­shared _______ has since been viewed more than 35,000 times. “We went out to eat last night at a little Chinese place after church. Right as we were getting ready to ________ our ticket, the waitress brought us this instead，” she said. “Someone in the restaurant had paid our bill and left us this ________. More than anything, having cancer has shown me that there are a lot of ________ people in this world and that I am ________ for my own family.”

Although her diagnosis (诊断) was not terminal (致命的), Ms Edwards said cancer had ________ her family and herself so much. “It has been hard,” she said. “I have fought; I have been sick; tears have been shed; I have missed out on things; I have lost my hair, but I will live. My parents will ________ have their daughter; my husband will have his wife; my children will still have their mother.” She ended her emotional post with a personal message to the stranger at the restaurant. “Whoever you are—thank you.”

6 . In 1970, Alan Ayers was preparing for a skydiving competition in Gainesville, Florida. It wasn’t the first time he’d jumped out of a ______, but it was almost his last.

Ayers would be jumping out of a Cessna 172, a small four-seat passenger plane. In ______, the passenger door and front passenger seat were ______ so that they wouldn’t disturb their skydive. However, the passenger side seat belt was still there. Ayers’ teammates jumped first, leaving him and the pilot as the only two people ______ in the plane. It was Ayers’ ______. But as he stepped out into the air, his ______ got caught in the passenger side seat belt.

“I was ______ out of the plane on my back, staring up at the belly of the Cessna, with only my boot ______ to the pilot. I tried to pull myself up to reach the buckle (搭扣), but I just couldn’t,” Ayers recalled. Thousands of feet in the air, hanging from the plane, Ayers was ______.

“And what happened next was ______,” Ayers said. “The 23-year-old pilot unbuckled her seat belt, bent down, with both hands off the yoke (操纵杆), and ______ my ankle.” Ayers fell away from the plane, opened his chute (降落伞) and landed safely.

After landing, he wasn’t able to ______ the pilot and thank her because the plane had flown to another city. But more than 50 years later, she often ______ his mind. “To this day, I can see her two hands ______ the door to unbuckle the belt,” Ayers said. “I owe my life to this person and will always think of her as one of the ______ people imaginable.”

7 . How long have you been going to the same hairdresser or barber? It’s a question that gets us thinking about the unique friendship we _______ with our stylists over the years.

You have confidence in each other. You have a laugh together and regularly _______ each other’s news. Plus they try to make you look and feel your best. That’s a(n) _______ not only for a great friendship, but also for the perfect relationship with your hairdresser. When you find a good barber, it’s something to _______.

Many people have _______ experiences with their hairdressers. I’ve had my hair cut by Claire Miller for more than 15 years. She’s taken me through all kinds of _______, and she’s helped me find a totally new look now during the post-chemotherapy (化疗后) period with dyed blonde hair! _______ hairstyles, there have been communications about the joys and trials of motherhood, the _______ of health problems and changes in our careers and lives — the stuff of 15 years that we have _______ in the three salons Claire has worked in.

While she cut my hair recently, we chatted about that special __________ that forms between hairdressers and their clients. “You hear so many stories from them, and sometimes you feel like a counselor __________ a hairdresser. You assess their needs, and you know how to react to them,”says Claire.

For Claire, the customer interaction is something she loves about the job and that she has __________ developed throughout her working life. “It’s about being human and __________ about people. A lot of my clients are my friends and like family now. It’s my __________ to cut their hair, making them look and feel good, but I also want them to feel __________ by the experience,” laughs Claire.

8 . Like many young people, Jessica wants to travel the globe. Unlike most of them, this 25-year-old is doing it _______ . She and her husband have spent the last two years traveling the world, stopping everywhere from Paris to Singapore. It might sound like one long, expensive _______ , but the couple has an unusual way to make their travel _______ .

They’re part of a new form of the _______ economy: an online group of house sitters. Throughout their no-cost stays in _______ homes, they feed pets and water plants in the homeowner’s _______ .

It’s not all sightseeing. The two travelers carefully _______ their trips, scheduling their days around the pets that are sometimes difficult to _______ . But house sitting also offers a level of _______ they can’t find in a hotel. “It’s like ________ at a friend’s house,” Jessica says.

The couple has a high ________ rate in getting accepted as house sitters and they always go beyond the homeowner’s ________ . For Jessica, that means ________ plenty of pictures of happy pets, keeping the house ________ and leaving a nice small gift before heading to the next house. “You want to make the homeowner feel that they made the right ________ ,” she says.

9 . In September 2016, six people came out from a small solar-powered building on the side of a volcano in Hawaii. They were _________ of a simulated (模拟的) mission to Mars, and they had been living in the building for nearly one year, _________ from the rest of the world.

This mission to Mars was part of an ongoing _________ to see how people would deal with the challenges of living on another planet. Based on the _________ of the experiment so far, here are four abilities you would need to _________ on Mars.

The first is Resourcefulness (足智多谋). When the water system broke, the group had two _________. They could figure out how to fix it or they could _________ months for supplies to be delivered from “Earth”—by which point they would be dead. So they _________ it themselves.

The second is Imagination. The group members have said boredom was a major _________. On Mars, you wouldn’t have Netflix or Xbox, so you’d have to __________ other forms of entertainment (娱乐活动).

The third is Tolerance (宽容). The building is only a quarter of the size of a basketball court. If you’re __________ annoyed by people, life on Mars might not be for you. Whether eating, working, exercising, or relaxing, you would hardly be __________.

The last is Independence. During a mission, there is no real-time __________ between the group and anyone on “Earth.” They have email, __________ messages are on a 20-minute delay (延迟), simulating how long it would take messages to __________ between Earth and Mars. So you would be removed from the lives of your loved ones back on Earth.

10 . William was one of my students. He adored plants but struggled with his reading. After the mid-term test, William’s ______ showed no sign of improvement. Until the last few weeks of the year, when we ______ the life cycle of plants, William excelled. I'd never seen him so ______ in the classroom.

As a class project, each child planted a sunflower seed in one of the containers and ______ its growth. I did this every year, with varying ______. Planting the seeds was exciting for many of the students, the ______ part much less so. It took too long to see results from daily watering, and most kids lost ______ and interest. As a result, they forgot to ______ their sunflowers-to-be.

But not William. Every afternoon, William made sure all the containers were ______ and nurtured (培育). By the last week of school, the ______ were about four inches tall, which really ______ me. In years past, few seeds successfully produced new shoots. And those that did had never gotten so tall. But these were ______. These were William’s sunflowers.

This is what it means to be a ______. At that moment, I knew I didn’t have to ______ William. I’d seen that special seed planted inside him. Others would too. And, one day, he’d start to ______, mature and shine —just like his sunflowers.