1 . How do we make good things out of bad? How do we look at ourselves? Can there be a _______ side even in our pain?

There was an elderly woman who needed to walk down to the river every morning to _______ water for drinking, cooking and cleaning. She _______ two buckets, filled them up on the riverbank and walked back with them to her rural _______.

One of the buckets was newer, perfectly sealed (密封) and _______ its water completely. The second bucket was older and contained a few thin cracks that would _______ water as the elderly woman walked. By the time she arrived home, _______ about one third of the water in the second bucket was left.

One day, on the walk down to the river, the cracked bucket that had always felt like it wasn’t as good as the other bucket said to the elderly woman, ‘‘I want you to know that water has been _______ out every morning for the past several years. I’m so sorry for being cracked and making your life more _______. I understand if you need to ________ me with a better bucket.” The elderly woman ________, ‘‘do you really think I haven’t known about your cracks this whole time? Look at all the beautiful flowers that grow on the ________ from my cottage to the river. I ________ their seeds, but every morning it was you who ________ them.”

We all have a few cracks, but choose to see how it’s exactly those ________ that make us good enough.

3 . The Patch of Life

Not long ago, my daughter’s shoes were scratched (划破) with a knife. She ________tears. I took them to the shoemaker’s to get them repaired.

The young apprentice (学徒) glanced at the opening and said, “There is nothing I can do except________the upper.” But his master looked at them and said, “If you trust me, I will add more scratches on both shoes.” I was________and asked why. He explained, “As if the openings were made_________   purpose for a special style.” I didn’t fully understand him, but I decided to leave the shoes.

Two days later I dropped by from work to ________the shoes. I found more ________on each shoe, but all the openings were patched (打补丁) with soft red leather, and the stitches (缝线) were twisted with the appearance looking more ________and interesting than ever. I couldn’t help________ the master’s skill.

Another time, my wife’s sister’s white blouse was torn a large opening on the back. My wife checked it ________, and then said, “Let me take it home and mend it.”

Three days later, seeing it again, I was shocked: all the ________and openings were sewed up by thin and white thread and they ________a look of branches, like the ice crystal on winter’s branches in the ________. In order to enhance the effect, she ________a fatty snowman and a cabin made of flowery cotton rags on the shirt. I sighed with praise, “It’s amazing.”

“I was inspired by the shoemaker. Patches are supposed to be ugly, but a ________craftsman can make it take on a look of ________,” replied my wife.

Her words ________me more: imperfection is normal in life; patches appear in the form of injury, ________or disease. Since you can’t change the________of wound, you should not expect people’s sympathy by the wound, which is ________. Just sew the wound by patches and bloom a most ________flower on the wound, and that is the significance of life.

4 . The “Double Seven Festival” is a traditional Chinese festival. It has a longer history than the ______ of Valentine’s Day in the West.

The origin of this festival is related to a cowboy and a weaving girl, whose love story has become a part of the Chinese culture. ______ there are many different versions of the story, the most popular one begins with a poor cowboy. Living with his elder and ______ brother, who treated him badly, the cowboy looked after an old cow every day. Though life was tough and boring, he put up with it in silence, without complaining.

Unluckily, even such a hard life didn’t last long. His brother got rid of him and all he got was the old cow. Although they couldn’t talk to each other, they ______ on each other for company. One day, miracle happened. The old cow started talking and told him that there would be seven fairies coming down to the Earth to ______ in a pond. All he should do was to ______ the dress of one of the fairies. Then that fairy would be his wife. ______ but excited, the cowboy followed the cow’s advice.

Every day the cowboy went to work ______ the fairy wove cloth at home. However, their ______ life came to an end when the Heavenly Goddess learned about it. She took the weaving girl away and drew a line in the sky that turned into the Milky Way, which ______ the cowboy meeting her wife. Due to the strong reaction from the young ______, the Goddess finally allowed them to see each other only once a year. The day was on the seventh day of the seventh month. That is ______ the Double Seven Festival came into being.

Although the love story doesn’t end up with a happy ending, it is to be told from one ______ to another. It reminds people to cherish every moment ______ with their loved ones and not to regret until we ______ them.

6 . Last year I ruined my summer vacation by bringing along a modern convenience: the iPad.

Instead of looking at nature, I _______ my e-mail. Instead of reading great novels, I stuck to reading _______newspapers each morning. And that was the problem: I was acting as if I were still in the office. My body was on vacation but my _______ wasn’t.

So this year I made up my mind to try something _______: getting away from the Internet. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, _______ I’m not good at self-control. But I was _______. I started by handing the iPad to my wife. Then, a stroke of luck: The mobile phone _______ at our cabin was worse than in the past. I was _______, forced to carry out my plan. Largely cut off from e-mail and my favourite newspaper websites, I had little way to _______ the world. I had no ________ but to do what I had planned to do all along: read books.

With determination and the strong support of my wife, I succeeded in my vacation struggle against the Internet. I finally ________ that it was me, of course, not the iPad, that was the ________.

I knew I had ________ when we passed a Starbucks and my wife asked if I wanted to stop to use the Wi-Fi. “Don’t need it,” I said. ________, as we return to work, a test begins: Can I survive when I’m back at work? I don’t plan to ________ my iPad completely. But I hope to resist the temptation (抵抗诱惑) to use it every five minutes.

7 . My community and state are still recovering from the disaster that hit the area recently. A wall of storms with hurricane force winds _____ late on a Friday evening knocking down trees, _____ roads, damaging homes, and destroying power lines. Hundreds of thousands of people suddenly _____themselves in the dark without water, electricity, air conditioning, telephones, internet, and television. They were _____ from the modern world suffering unbearable 90 degree plus heat with no help and no idea _____ it would be over.

The most _____ thing happened, however, as the reality of the crisis sank in: it brought out the best in us. While there were a few acts of _____ and stealing, they were overwhelmed (压倒) by the wave of _____ and compassion that came from the hearts of so many. People shared their food, ice, and gasoline. People who still had _____ opened their homes to those who had none. People rushed out to _____roads and homes of fallen trees. Selfless power crews worked around the clock to repair the damage and _____ electricity.

Life’s disasters strike all of us from time to time. No one is _____. We all get hurt. We all get _____. How we respond to them, though, is up to us. We can let them bring out the worst in us or we can let them bring out the best in us. We can _____ them like devils of selfishness or like angels of love. May you always bring the best from your heart and soul to whatever life may _____ at you then. May you live all of your days here with so much love that you sing and smile.

9 . Inconvenient Truths

If doctors lie, it is surely inexcusable. One of the basic_________ the public have of doctors is honesty. But what would you think if I told you that research has shown that 70 per cent of doctors   _________ to lying to their patients? If I am honest, I have told lies to my patients.

Mrs Walton was in her eighties and _________ to see her husband. She would try to get up to find him, despite being at risk of falling. “He’s on his way, don’t worry,” the nurses would say this to calm her down. I said the same thing to her. But it was a lie. He died two years ago. The truth, if I can use that word, is that it is a _________ to lie sometimes.

Mrs Walton is one of the dementia (痴呆) sufferers, who lose their short-term memory and the memory of_________ events, but hold memories from the distant past. Sufferers are trapped forever in a confusing past that many realize bears little   _________ to the present, but are at a loss to explain. Those with dementia often feel upset, scared and confused that they are in a strange place, _________ by strange people, even when they are in their own homes with their family, because they have gone back to decades ago.

They look at their adult children   _________ and wonder who they could be because they think their children are still little kids. I have had countless families break down in tears, not knowing how to react as their loved one moves further away from them back into their distant past and they are   _________ in the present. And how, as the doctor or nurse caring for these patients, does one manage the anger and outbursts of distress that comes with having no   __________ of your life for the past ten or 20 years? The lies that doctors, nurses and families tell these patients are not big, elaborate lies — they are   __________ comforts intended to calm and allow the subject to be swiftly changed.

__________ with them about this false reality is not heartless or unprofessional — it is actually kind. That’s not to say that lying to patients with dementia__________ is right or defensible. But what kind-hearted person would put another human being through the unimaginable pain of learning, ________ again and again, that they have lost their beloved ones. It would be an unthinkable cruelness.

Sometimes honesty is __________ not the best policy.