1 . Nguyen Thi Thu is one of the few remaining artists practicing and constantly enhancing the traditional Vietnamese art of sculpting realistic-looking flowers out of papaya (番木瓜树) fruits.

Thu became ________ in carving various flowers from papaya fruits at the age of 15, when she ________ a class on the art of sculpting fruit. She was fascinated by the ________ art form, but then she had to ________ to Russia and stayed there for 15 years. Thu couldn’t ________ her favorite art form because she was too busy working and had no ________ to green papayas. She ________ it with all sorts of other fruits and vegetables, but nothing was quite like the papaya she ________. When she returned to Hanoi in 2009, she ________ got back into papaya sculpting, and she has been practicing the art ever since.

Over the years, Thu has ________ herself to carve various types of flowers, but her favourite by far is also one of the most ________, the chrysanthemum (菊花). Creating a single flower takes between 45 minutes and over an hour,________ the complexity of the design. “I often fall asleep thinking of how to ________ a certain flower, and then I get out of bed to practice,” Thu said.

Apart from ________ her art form during various public events and creating delicate papaya flowers, Thu also holds classes in Hanoi, as a way of ________ the traditional art form.

2 . Family quest brings joy and tears

Li Yong reunites with his family in Liyang, Jiangsu, on Dec 31, 2023.

When Li Yong took the train to the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, more than 1,500 kilometers away from his hometown — Liyang, Jiangsu province, he was just 2 years old. He was among about 3,000 children from the southern China, who were adopted by herdsmen in the late 1950s, when the country was _________ by natural disasters and the government of Inner Mongolia took the initiative to take care of these children.

Over the past six _________, these adoptees learned to adjust to their new environment and families, but they haven’t stopped digging into their past and exploring their _________. Li _________ learned that he was adopted when chatting with villagers. After his foster parents (养父母) passed away, Li _________ the idea of looking for his biological mother. _________, it was not easy for him as he didn’t know his biological family or even his birthplace.

Although _________, the journey for some has been realized _________ the application of the DNA technology. The _________ point came in 2021, when Li’s daughter told him that the Ministry of Public Security was helping people find their parents through DNA comparison with the __________ of a national DNA database. After having a blood sample taken at the local police station, Li waited for two years. Late last year, he got __________ that his mother had been found.

On Dec 31, Li finally reunited with his mother, 97-year-old Shi Bamei, in a village in Liyang. Bursting into tears of __________, Li hugged his mother, who kept __________ for the long separation. At Shi’s home, Li served his mother a spoonful of tangyuan, a sweet dumpling symbolizing reunion, on Dec 31.

“With the support and cooperation between the police and __________ groups, I believe there will be more good news for people with long-lost relatives. There will be new reunions and new __________,” he says.

7 . Life can change in the blink of an eye. While Bridgette was in the parking lot, together with her kids, a car hit them. This left them _________ beneath the car. Thankfully, the driver wasn’t going very fast when she hit them. In that moment, she was _________ by the sun, which is the _________ cause of the accident. However, as soon as she could, she _________ out of the car to help.

Soon, Chris Crowder, CEO of the school, joined her. Without delay, he _________ a group of students to help. “It was _________,” Chris recalls. “I immediately just _________ the building because I knew I had to get a lot of people to lift this car. We have about 220 domestic kids and over 300 international kids at the school. They just heard me _________. All these kids from different countries just come running out and lift it up.”

Still, this wasn’t an easy _________. “The car was heavy,” says student Junier. “We did our best, and the moment I heard the kids crying I was like, ‘Oh, thank God, the kids are good.’”

The mother and kids were __________ to the hospital. Although Bridgette suffered the most of the injuries, all three of them are expected to make complete __________. A GoFundMe has been made to help the family with __________. “Thank you for your support of this amazing mother and her beautiful children as they __________ from this tragic accident,” Keaton Speaks, creator of the GoFundMe page shares. “We also have the __________ husband and father, Andrew Ponson, in our prayers as he takes care of his family wholeheartedly day and night.”

In addition to being grateful for Bridgette and her kids’safe rescue, the heroic students who helped are also getting their __________ praise.

8 . When you're a kid, theme days at school are a big deal. They're a chance to dress up in something special and   _____________from your regular routine. So when you can't participate in one, it is sad. That happened to a first-grade student named Levi recently. _____________his bus driver stepped in to _____________the day.

As the driver, Larry Farrish noticed the boy was   _____________. When Farrish asked what was wrong, the boy   _____________he didn't have pajamas (睡衣) for Pajama Day. Farrish knew he should do something. After   _____________his job, he headed over to a store. There, he   _____________a pair of pajamas that might _____________ the boy and drove back to the school.

He asked the office to call Levi down, and that's when their days took a major   _____________ "I can tell Mr Larry is   ________________" Levi said. "When he got me the pajamas, I did a   ________________ cry.”

As a driver, Farish feels that his   ________________allows him to connect with kids more and he takes the job seriously. Doing so can influence how kids ________________. Not only do kids learn by   ________________, but when they know they're   ________________, they do thrive (成长).

9 . The Grammy’s Music Educator Award recognizes those who have made a significant contribution to music education.

This year, the award ________ Annie Ray, the orchestra (管弦乐队) director at Annandale High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. With the creation of the Crescendo Orchestra, she works to make ________ accessible to all students, particularly those with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities. Ray says the focus of the program is on teaching students how to play a(n) ________, through one-on-one instruction tailored to their special ________. She also works with a local charity to give damaged instruments a second ________ in her classroom.

Ray took home both a $10,000 ________ and a matching grant for her school’s music program. In an interview, Ray ________ her pupils for this recognition. “This is the students’ ________. I am just ________ enough to have been a part of their journey and to have been ________ by them,” she said. “They completely changed my educational philosophy and ________ of what it truly means to meet a student where they’re at and ________ that elsewhere.”

Now, Ray will use the prize money to buy instruments—something the school had ________ to do. “We’ve been trying to ________ money all year for new cellos. And now the problem is solved.” She also plans to create an ongoing scholarship for students who want to ________ music when they graduate, in any capacity.

10 . Earlier this week, a mother called Meems posted a video online asking users to help her with a task. ________ four lines of a handwritten melody (旋律), Meems said in the video, “My 10-year-old daughter ________ this. Could somebody ________ this? I want to know if it makes sense.”

This was the first time that her daughter had ________ writing music. And it was clear that Meems was ________ as to what her child’s composition sounded like. After she posted the ________, Meems and her daughter ________ a large number of responses from various musicians from around the world. But perhaps the ________ came when an entire string orchestra (弦乐团) responded to Meems’ callout with a multi-part arrangement of her daughter’s ________.

Last week, Dr Hanson, a conductor and assistant professor of music at Seattle Pacific University, invited Meems and her daughter to attend the National Association for Music Education’s Northwest Division Conference where he ________ a roomful of string educators in a performance of Meems’ daughter’s composition.

Feeling ________ and moved, Meems ________ every musician who helped bring her daughter’s composition to ________. “When I posted the video, I never imagined this ________. This is what ________ does. It connects us. Thank you for creating with us.”