1 . When she first looked for her wedding dress, Gwendolyn Stuglis had a budget or $1,000. After trying on several dresses, she was _______ a champagne-colored dress with long sleeves by the salesclerk. “I got _______ in my eyes because it was the dress I really wanted,” she admitted. The only _______: it was triple her budget. After some encouragement from her mother-in-law, Stulgis _______ it. She explained, “Although I hadn’t enough money, that dress was _______ made for me.” She wore the gown with _______ when she became a Stulgis.

As most brides do, she hung her wedding dress in her closet when the _______ was over. Realizing the dress would be _______ if it continued to sit there, she decided to give it away. Stulgis turned to Facebook to search a _______ bride. In the post, there were two ______________: the bride must have their ceremony within three months and the dress must be ______________ others. More than 70 messages ______________ into Stulgis’ mailbox immediately. Margaret Hyde had planned on making her own dress before she saw Stulgis’ Facebook ______________. She told her sister-in-law, Alycia Ashley, that she wanted to enter but was ______________. So, Ashley secretly emailed Stulgis, ______________ Hyde as the most selfless person she knew.

Stulgis was moved by Ashley’s ______________. On June 4, Hyde was told she was chosen. “It was unbelievable,” she said ______________. Hyde promised to follow the traveling dress requests. After her post, Stulgis ______________ a Facebook group called Shared Dream Dresses. Since June, 200 dresses have been given away. Stulgis’ community of bridal donations started with such a ______________ emotion. She shared, “I want people to feel like they are worth something. I want them to ______________ their dress dreams without worrying about buying one. A dressing shouldn’t be kept in the closet.”

2 . Close to the king’s palace stood a little house. In it lived a ______ gardener who worked at the palace grounds from dawn to dusk. It was hard work. Yet he ______ complained. He always seemed to be at peace with himself.

The king wondered, “I wish I could be as happy as him.”

One evening the king found the gardener packing up his tools after ______ the day’s work. He was covered with dust and mud. But he kept singing to himself. The king ______ him and said, “You are always happy. I wish I could be as happy as you. What is the ______ of your happiness? Won’t you ______ it with me? ”

“Why should I be unhappy when I get two meals a day and have a ______ to sleep in at night? I’m happy that I have the ______ to work from morning till evening to earn my bread. I’m so ______ now that I can enjoy anything, even hard dry bread. And I am tired too. So I can ______ on the hardest floor, and drop off to sleep ______ . When I wake up in the morning, I feel fresh and full of ______ to welcome another day. I take every ______ as it comes. This moment is what ______ to me the most,” the gardener bowed and replied ______ .

“But what if tomorrow you fall sick! Shouldn’t you think of the future too?” the king asked.

“And start ______ ? Then I will lose my appetite. I will not get good sleep. I will fall sick and ______ my job. I will starve and die. I can’t ______ to worry about the future. Only this moment counts. Nothing else,” the gardener explained.

“You said it. Thank you,” the king nodded and ______ to change his attitude and to make the best use of the ______ .

3 . When Nihal was eight years old, he went to visit his grandparents who lived near the Krisha river. He saw people _________ rubbish and plastic waste into the water. This was the point at which the ecologist in him _________, and he wanted to do something.

Nihal has always been _________ by environmental issues, but he’s never given them much _________ except reading the relevant novels. _________, one day, after hearing about a large fire _________ by a lithium battery(锂离子电池) at a waste disposal(处置) site in California, he became _________ and determined to do something. He thought, although the problem could be settled, many people who were observing would simply _________ it. That’s when the concept for “ Recycle My Battery ” _________.

Then, Nihal did more research into battery __________ and discovered that many worldwide companies have __________ about batteries. “ Surely there has to be a __________ to keep them out of landfills(废物填埋地),” he remarked. Then he began to __________ batteries at his school and in the neighbourhood. His father would drive him __________ throughout every corner of towns to collect __________ batteries. With so many batteries piled up, he decided to __________ his own non-profit Recycle My Battery.

So far, more than 1.5 million people have __________ Recycle My Battery. Nihal and his strong team of young people have already recycled over 150,000 deserted batteries and taught over 1.5 million people about the __________ of battery recycling.

Nihal, now only 12 years old, has been struggling for three years to __________ the battery pollution, calling on others to raise battery recycling __________ and working towards the aim of zero pollution.

4 . It was January, the first day of the year. I decided to get the bank work out of the _________. The bank clerk, an elderly gentleman, was _________ curt(简短而失礼的) to my polite “Happy New Year” _________. He nodded and I sat in front of him. Minutes passed and nothing happened. Then very _________ I put my form in front of him. He was busy _________ entries in his register. I sat there wondering why we had _________banking if we were still filling in registers. While waiting I showed all _________ of being impatient, I asked him _________ my work was done. The moment I uttered the words, he shouted, “Nothing is done, it will take time!”

Just then I saw his morning tea lying there, _________. It had turned almost cold. Suddenly I sensed how he feels when customers come who are __________ hurried to get their work done and __________ him for doing their work first. We don’t even feel the __________ to thank him. Then I told him, “Sir, please have your tea, I am not hurried.” This man suddenly __________ me and for the first time we had eye contact.

I realized he was also missing the __________ things in life just like a hot cup of tea. He gave me a rare smile and said, "It is an everyday __________ with me." His wise words really __________ me. I felt that we all had put shields (盾牌) on our __________, and that we were scared to show our hearts and __________ too much of ourselves. From then on, I __________ to be more friendly to others and be __________ that they are there for me.

5 . I used to be extremely shy, so I wasn’t good at meeting new people. I was_______I’d do or say something wrong, so usually I just smiled and listened to other people’s_______. My teacher Mrs. Smith always_______me to communicate with others.

One day, she_______that our class was going to perform a play she’d written. “I_______someone to play the lead role. Anybody want to try?” she said. A few_______hands shot up—mine wasn’t one of them. Mrs. Smith walked up to me and said, “I think you’re_______for it. But you didn’t _______your hand when I asked who was interested in the part.”

Me, the lead? Was she_______? Mrs. Smith continued, “I had been in consideration of you for the role while writing the play! If you really don’t want to, though, I won’t force you. You’re your                           ________.” Suddenly, I realized it was time to________my shyness and show the world who I really was. I looked Mrs. Smith right in her eyes and said________, “OK, I’ll try.”

After five months of practicing, I was________nervous when the big day arrived My knees________. My heart beat like I’d just run a mile. “It doesn’t matter how you do tonight,” said Mrs. Smith, as if reading my________when she came backstage for a final________ “You’ve already shown yourself how wonderful you’re. That’s the most________thing.”

I smiled because I knew she was right. I proved I could take chances, be daring (大胆的), and have fun doing it! At the end of the play, when the audience stood and________, I knew they were not just ________for my performance that night, but for the performances they knew would come in later years because of my newly-found________.

6 . Biology is making it clearer that a man’s health and well-being have a measurable impact on his future children’s health and happiness. This is not because a strong, responsible man has a greater ______ of being a good dad—or not only for that reason—or because he’s probably got good genes. Whether a good man’s genes are good or bad(and whatever “good” and “bad” mean in the context)，his children’s bodies and minds will reflect ______ choices he has made over the years, even if he made those choices ______, he ever imagined himself strapping on a baby Bjorn.

Doctors have been telling men for years that smoking, drinking and recreational drugs can lower the ______ of the sperm(精子). What doctors should probably add is that the health of unborn children can be affected by what and how much men eat; the toxins(poisonous substances)they ______, the traumas(unpleasant experiences)they endure, their poverty or powerlessness; and their age at the time of conception(怀孕). ______, what a man needs to know is that his life experience leaves ______ traces on his children. Even more astonishingly, those children may pass those traces along to their children.

Lately scientists have been obsessed with(着迷于)a means of ______ that isn’t genetic but isn’t non-genetic either. It’s epigenetic,“Epi”,in Greek, means “above” or “beyond”. Think of epigenetics as the way our bodies modify their genetic makeup. Epigenetics describes ______ genes are turned on or off, in part through compounds that get on top of DNA—or else jump off it—______ whether it makes the proteins that tell our bodies what to do.

In the past decade or so, the study of epigenetics has become so ______ that it is practically a craze. Psychologists and sociologists particularly like it because gene expression or suppression(抑制)is ______ affected by the ______ and plays at least as large a role as genes do in the development of a person’s characteristics, body shape and tendency to disease. I’ve become obsessed with epigenetics because it ______ me as both game-changing and terrifying. Our genes can be switched on or off by three environmental factors, among other things: what we ingest(food, drink, air, toxins)，what we ______(stress, trauma)，and how long we live.

7 . Our little Halle is growing up fast. She will be a fifth grader. This little girl is a ________ from God. She came to our family through adoption(收养).

Imagine the ________ Halle has faced when she came to my family: new rules, new food and a new ________ with two new brothers.

She doesn’t ________ well with her brothers and they may ________, but she knows she is a member of our family. The feelings don’t need ________, and they are shown through hugs (拥抱).

Traditions, holidays, school friends, parties are part of her life now. but her days are ________ without hugs.

I always think about our adoption of Halle. Even with a loving heart, like Halle, we face ________ challenges. Once Halle thought she knew how to swim. She told her brother John about her swimming experience in the sea in Mariupol. But that sea isn’t ________. Halle could walk 50 yards into the water and still ________ the bottom. ________ when she got to the pool for swimming lessons, she jumped right in the deep end. She ________ an important truth immediately – she didn’t know how to ________ .

After a series of ________, I took Halle and the boys to the water park. Halle loved it. The water wasn’t over her head.

While they were near the top of the swimming pool, Halle began ________. The lifeguard(救生员) carried her ________ to the doctor’s. A bee had stung (叮咬) her. The doctor put some ________ on it and said it would be OK. On the way home, Halle was sad and kept   ________. We didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, I held her into my arms and gave her a big hug. She ________ us a smile immediately and from that moment, I ________ she needed hugs more than anything else.

8 . It started 4 years ago. My wife saw a _______ man before Christmas and wanted to buy him a coat. We were a step away from being homeless ourselves then, but we _______ to get some money and bought him a coat. After that, we thought he might need other _______ and decided to give him a backpack _______ useful things, a small gift and a Christmas card.

A few days later, I got _______ a few hundred dollars. And it came at the perfect time.

I had been reading stories about the _______ of strangers. We then thought of giving _______ out on Christmas Eve to other people who would _______ have nothing to open.

My wife and I know what that’s like. We haven’t had money to _______ gifts for birthdays or Christmas for many years too. It feels __________ to receive a gift and have someone __________ you at Christmas. I’ve always been a little __________ when friends ask “what did you get for Christmas/birthday?” But that year we could say we gave gifts to others instead and that’s __________ what happened.

It’s incredible. People asked and we said what we did. They wanted to __________ the following year and we made ten backpacks the following Christmas, fifteen the year after, and this year we really __________.

We work with two local police department groups and some volunteers to __________ backpacks. We __________ a GoFundMe account, and accepted __________ of canned goods, new socks, etc.

I still can’t __________ to give my wife something to open on Christmas day, but the job we feel when giving out these backpacks on Christmas Eve __________ it tenfold!

9 . Love is a choice. I have seen that choice made in my own home.

When I was fourteen and my sisters were eleven and nine, we ________ my little brother, Tyler James. My mother had just started a new job when we ________ a call from the daughter of a family friend. She told us that she loved her baby very much but she could not ________ him in the way that he ________. She knew my parents had wanted a baby for a ________ time, and she had seen the ________ they loved my sisters and me.

A family ________ was called, and the decision was made to adopt this tiny baby. Although the ________ to adopt Tyler may have been a ________ one, loving him did not come as naturally at first for my mother. She was ________ because she had finally become satisfied with her life without another ________. There were times when my mom held him and fell ________ because she did not feel the same intensity of love for him as she had for us.

Even though she didn’t feel the same love for Tyler ________, she chose to love him anyway. She did this by taking care of him, singing to him. holding him, and talking lo him. She loved him by ________ his dirty diapers and getting out of bed at four in the ________ when he cried. She behaved the same way she did with me when I was n baby, ________ she may not have felt the same way. Soon, the feelings of love joined the ________ of love.

Today, Tyler is nearly eleven and has been ________ ours for nine years now. Our mom and dad love all of us the same. Many of my friends are ________ when they find out that my little brother is adopted, because he looks like he belongs in our ________. And of course, that’s because he does, because we chose to love.

10 . Before Thanksgiving one year, my husband and I decided to invite a guest over for the holiday. I called a senior center and they _________ a woman named Ilse.

On Thanksgiving, Ilse welcomed the glass of wine my husband _________. By the end of the evening, we felt as if this old woman were an old _________.Two weeks later, I invited her to lunch.

The more _________ I spent with Ilse, the more she became like a grandma. She always asked me when I was finally going to have children. “You’re not getting any younger,”. she’d say. I soon became her _________ driver, driving her everywhere and I noticed that the more _________ I agreed to provide, the more she asked of me.

A few months later, her only son _________. I realized Ilse was too upset to be left alone and helped her _________ a caregiver. Having known her for two years, I felt _________ for her. She was like family to me.

One day, I received an early-morning __________ from her caregiver. “Please __________ now,”the woman said calmly. “She’s passed away. ”When I arrived, I saw Ilse lying on her bed. I sat on the edge of the bed, too shocked to __________ at the moment.

The next morning __________ Ilse’s death, I pulled her will out of my desk for the first time. Ilse had insisted I take a __________ of it a year earlier. I read through it and stopped when I saw my __________. She had left me $50, 000.

I knew I couldn’t __________ what she had left me on myself. Ilse was a friend I’d helped out of respect, not with the expectation of being __________ I opened an investment account in her honor. Over the next 20 years, Ilse’s __________ grew and gave me the __________ to donate money in her name to a cause she cared about __________ children.