It was a bitterly cold and dark day in December. I was walking home from work, hungry and worn out after my long day. My team was due to complete our big project before we left for our winter vacation, but our boss delivered bad news that our client had contacted him and demanded a major revision on the project before they would accept it. The whole team was desperate—we were so close to finishing and now we would most likely have to work over and miss the entire vacation.
So caught up in my anxious thoughts was I that I failed to watch where I was walking until I stepped, with a dramatic splash (溅起), off the sidewalk and into a giant, half-frozen pool of water at the side of the road. I could feel the icy water into my shoes and socks, slowly soaking up into my trousers legs around my ankles. I sighed deeply and almost cried—I was having, as my grandmother always used to say, “one of those days when nothing goes your way.”
A wave of loneliness filled me. I loved my job and my coworkers and most days when I was satisfied with my life but now, especially around the holidays, the reminders that I didn’t have a partner or children like my sister or some of my coworkers did fill me with sadness. As I looked down sadly at my unpleasant situation, I saw a brief spot of movement out of the corner of my eye. There, attached to a cold piece of cardboard in the middle of the pool, was a small patch of grey fur.
As I watched, the little spot moved again, before letting out an outsized cry of sorrow and grief, so loud was it that you would think it came from a creature five times the size. It was a cat!
Paragraph 1:Slowly and carefully so as not to frighten it, I bent down and picked up the cat.
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My sister is a nurse, and therefore the family expert on caring for animals.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. 当今, 随着濒危物种(species)被非法猎杀(hunt illegally), 以及栖息地(habitat)被破坏, 它们正以令人惊讶的速度(alarming rate)灭绝(extinct)。
2. 人们已逐渐意识到(aware of)保护它们的重要性。有些志愿者主动夜以继日地保护它们。
3. 政府已采取有效的措施(measure)来保护(watch over)它们, 比如建立了一些自然保护区(reserve)。
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