1 . I like joking. I was always the joker, the one who could make people laugh by some jokes. I was _______very popular but people liked having me around.

However, it all changed when I changed schools. I used to make fun of everybody with my _______friends. We _______whispered others’ names when they walked past us to make it look _______we were talking about them. _______, my new “friends” always kept_______and would never say the things as we did before. So if you _______any of them to _______me in one word, it would probably be: MEAN.

I was never your normal high school mean girl. I never understood why what I said could hurt others. I _______them. It wasn’t much better at ________. Being disrespectful and rude, I’d do all sorts of things to hurt my parents.________ a lot, I wanted someone to help me but I didn’t want to ask for help. So, I became even ________.

One day, while looking for my earphone in my room, I found a long lost video________. After connecting it to the TV, I found there were hundreds of videos of me, as a baby crying, dancing as a toddler（刚学走的小孩）, my first day of school etc. I didn’t ________when my mom and Dad came and sat beside me, holding my hand. We enjoyed the ________together, smiling and laughing as we ________the good days.

At night in my room I started crying, tears of ________. So what if school was bad and life seemed hard? Right now, there were people standing beside me who would be there ________me forever and that was all that________. I wiped the ________and thought silently to myself—“What’s a little pain when you have so much to love?”

5 . On his way to the airport one afternoon, Phillip asked the driver to wait outside the bank while he collected some traveler ‘s checks.

The plane was to _______at 5:30. From the bank, there was still a _______journey to the airport _______Philip merely enjoyed the scene along the way. Shortly before arriving, he began _______the things he would need for the_______: tickets, money, the address of his hotel, traveler’s checks… Just a moment! How about his passport? Phillip went through his pockets. He suddenly _______that he must have left his passport _______.

What could he do?   It was now five past four and there would be too little _______to return for the passport. This was the _______time he was representing his company for an important meeting ________the manager of a Frenchcompany in Paris the following morning.Without a passport he would be ________to board the plane. At that moment,the taxi ________outside the air terminal. Phillip got ________, took his suitcase and paid the driver. He then ________a gooddeal of confusion in the building.A ________could be heard over the loudspeaker, “We very much ________ that because   of   a   twenty-four-hour strike of   the   airport   staff,   all flights for the rest of today have had to be called off.”   Passengers are ________ to get in touch with their travel agents or with this terminal for ________on tomorrow’s   flights. Phillip was very glad to hear that.   He would let his company know about this   ________and,   thank goodness,   he would have the opportunity of calling at the bank the next morning to ________   his passport .

6 . The word “happy” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by hardship. The circular motion (循环运动) between happiness and ________ is the one I’ve been dealing with lately.

A year ago, I developed troubling symptoms in my left ________. My husband sent me ________ to a specialist who said I had already suffered some permanent loss of vision(视力) and would, without ________, go blind in that eye within months. And I urgently ________ to begin painful eye injections. Almost blind? Painful eye injections? I was ________. What if the ________ medicine didn’t work? What if my right eye developed the same condition? I ________ thought that, amazingly, the medicine was only three years old; before that, patients just went blind.

Over that long week, I ________ myself to casually ________ sadness, to cry and acknowledge my fears about my very fragile body. I ________ to be near anybody but my husband. Fortunately, I ________ pretty quickly, within the week. During this ________ time, I posted my ________ in my blog and receives great care and support from friends online, which filled my heart with ________ and encourages me to receive the eye injections. Besides, the doctor ________ the efficacy(功效) of the medicine. In the end, I bravely received the eye injections and they were very successful. I was lucky enough to see the world again with my healthy eye.

Finally, I gained a ________ insight(见解): being your happiest self isn’t ________ to a lifetime of sunny skies, and we are ________ to experience storms of life. Knowing this can help us face difficulties optimistically and ________ the change of life.

7 . On January 9, 2022, it was another cold morning. Temperatures reached lows of 17. 6 °F (-8℃). Dusti Talavera, a housewife in the south suburbs of Denver, was washing dishes in her kitchen when she witnessed a frightening scene outside her kitchen window. Glancing out her kitchen window, she noticed a group of young children playing on an icy pond. Moments later, the children fell through the ice.

Dusti’s heart raced as she saw the children fall through the ice, and she immediately grabbed her shoes to run outside. Submerged（淹没）in the freezing water, the children had lost the strength to stay above the surface. Their fingers were only visible as they desperately tried to grab onto the edges of the ice.

Without hesitation, Dusti placed her own life at risk by stepping on the thin, unstable ice to try to reach the three children. As she reached her hands out to grab them, she also broke the ice and fell into the 15-foot deep pond.

Dusti was first able to reach and pull out the 4-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy. She struggled to reach the last child, a 6-year-old girl. After hearing the loud screams for help, the young girl’s 16-year-old cousin suddenly arrived on scene. He threw Dusti a rope, which she used to drag herself and the young girl out of the water.

All three children were pulled out of the icy water as first responders arrived on scene. The 6-year-old girl was not breathing and had no pulse after being submerged in the icy water for two minutes. First responders performed life-saving CPR. Once the girl was able to breathe on her own, the EMTs (emergency medical technicians) rushed her to the hospital.

9 . I grew up in Michigan and have loved boats since I was young. I’d go out on my dad’s fishing boat, and every birthday I’d get a miniature boat with a viewing window. In Michigan, we’re _________ by lakes and I soon discovered that I loved diving and _________ skipped school days for the beach.

Three years ago, I _________ put forward an idea of running glass-bottom boat tours to an investor. It started in 2018. At present, My sons _________, manning the deck(甲板)and phones. We head out on the Cheboygan river and Lake Huron. We sail past lots of places of_________, with a historian on board explaining the history. We often scan the river to see what we can find.

One weekend this year, I met a _________ client. I thought I should find something to show him and managed to find a giant shell. Then I saw a green bottle. I swam to my boat, took a photo and then opened the bottle. It was full of water and had a paper inside. I _________ the paper and saw the date —November 1926. We were all amazed. The note_________: “Return this paper to George Morrow.” I was so excited to have found it.

We made sure to keep the paper safe. Before leaving the harbor, I posted a picture on my Facebook page and didn’t expect what followed.

The next morning, my phone _________ with messages. While I was driving home, I got a phone call from Michele Primeau. She told me she was George Morrow’s daughter. I didn’t believe her __________. She said her dad would float notes in bottles when he went on vacation or __________ them in walls when redecorating. She __________ he had posted this one on his 18th birthday.

In autumn, Michele came to visit. She brought some of his writing and the handwriting matched. She __________ I keep the message and the bottle.

It now sits in a display case in my shop. That Facebook post now has 87,000 __________. In a hard year, the discovery has brought purejoy.__________a Scuba diver(水肺潜水员), this feels like a lifetime achievement.