2 . As the drumbeat changed, the dress fluttered in tune with the girl’s changing steps. Finally, she _______ the performance in a neat pose on stage before the audience.

The girl _______ is actually me. I’ve learned Latin dance since childhood. However, when I became a young girl, conflicts brought by Latin dance made me _______. The fair skin and slim bodies of mainstream beauty stand in contrast to what Latin dance pursues: power and wildness. As a young girl, I am _______ for beauty. But a girl like me with strong muscles stands out in a crowd. In addition, _______ feelings caused by unkind judgment piled up in my heart. It was so much that I compromised between power and _______.

Luckily, in Vienna, the match for the Chinese youth team _______ my attention, dragging me out of _______. Players from different countries gathered to _______ the honors. Though I had made my efforts, I was ________ to find that I didn’t get the score I expected. The reason, obviously, lay in my ________. With my reduced intake of protein and carbohydrates, I ________ lost a lot of weight, but at the cost of a sense of power and speed in dance.

In between games, I saw a little girl from Europe take firm and powerful steps in the ________. Her beauty came from her full muscles. The confidence in her eyes was unstoppable. Definitely, she won the top prize. ________ her so much, I made her acquaintance and shared my difficult situation. Till now I do remember the confidence that ________ me and some of her words: “Just be yourself.”

Looking back, I’m still the dancing girl but my heart has grown lighter. Something within me is dancing.

3 . One day when I was 5, my mother scolded (责骂) me for not finishing my breakfast and I got angry. I wanted to play outside and not to be made to finish eating my breakfast. When angrily opening the screen door with my foot, I kicked back about a 12-inch part of the lower left hand corner of the new screen door. But I had no remorse, for I was happy to be playing in the backyard with my toys.

Today, I know if my child had done what I did, I would have scolded my child, and told him about how expensive this new screen door was, and I would have delivered a spanking (打屁股) for it. My parents never said a word. They left the corner of the screen door pushed out, creating an opening, a breach (裂缝) in the defense against unwanted insects.

For years, every time I saw that corner of the screen, it would constantly make me think about my mistake. For years, I knew that everyone in my family would see that hole and remember who did it. For years, every time I saw a fly buzzing (嗡嗡) in the kitchen, I would wonder if it came in through the hole that I had created with my angry foot. I would wonder if my family members were thinking the same thing, silently blaming me every time a flying insect entered our home, making life more terrible for us all. My parents taught me a valuable lesson, one that a spanking or stern (严厉的) words perhaps could not deliver. Their silent punishment for what I had done delivered a hundred stern messages to me. Above all, it has helped me become a more patient person and not burst out so easily.

4 . I work in a nursing home and my job is to take care of the elderly.

This year, an old lady that I cared for, Alice, had gone through a difficult time. She got dementia and so she had been in the hospital twice. In November I was finally able to get her back to her “home”.

Alice had thought her daughter was coming to visit her on Christmas day and that they were going to have the whole family together like the old days. When she finally realized that the happy moment was not going to happen, she was very sad. Knowing that her daughter was not able to make her feel happy, I hated the idea of her being alone on the holiday!

On Christmas Eve, I gave her a surprise by asking if she would like to go to a candlelight service at church that night.

I took her to her old neighborhood church where all her friends were there. We got to the church early. Then soon some of her friends came and they went over to greet her and sit with her.

The candlelight service was beautiful and Alice got a lot of love from her old and new friends there.

The truth of the story is that I am the one who got the best gift: the smile on Alice’s face.

5 . I know what courage looks like. I saw it on a flight I took six years ago, and only now can I speak of it without tears filling my eyes at the memory.

Our flight left the Orlando Airport one Friday morning. But immediately upon the take-off, it was clear that something was wrong. The aircraft was bumping (颠簸) up and down. All the experienced travellers, including me, looked around with knowing (会意的) smiles. If you fly much, you see these things and learn to act calmly about them. However, we did not remain calm for long.

Minutes after we were in the air, our plane began falling quickly. The pilot soon made a serious announcement. “We are having some difficulties,” he said. “Our indicators show that the control system has failed. We will be returning to the Orlando Airport. The flight attendants will prepare you for a bumpy landing. Also, if you look out of the windows, you will see that we are dumping (倾倒) fuel from the airplane. We want to have as little on board as possible in the event of a rough touchdown.” In other words, we were about to crash. Many travellers looked visibly frightened now. No one faces death without fear, I thought.

Then a couple of rows to my left, I heard a still calm voice, a woman’s voice, speaking in an absolutely normal conversational tone. I had to find the source of this voice. All around, people cried. Many screamed. Finally, I saw her. In this state of complete confusion and lack of order, a mother was talking to her child. The woman, in her mid-30s, was staring full into the face of her daughter, who looked to be four years old. The child listened closely, sensing the importance of her mother’s words. The mother’s eye held the child so fixed that she seemed untouched by the sounds of grief and fear around her.

Finally, I leaned over and could hear this soft sure voice with the tone of comfort. Over and over again, the mother said, “I love you so much. Remember, no matter what happens, I love you always.” Fortunately, our landing gear (起落架) held at last and our touchdown was not a tragedy.

However, the voice I heard that day never faded. That mom showed me what a real hero looks like.

7 . When my little sister Indi turned six, she started _________ my every move. She would repeat whatever I said or did, which got me annoyed.

One afternoon my friend Mareya and I were making bracelets (手链). “What are you doing?” Indi asked,_________down next to us at the table. “May I make one too?” I _________ but Mareya said yes. Indi squeezed (挤) in so _________ to me that I could hardly see what I was doing. I asked her to give me more _________ but she said she was trying to see my move clearly. “You don’t have to see what I’m doing. You can make your own design!” I told her in a(n) _________ voice. “I can!” she said. But she was still using _________ the same thing as I was using.

Later, Mareya suggested playing the guitar. I didn’t want Indi to _________ me, so we went to the backyard._________ ten minutes later, Indi turned up, “you are always following me, and I’m __________ it!” As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I wished I had never said them. Indi was surprised and her eyes started filling up with __________. She ran away __________ I could say another word.

I disliked the shadow (影子) that didn’t belong to me, but I also felt __________ about what I said. “It’s worth trying to __________ the way you see the situation. She acts like your shadow because she looks up to (仰慕) you.” Mareya said to me.

Now I still remember Mareya’s words and feel less upset about Indi’s behavior. Anyway, she should be treated with __________ and kindness.

9 . Yesterday, a salesman called me to sell his phone plans. I was at work and while I usually don’t like spending time on those things, I _________ myself that I couldn’t talk yet and _________that he call me back at 6 pm.

That’s what he did. So we talked about 20 minutes. He _________ to me his different phone plans. While listening to him, sometimes I was _________in my thoughts. I gave several “hmm hmm”, as a sign of agreement and to _________that I was still there. Sometimes, I felt a bit_________. But I stayed calm and _________ until the end of the discussion.

Finally, he said the following to me: “Thank you, Olivier. You are the first person in a long time with whom I had an enjoyable conversation. _________, people shout at us and slam down the phone. Today, since 10 am, I hadn’t had a phone _________ without an offense (触怒). I know you had a long day at work and you could have __________ in front of your TV. But you listened so carefully to me. I am __________ and I sincerely thank you.”

It set me thinking. He had been the __________ of verbal violence (语言暴力) all through his working day. Physical __________ do not exist in this situation but dehumanization (非人性) seems to happen. __________, he was only doing his job. I felt a sense of __________ that I hadn’t treated him so rudely.