My mom only had one eye. I hated her. She was such an embarrassment.

She ran a small shop at a flea market, and collected old clothes and some other things to sell for the money we needed. Once during elementary school, it was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed and wondered how could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ignored her. The next day at school, my schoolmates asked me, “your mom only has one eye?” and taunted me.

I was so angry with my mom and wished that she would just disappear from this world. So l said to my mom, “Why don’t you have the other eye?! If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock!” My mom did not respond, I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, I felt so good to have had said what I wanted to say. Maybe it was because I was full of anger then and there, I didn’t think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

For the words I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty. I told myself that I would become successful in the near future and get out of that house for good, so I studied very hard. Later I got accepted by the Seoul University, I left my mother and came to Seoul to study. Then I got married there.

I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I am living happily as a successful man. I enjoy the life in Seoul because it’s a place that doesn’t remind me of my mom past. This kind of happiness was getting bigger and bigger, until one day someone knocked at my door. It was my mom! And still with her one eye! It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom’s eye.

I screamed at her, “Who are you? I don’t know you!”

After the funeral (葬礼), the neighbor gave me a letter saying, “My dearest son...

3 . I’d like to share my story of kindness. I had a car _______ and needed to get a new car as soon as possible, but I don’t have _______ . Everything is more _______ these days. So I saw some second-hand cars for around $5000, but then I found that one _______ about $4000.

This car has some _______ and only one key, but it has good steering (转向装置), windows, safety airbags and newer tyres. So it is much _______ than my old car. After a test drive, I said I _______ to buy it. The seller, Richard, said that he expected me to pay only $3500 as I was the _______ person whom he had hoped would buy it. He said he’d had some terrible interactions with people pressuring him to _______ it to them. I’m a single parent with an eleven-year-old child. I think he was touched by the ________ of how I had an accident and that my car was not ________ anymore.

I paid the money and the next day he was ________ enough to drive the car to my house. Then he told me that he’d ________ the tank with gasoline and bought me an extra key! The total costs amounted to almost $300. How ________ ! We have been driving around feeling so safe and happy. He has made such a ________ to our lives!

4 . One day I took a bus with my girlfriend. It was so ________ that we stood for several stops until a vacant seat was ________ for her.

Then a pretty girl rushed towards me, saying, “Hi, where are you going?” I was so struck by the stranger that I had a hard time trying to ________ her. Clearly she had taken me ________ somebody else. I returned her greeting with politeness, ________ to give explanation to my girlfriend later.

Noticing my dialogue with somebody else, my girlfriend ________ her eyes and found she was pretty. She asked jealously, “Who’s she?” The pretty girl, quite ________ of the situation, spoke out first, “Hi, let me ________ myself. I’m Nancy, used to be ________. Very glad to meet you.” She behaved very ________.

But I was ________ to search in my memory for someone called Nancy among my neighbors. I was worrying how to explain this to my girlfriend ________ the pretty girl again turned to me, “Will you give me your cell phone number so that we ________ keep contacts later?” I had to submit to her ________. Then the girl got off the bus at the next stop.

A minute later I got a short ________ on my phone — from a stranger. My girlfriend ________ my phone and read the note. It was from the girl, who said, “Just now, two thieves tried to ________ your pocket. I had to act as an acquaintance (熟人) to draw your attention. I should have left at the ________ stop but gave up as I noticed these two thieves also ________ to leave at the same stop. Because of the ________ I delayed my departure. Now you’ll understand all I have done to you. Wish you luck.”

5 . I remember one of my last few years at an amusement park. I spent five years working at a booth (摊位) across from a (n) ________ comedian.

His name was Moonie. He was ________   amazing, and his act was done by using gestures instead of words. I remember watching his shows and always being ________. Even when the audience wasn’t ________, or he was having a bad day, he always ________ to keep things funny and fresh. That’s a very hard thing.

When I heard it would be his last year that he performed at the amusement park, I wanted to ________ him for all the amazing shows he had done. He was ________ with the crowd after one of his last shows of the day. As each person dropped a ________ into his basket, he was pointing at them with a huge smile and saying “No, you’re the ________!” to each one.

I ________ him and dropped a twenty-dollar bill into his basket. He turned to me, smiling very brightly, and said,“No, you’re the greatest!” I ________ him directly and stopped him, saying,“No, Moonie, you are the greatest! I have been ________ your shows for five years from that booth right over there. And I just want to say thank you for the years of amazing ________ that you have given me.”

The look on his face said that he was truly touched by that ________. He asked to shake my hand. I accepted and we shared a moment of mutual (相互的) ________ and gratitude.

6 . John and Mary had a nice home and two lovely children. John had just been asked to go on a business trip to another city for several days and Mary would go with him too. They hired a reliable woman to care for their children and returned home a little earlier than they had planned.

As they drove into their hometown, they found a home on fire. After having a look, Mary said, “Oh well, it isn’t our fire. Let’s go home.” But John drove closer and said, “That home belongs to Fred Jones who wouldn’t be off work yet. Maybe there is something we could do.”

John noticed an old lady screamed to him, “The children! Get the children!” John grabbed her by the shoulder saying, “Get a hold of yourself and tell us where the children are!” “In the basement,” cried the lady.

In spite of Mary’s disagreement, John soaked (浸湿) his clothes and ran to the basement which was full of smoke. He found the door and grabbed two children. As he left he could hear some more cries. He sent the two badly frightened children into the waiting room and asked how many more children were down there. They told him two more and Mary grabbed his arm and screamed, “John! Don’t go back! It’s dangerous! That house will fall down in any second!”

But he shook her off and went back. It seemed a very long time before he found both children and started back. As he climbed up the endless steps the thought went through his mind that there was something strangely familiar about the little bodies next to him, and at last when they came out into the sunlight and fresh air, he found that he had just rescued his own children. The baby-sitter had left them at this home while she did some shopping.

7 . Life is full of ups and downs. You must understand that you will sometimes__in things and it is okay when that happens. Almost all of our life we have been __ that failure is really bad, and when we fail we must drown ourselves in__. This is an entirely__approach.

From a kid into an adult, you will fail in many things in life but that will only tell you about__ . You will get to learn about the things you are good at, and the things you are__at. Let me tell you how I__ failures in life. In my early years at school, I had__with some subjects and I used to get really bad grades. Sometimes I would get an F and that would make me really__I used to think:“What will I show my parents?” So what I used to do was __those grades. I would turn the F into a B just to__ my parents.Well, the short version of it was that it didn’t work out and eventually, I was__doing that. I learned a lot after that — I knew that I had to__that failure and learn from it. I started doing better with my grades, and that F turned into an A__ .

Whenever you face a failure, you must think of ways to__yourself.

9 . Like everybody else, I was addicted to my devices (电子设备). When realizing its ________, I decided to make “I’m doing Tech-Free Sundays (无科技周日) now!” I ________ my mother the night before my no-tech ________ started. She said, “So are you ________ all devices?” I explained carefully. “No: computer, phone, iPad. No: email, Twitter, Instagram.”

But the next morning, I failed. The problem was my work: I needed to meet a(n) ________. I thought I could only use the computer for work, and wouldn’t check Twitter. I didn’t check at first, but then I did. Although I only checked briefly, just to ________ I didn’t miss the important information, the spell (咒语) was broken.

But the ________ thing about Sundays is that we can always have another one. The next week, I changed my ________ : no tech at all. This time, I made a ________ of everything I needed to finish over the weekend, and finished all the parts that require technology. And then I put my phone down, and when I woke up on Tech-Free Sunday, I did not ________ it up again.

That day, I finished a book—one with paper! Do you know how great it is to read a paper book? It is a(n) ________, like petting a literary (文学的) cat. ________, the trouble came when I went to meet a friend. I was late, but had no way to tell her ________ my phone was at home.

Was I relaxed on such a Sunday? Yes, I was. I felt a sense of ________ over my life. But because life is a learning process, the next weekend, I told everyone who might need to ________ with me that I would not be reachable (可联系到的) on Sunday.