2 . In April last year, I saw a post on the PNP (Pilots N Paws) website from a family in Topeka. They had to move to Virginia but they were on a very tight _______. They could not afford to pay for _______ for their dog, Tiffy, and _______ wanted to take her with them.

It just _______ that I was planning another PNP flight with another pilot, Karen, who _______ to take Tiffy from Kansas City to Virginia. What I was to do was fly to Topeka to _______ Tiffy.

When I met Tiffy’s owners, they seemed very _______. George, the husband, was trying to be calm, but I could tell this was _______ for him, having to leave his dog to a _______ and trust that everything would __________.

After some goodbyes, I asked George and his wife to help me __________ Tiffy into the plane. I promised to take care of Tiffy and __________ them as soon as we got to Kansas City.

The flight was __________, and Tiffy was a great passenger. The next day, she __________ with Karen and made it back to George in Virginia within a few days. He was so __________ and sent me a nice e-mail with pictures. It felt great to know that I had helped bring this family together again.

4 . Like many young people, Jessica wants to travel the globe. Unlike most of them, this 25-year-old is doing it _______ . She and her husband have spent the last two years traveling the world, stopping everywhere from Paris to Singapore. It might sound like one long, expensive _______ , but the couple has an unusual way to make their travel _______ .

They’re part of a new form of the _______ economy: an online group of house sitters. Throughout their no-cost stays in _______ homes, they feed pets and water plants in the homeowner’s _______ .

It’s not all sightseeing. The two travelers carefully _______ their trips, scheduling their days around the pets that are sometimes difficult to _______ . But house sitting also offers a level of _______ they can’t find in a hotel. “It’s like ________ at a friend’s house,” Jessica says.

The couple has a high ________ rate in getting accepted as house sitters and they always go beyond the homeowner’s ________ . For Jessica, that means ________ plenty of pictures of happy pets, keeping the house ________ and leaving a nice small gift before heading to the next house. “You want to make the homeowner feel that they made the right ________ ,” she says.

5 . My life as a tax-paying employed person began in middle school, when, for three whole days, I worked in a baking factory.

My best friend Betsy’s father was a manager at Hough Bakeries, which, at Easter time, _________ little bunny (兔子) cakes for all its _________throughout Cleveland. It happened that the plant downtown needed eight kids for _________ help during our spring break, for which I had no_________ beyond listening to my favorite records. I’d _________ minimum wage. I’d see how a factory_________. My parents thought all of this was a grand idea and called Betsy’s dad with their _________.

Our_________in the factory were simple: Place cakes on a moving belt. Attach icing (糖霜) ears. Apply icing eyes and nose._________ bunny from the belt. This was ____________ than it sounds.____________ a bit and the cakes pile up. As I told my parents at dinner that first night, it was all a little more high-pressure than I’d   ____________ .

Dad __________. The son of a grocer, he’d spent the summers of his childhood____________ food in Benardsville, New Jersey. This was the sort of work that made you____________ the dollars you earned and respect those who did the work, he told me.

6 . We journalists live in a new age of storytelling, with many new multimedia tools. Many young people don’t even realize it’s new. For them, it’s just normal.

This hit home for me as I was sitting with my 2-year-old grandson on a sofa over the Spring Festival holiday. I had brought a children’s book to read. It had simple words and colorful pictures — a perfect match for his age.

Picture this: my grandson sitting on my lap as I hold the book in front so he can see the pictures. As I read, he reaches out and pokes (戳) the page with his finger.

What’s up with that? He just likes the pictures, I thought. Then I turned the page and continued. He poked the page even harder. I nearly dropped the book. I was confused: Is there something wrong with this kid?

Then I realized what was happening. He was actually a stranger to books. His father frequently amused the boy with a tablet computer which was loaded with colorful pictures that come alive when you poke them. He thought my storybook was like that.

Sorry, kid. This book is not part of your high-tech world. It’s an outdated, lifeless thing. An antique, like your grandfather. Well, I may be old, but I’m not hopelessly challenged, digitally speaking. I edit video and produce audio. I use mobile payment. I’ve even built websites.

There’s one notable gap in my new-media experience, however: I’ve spent little time in front of a camera, since I have a face made for radio. But that didn’t stop China Daily from asking me last week to share a personal story for a video project about the integration of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province.

Anyway, grandpa is now an internet star — two minutes of fame! I promise not to let it go to my head. But I will make sure my 2-year-old grandson sees it on his tablet.

7 . Sitting in the garden for my friend’s birthday. I felt a buzz (振动) in my pocket. My heart raced when I saw the email sender’s name. The email started off: “Dear Mr Green, thank you for your interest” and “the review process took longer than expected.” It ended with “We are sorry to inform you…” and my vision blurred (模糊). The position—measuring soil quality in the Sahara Desert as part of an undergraduate research programme — had felt like the answer I had spent years looking for.

I had put so much time and emotional energy into applying, and I thought the rejection meant the end of the road for my science career.

So I was shocked when, not long after the email, Professor Mary Devon, who was running the programme, invited me to observe the work being done in her lab. I jumped at the chance, and a few weeks later I was equally shocked—and overjoyed—when she invited me to talk with her about potential projects I could pursue in her lab. What she proposed didn’t seem as exciting as the original project I had applied to, but I was going to give it my all.

I found myself working with a robotics professor on techniques for collecting data from the desert remotely. That project, which I could complete from my sofa instead of in the burning heat of the desert, not only survived the lockdown but worked where traditional methods didn’t. In the end, I had a new scientific interest to pursue.

When I applied to graduate school, I found three programmes promising to allow me to follow my desired research direction. And I applied with the same anxious excitement as before. When I was rejected from one that had seemed like a perfect fit, it was undoubtedly difficult. But this time I had the perspective (视角) to keep it from sending me into panic. It helped that in the end I was accepted into one of the other programmes I was also excited about.

Rather than setting plans in stone, I’ve learned that sometimes I need to take the opportunities that are offered, even if they don’t sound perfect at the time, and make the most of them.

10 . My mother is 92. Unless I have to be out of town, each week I take my mother to do her _______ and visit the doctor, providing _______ and transportation. During the week, however, she likes to go to a nearby store to _______ some small things she needs.

Last week she walked up to the store, but when she went to pay for her groceries, she was _______ about three dollars. The only _______ to pay for the groceries was to take off the _______ she could do without: a bottle of rubbing alcohol (医用酒精) and a bar of soap. By taking off these, she was able to _______ the new total to the amount of cash she had with her.

At this store, people _______ and then go off to the side to _______ their own groceries. My mother was putting her groceries into shopping bags when a ________ came up to her and said, “Here are the things that you ________ .” handing her the rubbing alcohol and the ________ . My mother, who is never speechless, was speechless. She ________ for the woman’s name and address so that she could ________ her. The woman told her it was her ________ .

My mother was so ________ by her gesture that she decided to go back to the store and give the cashier (收银员) a five-dollar bill to keep on hand ________ the same happened to someone else if they didn’t have enough ________ for all of their groceries.

So, whoever you are, thank you for the random act of ________ that not only helped my mother out, but ________ too.