1 . We were in for a whole new way of life when we moved to a horse farm in Winchester,Kentucky. One of the _______ parts of the move was getting to know the people in this small community. Even before we left Florida we had a(n) _______ of the friendliness of the residents and their _______ to help even strangers like us. “Your lower field is flooded,” was the first _______ we received in Florida from the former owner of the farm.

So we knew about the _______ before we moved, but we didn’t figure on how much it would _______ us once we arrived. Every time we went to town we passed those fences, _______face down. The trouble was that we didn’t own a _______ .

One day, our neighbor said, “I _______ to put my cattle in another field for a while. If I use my tractor and __________ your fence, could I use your lower __________ ?”It __________ that we needed him and he needed us. Soon, not only were our fences fixed, but his cattle kept the field __________ and clean. “Isn’t it __________ how we need each other and can each __________ the needs of the other?” I said to my husband.

One night our neighbor asked my husband, “Want to ride with me to __________ my farm?“ So my husband did. When he __________ home, he walked in, smiled and said, “Do you know what? He didn’t need our fields at all. He has 150 acres not even being __________ !” I went to sleep that night thinking about the __________ in our new community and how our new neighbor found a way to help us by __________ he needed us.

Be yourself and always follow your heart. Never let anyone change who you are. This is the lesson I have learned from my childhood experience when I figured out I wasn’t invited to the party, Bridget’s party.

One morning, I got off the bus and saw my friends except me hugging under the tree where we used to stand. The circle seemed tighter as I approached；the white invitation cards being hastily stuffed into backpacks gave it away. I knew as well as the entire universe that Bridget’s party was this weekend. Bridget was the most popular girl in our class. She was thin and beautiful, always wearing fabulous clothes and fine makeup.

Why hadn’t she invited me? My feet were too big? No. Maybe. My face was broken out? Why did she invite every person in my group except me? I tried to think of any interactions I’d had with Bridget recently. A few days earlier, we’d been partners during a sixth period project. I was determined to get the project done and she was absorbed in looking at fashion magazines. She barely spoke to me except to say, “You’re so serious. You know, you should smile more."

Soon, I had overheard all the details about the party. They were going swimming. It was a sleepover. They were renting scary movies and were going to stay up all night. Each time someone mentioned the party, I smiled weakly and nodded, with my stomach in knots.

When having my favorite English class, I found myself just unable to concentrate on the short stories we were supposed to be reading in class. Maybe she didn’t invite me because of my coat. It is pretty ugly compared to some of the other girls’ coats. I should have bought another color. Maybe I should smile more but I just can’t get into smiling at people unless I know them really well. But I just couldn’t pretend to be the person I wasn’t. I felt sick.

At lunch, my friend Kate who had been invited came over to me, trying to show off.

I was about to let it go when Bridget invited me as a substitute for a girl who couldn’t come.

3 . As the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Jessica Pels is responsible for managing the content of one of the world’s largest young women’s media brands. Pels has ambitiously navigated her career to the top role relatively quickly, but the path she took wasn’t traditional.

Pels learnt ballet as a child and found her way to New York City dancing for a summer, but eventually gave up dance when she knew she “wasn’t good enough to be a star”. She didn’t give up her dream of working in the big city, though. Pels attended a film school at New York University and as a sophomore (大学二年级), got her first internship at The New Yorker. After graduation in 2008, many brands were in a hiring freeze. But Pels was not affected. She got a job doing communications for a charity.

Six months into her first job, Pels got a job at Glamour Magazine to work for the Editor-in-Chief Cindy Levy. She would turn this first assistant role into her career, and finally found her way to Cosmopolitan, where she became the youngest editor-in-chief in the magazine’s history.

Reflecting on her career and the worst advice she’s ever received, Pels said it was “to say yes to everything”. It was a habit she had to learn to break. And while she acknowledges the importance of seizing opportunities, she doesn’t think that strategically saying “no” would have been a damage to her career.

She remembers the conversation with her boss Kate Lewis that changed her perspective on over-committing. “I had just started at Marie Claire as the digital director, and she said, ‘I worry you’re going to burn out because you’re saying yes to everything and you are acting in such an aggressive way, and you need to take a step back and prioritize.’ And that really changed my life. I thought that was an incredible career moment.”

6 . At a speed of roughly 20 miles a day, the Ardines experienced practically all the extremes the United States has to offer. The brothers kept a detailed record of their ________ on the blog. With the support of friends and family back at home, the brothers’ journey started to gain more ________ . By day 60, they were already 1/3 into their initial goal. News media started to ________ their story. In July, their news caught the attention of Verizon Wireless, who ________ the brothers new cell phones and donated to the cause.

Along their heroes’________, Aiden and Louis met their own everyday heroes. A driver in Nebraska ________ them on the road in the extremely hot weather and doubled back to give them ________ drinks. In Iowa, a couple invited them over for a hearty meal of steak and cheese. In Nevada, a woman who ran a campground let them stay ________. These actions made their hearts ________ with warmth.

Walking by 11 states, Aiden and Louis ________ the sandy beaches of San Francisco after 162 days.________ by their parents and other supporters, the brothers were not only delighted that they achieved their goal, but that they doubled it. Thanks to the Ardines, $70, 000 was ________ between the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation and the COCO Fund, nonprofits created specifically to ________ food workers hit hard by the pandemic（疫情）.

Without the help of a huge community of people, they wouldn’t have been________. It was confirmed that people are kind in their ________ and ready to help others at all times.

In 1992 my father bought a 1968 Pontiac GTO from a local man and began to tear the car down to the frame in order to properly restore (恢复) it. Over the next 2 years and change, he built the car back up from the frame, replacing everything that needed to be replaced. He rebuilt the engine, and cleaned everything up, and put it all back together. In the summer of 1994, the car restoration was finally completed!

In the fall of 1999, after having kid number 5, my father decided to sell the car in order to better support the family. The day that he sold this car is the very first memory that I recalled as a child. I remember the very last ride that we took in the car, on the day that it was sold. I remember the mixed expression on my father’s face. Growing up, every time that my father and I went to a car show, I was always told to keep an eye out for the GTO. It never showed up.

In the spring-summer of 2019, 20 years after it had been sold, I decided to start looking for the car. I dug up a few pictures of the car showing the old license plates, and sent them to a few cop friends to see if anything would turn up, all in vain.

I finally posted to a few more Facebook pages, and after some searching, I was able to find One Facebook page that was titled in English “GTO club Denmark”. The page had 82 members. I shared the story again, hoping that somebody would recognize the car.

9 . I was about 13. My father frequently took me on short outings on Saturdays. Sometimes we went to a park, or to a marina (码头) to look at boats. My favorites were trips to junk stores，where we could admire old electronic stuff. Once in a while we would buy something for 50 cents just to take it apart.

On the way home from these trips, Dad frequently stopped at the Dairy Queen for l0cent ice cream cones. Not every single time: just often enough. I couldn't expect it, but I could hope and pray from the time we started heading home to that critical corner where we would either go straight for the ice cream or turn and go home empty handed. That corner meant either mouthwatering excitement or disappointment.

A few times my father teased me by going home the long way. “I'm just going this wry for variety.” he would say, as we drove by the Dairy Queen without stopping. It was a game, and I was well fed, so we’re not talking torture (折磨) here.

On the best days he would ask, in a tone that made it sound novel and spontaneous, “Would you like an ice cream cone?” and I would say, “That sounds great, Dad!” I’d always have chocolate and he’d have vanilla. He would hand me 20 cents and I would run in to buy the usual. We'd eat them in the car. I loved my dad and I loved ice cream — so that was heaven.

On one fateful day, we were heading home, and I was hoping and praying for the beautiful sound of his offer. It came. “Would you like an ice cream cone today?” “That sounds great, Dad!”

10 . An 89-year-old man, Manfred Steiner, has reached a goal he spent 20 years working toward and nearly a lifetime thinking about: earning his Ph. D. And now he is a physicist

Steiner values this degree because it is what he always wanted and because he overcame health problems that could have affected his studies. “But I made it, and this was the most satisfactory point in my life, to finish it,” he said.

When he was young, Steiner wanted to become a physicist after reading about Albert Einstein. But his mother and uncle persuaded him that studying medicine would be a better choice. He earned his medical degree in 1955 and moved to the US soon after.

Steiner studied hematology（血液学）at Tufts University and biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became a full professor and led the hematology department at Browns’ medical school from 1985 to 1994. Steiner helped establish a research program in hematology at the University of North Carolina. He directed that program until he retired from medicine in 2000.

Steiner found medical research pleasing, but it was not quite the same as his interest in physics. “It was something like a wish that was never fulfilled, that always stuck in the back of my head,” he said. At age 70, he started taking undergraduate classes.

Physics professor Brad Marston was surprised when Steiner entered his quantum mechanics class. But he became Steiner’s adviser for his dissertation（学位论文）after realizing how serious Steiner was about the subject and how hard he worked. “He has written many papers in medical science, more papers than I’ve written in physics,” Marston said. “One thing that’s really true about Manfred is that he perseveres.”

After the university published a story about Steiner on its website, people across the US contacted him to ask for advice on how to go after their dreams later in life. His advice is: Do what you love to do.