2 . I was never very neat while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but my always hid somewhere. She even labeled (贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Overtime, Kate got neater and I got my merriser. She moved to push my dirty clothing over and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.

Who broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon, I heard her screaming, “Take your shoes away! why under my bed!” Suddenly I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started yelling. She yelled back louder.

The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute but for a phone call. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation, I could tell right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up. She quickly crawled (爬) under her covers, crying. Obviously. that was something she could not go through alone. All of a sudden, a warm feeling of sympathy (同情) rose up in my heart.

Slowly, I collected the pencils, took back the books, made my bad. Cleaned the suckers and swept the floor even on her side. I got so absorbed into my work that I even didn’t notice Kate had sat up. She was watching. Her tears dried and her expression was such disbelief. Then, she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me. “Thanks.”

Kate and I stayed roommates for the rest of the year. We didn’t always agree, but we learned the key to living together: giving in, cleaning up and holding on.

3 . It was 2002. It was suggested that I should learn to drive, so my father decided to teach me. Easier said than done. The driving plan was quietly ________ after I almost crashed his car into a stone wall. My next ________ was in 2006. This time, the ________ was a very nice friend. But after three sessions, he ________. “I can’t teach you,” he said. “You have no ________ at all.” To be honest, that was ________ to me. Actually, I thought I was afraid of many things—thunderstorms, forest fires, bears, but these were not the ________ kind for driving.

Nine years later, I had a life partner — Graeme Gibson — and a baby. One day, Graeme got his ________ seriously bitten when he helped ________ a dog trapped in the wire fence. Even so, he had to drive himself to the hospital ________ thanks to my inability to drive.

This accident ________ me and awoke my desire for learning. “That’s it,” I said, “I’m learning to drive.” I must qualify myself to ________ and protect my family. This time, I ________ a professional instructor. Despite various   ________, I got my license finally. I was pleased with myself: it seemed I now had the appropriate kind of fears. Learning to drive makes me a more grown-up and ________ adult.

5 . It was a cold winter day. A woman drove up to the Rainbow Bridge tollbooth (收费站). “I’m paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me”, she said with a smile, handing over seven tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arriving at the tollbooth were informed, “Some lady up ahead already paid your fare.”

It turned out that the woman, Natalie Smith, had read something on a friend’s refrigerator: “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” The phrase impressed her so much that she copied it down.

Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase on a warehouse wall far away from home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave up and drove all the way back to copy it down. “I thought it was beautiful,” she said, explaining why she’d taken to writing it at the bottom of all her letters, like a message from above. Her husband, Frank liked the phrase so much that he put it upon the classroom wall for his students, one of whom was the daughter of Alice Johnson, a local news reporter. Alice put it in the newspaper, admitting that though she liked it, she didn’t know where it came from of what it really meant. Two days later, Alice got a call from Anne Herbert, a woman living in Marin. It was in a restaurant that Anne wrote the phrase down on a piece of paper, after turning it around in her mind for days. “Here’s the idea. Anne says.” Anything you think here would be more of, do it randomly. Her fantasies include painting the classrooms of shabby schools, leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says,” Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can.

The acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those drivers who found your fare paid. Who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later. Like all great events, kindness begins slowly, with every single act, let it be yours!

6 . Mariah Smith, a seventh-grader at Southern Alamance Middle School, is the Best Student of the Month.

Mariah said she was greatly ________ to receive this prize.

Mariah has a ________ relationship with her grandmother, Wendy Jordan, who nominated (推荐) her. Mariah is the daughter of Cameron and Cierra Smith and has a younger sister ________ Chloe.

“She’s a good student. She doesn’t have to be told to keep her ________ up,” Wendy said.

Mariah said, “Everyone there is really nice; it’s a really good school.”

She ________ her time wisely and sticks to a ________. Her favorite classes are social studies and language arts.

“I like learning about the world around me and what has happened in the past,” Mariah said.

She ________ a lot of work with her community. She was selected to be part of the Alamance Youth Leadership Academy.

We learn a lot of valuable things from every field trip we ________, “Mariah said. “We learn what kind of leader we are, and what we can do to ________ around our community, and how to improve our schools.

Mariah isn’t quite sure what she wants to do in the ________ yet. She claims that “Whatever it is, I want it to be something I really ________ doing. “Mariah is a quiet person who is also very thoughtful to ________,” Wendy said. “She is an A-honor roll student and is ________ trying to give back to her community and make it ________.”

“She’s got a big ________,” Wendy added.

7 . At thirteen, I was diagnosed with a kind of attention disorder. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

In my first literature class, Mrs. Smith asked us to read a story and then write about it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, “Mrs. Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it.

She glanced down at me through her glasses, “You are not different from your classmates, young man.”

I tried, but I didn’t finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn’t get much education. But Louis didn’t give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots, which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

Wasn’t I the “blind” one in my class, being made to learn like the “sighted” students? My thoughts flowed and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was not different from others; I just needed a quieter place. Now that Louis could find his way out of his problems, why should I ever give up? I didn’t expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs. Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day —with an “A” on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: “See what you can do when you keep tying.”

8 . Our room was on the second floor but you could still hear the roar of the ocean and see the stars at night. I used to take long walks along the water. The food in town was wonderful and the people were very friendly. The area was very quiet, peaceful and fairly deserted (空寂无人的).

The last evening of our vacation, however, we all heard strange footsteps following closely behind us as we were walking up to our room in the holiday center. We turned around and noticed a fairly young man moving very rapidly across the beach and getting close to us. He was tall and wore a baseball cap. We couldn’t see his face and he was approaching (接近) us very rapidly. The man’s actions made my dad very anxious. Dad warned us that we’d better try to make it to our hotel room as quickly as possible. I didn’t like my dad’s voice. I could hear anxiety in it. It was late and we were all alone. We didn’t have any cellphones on us. I never saw Dad as anxious as he was then and I knew that something was terribly wrong. The sense of fear started to overwhelm Mom and me. We had had such a good time in town. Now, the night was rapidly turning into a dangerous situation.

We could hear the man’s footsteps getting closer. Dad’s face was almost pale. The so-called intruder (侵入者) had moved nearer and nearer when all of a sudden, the nearby vending (自动贩卖) machine started going crazy and spitting out cans of soda! The noise actually scared the intruder and he ran out of sight. My parents were shaking, but we all turned around to see who had put money into the vending machine downstairs, and actually saved us, but no one was around at all. Not a soul. It’s one vacation I will never forget.