Emily was a shy and quiet student in Greenfield High School. Emily was known for her quiet behavior and her love for literature, often found lost in the pages of a book during lunch breaks.

One day, as Emily walked through the hallway, she noticed a colorful poster announcing an upcoming English poetry competition. Her heart raced with excitement at the prospect of showcasing her talent, but her mind was immediately flooded with doubts. “What if my poem is not good enough? What if everyone laughs at me?”she thought to herself, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

As the days went by, Emily found herself caught between her desire to participate and her fear of failure. She talked with her best friend, Sarah, who had been by her side since they were little. She was known for her outgoing personality and her ability to make everyone feel included.

“You have a gift, Emily, ”Sarah said reassuringly, her blue eyes filled with encouragement. “Don’t let your fears hold you back. You never know what might happen unless you try. ”

With Sarah’s support, Emily decided to take a leap of faith and submit her poem for the competition. As the day of the event drew near, she felt a mix of nervousness and expectation. She spent hours perfecting her poem, carefully choosing each word and line to convey her emotions. She practiced her poem in front of the miror, trying to perfect her delivery and expression.

But despite her newfound confidence, Emily couldn’t shake off the feeling of doubt in her mind. These thoughts consumed her, making it difficult for her to focus on anything else.

It was during one of these moments of self-doubt that Sarah came to her rescue once again. “You’re an amazing writer, Emily, ”she said, her voice filled with warmth and sincerity. “Your poem is going to be incredible. Just believe in yourself. ”With Sarah’s words in her mind, Emily felt a renewed sense of determination.

On the day of the competition, Emily took a deep breath and stepped onto the stage.   

In the end, Emily’s poem won first place.

4 . A Saturday morning, we noticed a handful of soft brown curly hairs on Rosie’s pillow. Was she _______ about her new school life? Or unsuitable shampoo? We _______ it with another brand, but Monday morning brought twice as many curls. Sadly, by Thursday, Rosie’s hair was all _______ .

Having undergone a series of examinations, Rosie was diagnosed (诊断) with Alopecia, an immunity _______ causing the hair to fall out. In the following months we had to rely on hats to protect Rosie from _______ stares and in the meantime, we looked for answers from books and searched the Internet for _______ and success stories. After trying countless treatments, and even a stress-reducing lifestyle change, nothing _______ though.

The next few months were filled with ups and downs. When Rosie asked why other children were _______ we’d explain they were simply curious and then quickly took her away. _______ the unwelcome attention began to seem natural. We stopped ________ the stares and decided to embrace them. When asked about her hair, Rosie would ________ give creative, witty answers: “My hair is on vacation.” Other days she would get right to the point, “I’m ________ bald (秃的) and I have Alopecia.”

Instead of focusing on ________ her baldness, we finally came up with some friendly rules — “Operation SPIRIT.” Facing stares from other children, Rosie has learned Smile, Pride, Introducing herself, Raising ________ by sharing her story, Inquiring what makes them unique and Thankfulness.

These days, if you happen to look in our direction, you’ll see a beautiful little bald girl who ________ what she lacks in hair with SPIRIT.

Paul’s old clock was supposed to wake him up at six in the morning of August tenth, but, unfortunately, the hour hand stopped in the early hours again. Instead, Paul was awoken by the noisy breakfast-table talk of the Stephen brothers next door.

“Now. I’ve won the National Poetry Creative Award!” the older brother shouted loudly.

“You have to do the housework for the coming whole week!”

“Okay,” the younger responded unwillingly.

Paul rushed down the stairs of his apartment to the news kiosk (报刊亭) by the street in his pajamas. Among the crowd of the seven o’clock Los Angeles, he was unique, in a funny manner, like a clown escaped from a circus group. Despite that, he caught the eyes of nobody. He threw a few coins into the glass jar and then grabbed the newspaper from the old kiosk owner. His behavior didn’t frighten the old woman-he was the most loyal customer of her store for the past few years.

Paul liked to invent something, and he was fond of literature and had been dreaming of becoming an editor. He skimmed through the annual nomination (提名) on the front page of the newspaper, the brightness in his eyes turned less bright as he moved down the list of names, which eventually faded when he reached the end. He lifted his sight from the newspaper and started staring at the kiosk owner dully (无精打采地), an expression similar to that when he arrived. The old woman sighed-she was so accustomed to this lifeless look on his face but had prayed to see something new every August.

“Bad luck”, with this, Paul slid away rapidly. When approaching the corner of the street, he narrowly knocked down an old gentleman, the kiosk owner’s husband, Arthur, who once was a chief editor of a local famous magazine and now he was retired.

After hearing what his wife said about Paul, Arthur decided to give him a hand.

One morning of next year’s August, with the magazine he had edited in hand, Paul stood beside the news kiosk nervously to sell it.

It was a busy morning and I had to go out to deliver something before the day became too hot to be outside the house. As I was walking by the side of a busy road I saw an old lady, maybe in her 80s standing dangerously close to the traffic. Although my mind was preoccupied, I thought to myself that I should warn her not to stand so close to the busy traffic rushing by.

When I reached the spot where the old lady was standing, I noticed that she was trying to get attention of passersby who of course were too busy to take note of her. She kept pointing to the middle of the road. When I tried to gently move her back further away from the edge of the busy road, she said that she was standing there because she had dropped her house key in the middle of the road and was unable to open her house without the key. I looked around and no one seemed to be interested in the two of us. I knew I was getting delayed but decided to help.

The traffic was busy on the road with commuters on two-wheelers and office goers in cars as well as school buses rushing with school children. It was the worst time of the day to cross a busy road without a traffic light. I asked the old lady to stay at a safe distance, took a deep breath, and carefully stepped onto the road waving my hands wildly almost expecting to be hit by an oncoming vehicle. At first one lane (车道) stopped and then I moved further on to the middle of the road continuing to wave my hand. Just then a school bus was approaching me and I carefully stepped in front of it to stop it. My experience has been that school bus drivers are always considerate of reckless (莽撞的) pedestrians like me.

The school bus stopped exactly opposite the spot where the key had fallen.

Suddenly, the elderly lady gently pulled me by the hand.

7 . In 1959, Handler changed how toy dolls were made when she introduced “Barbie” to the world. With her mature figure, Barbie was one of the first “grown-up” dolls to hit the retail market.

Handler wanted to create a toy that was different from the baby dolls that dominated little girls’ toy boxes. She wanted a doll that girls could project their future dreams upon and allowed for limitless clothing and career choices. Inspired by paper dolls of the time, Handler, to much disagreement, made sure Barbie had the body of a grown woman.

“My own philosophy of Barbie,” Handler wrote in her autobiography, “was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman had choices.”

There’s even a Barbie for cancer patients — Brave Barbie — a partnership between Mattel and CureSearch that sends a bald (光头的) Barbie to families affected by cancer. “Gifting my daughter a Barbie who suffered from cancer was tremendous,” Michelle, a cancer survivor said, “We would play with that Barbie together and I’d heartbreakingly watch her pretend to take the doll to the hospital for chemo (化疗), or place its long wig on top of its head and tell the doll ‘It’s time to be beautiful again.’”

Bald Barbie was super brave and went on awesome adventures after chemo. Sometimes she felt sick and needed to sleep, but would feel much better after a rest. Bald Barbie always beat the cancer and went on to live a long and happy life with her family. That Barbie became so much more than a plastic doll — she was a means of communication and a coping mechanism during an extremely distressing time for little families.

Captain America had always been a hero for Timothy White during his childhood. White dressed up as Captain America for conventions, parades and the local Anti-violence Superhero Day. As a teenager, he once knocked fiercely in the door of a house that was on fire to see if anyone was trapped inside. Fortunately, the house was empty.

However, things were quite different this time. If Timothy White Jr. were Captain America, perhaps one throw of the superhero's trademark shield (盾牌) could have saved the day. But this was real life. When he spotted trouble on this September afternoon he wasn't wearing his costume and couldn't fall back on any superpowers.

It was rush hour in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. White, 38, was driving home from the non-profit he and his mother run called AMiracle4Sure, which helped formerly imprisoned individuals readapt to society. To get some fresh air from the long drive,he kept his window down on this autumn day. Suddenly, he noticed a gray four door pickup on the opposite side of the street. The truck was going 10 to 15 mph. It was hard to miss, since it was circling and tilting (倾斜) into the road before course-correcting, only to tilt into the road again.

"What an annoying driver!"White murmured. But as the truck drew closer, White took a glance at it. This time he got a good look at the problem:The driver appeared to be asleep! Worse still, they were coming up to a busy street. Pretty soon, this guy's going to crash into a house and kill himself or somebody else, White thought.

While many people would have kept on driving, that's not how White did—his girlfriend refers to him as Captain Harrisburg because of his permanent willingness to help people out. He had to stop that vehicle before anything terrible happened.

White made a U-turn and was now facing in the same direction as the truck.

An ambulance soon arrived and took the driver to a hospital.