1 . I was born in a poor community on the north side of Boston, US, raised by a single mother who didn’t finish 3rd grade, lived each day on food stamps and attended what the media called “the most dysfunctional (功能失调的) public school district”. Not many people expected much of me, so I had to expect.

On my 13th birthday, I bought a poster of Harvard to hang in my room. Being at Harvard became what I dreamt about. Even if my electricity was cut off, I still woke up at 5:30, because I knew that my poster of Harvard was still hanging only two feet away from me.

Reminding myself of my goal each day made it easy to say no to the same choices I saw my peers making, because those paths wouldn’t have had me closer to my goal. Being poor could not take away my power to decide what I choose to do with my day. The poster gave me the courage to send emails to about 50 Harvard students to ask for feedback on my application essays; it gave me the energy to study just one more hour on my SATs when my friends were asleep; and it gave me the determination to submit just one more scholarship application when 180 others had already turned me down.

Every day, I could feel myself getting closer and closer to my goal as my writing got better, my SAT score increased, and my scholarship checks started coming in. Finally, an email arrived from Harvard. The first word was “Congratulations!” A month later, Harvard flew me up to visit the campus where for the first time I stepped onto my dreaming land.

Who you are today is the result of the decisions you made yesterday, and who you will be tomorrow will be the result of the choices you make today. Who do you want to be tomorrow?

5 . When my son, Mark, was in the third grade, he saved all his pocket money for over three months to buy Christmas presents. The third Saturday in December Mark said he had made his list and had twenty dollars in his pocket.

I drove him to a nearby supermarket. Mark picked up a basket and went in while I waited and watched in the car. It took Mark over 45 minutes to choose his presents. Finally he came to the checkout counter and reached into his pocket for his money. It was not there! There was a hole in his pocket, but no money. Mark stood there holding his basket, tears falling down his face.

Then a surprising thing happened. A woman came up to Mark and took him in her arms. “You would help me a lot if you let me pay for you,” said the woman. “It would be the most wonderful gift you could give me. I only ask that one day you will pass it on. When you grow up, I would like you to find someone you can help. When you help others, 1 know you will feel as good about it as I do now.”

Mark took the money, dried his tears and ran back to the checkout counter as fast as he could. That year we all enjoyed our gifts almost as much as Mark enjoyed giving them to us.

I would like to say “thank you” to that very kind woman, and tell her that four years later, Mark went house to house collecting blankets and clothes for the homeless people in the fire. And I want to promise her that Mark will never forget to keep passing it on.

7 . For as long as she can remember, 13-year-old Lila Hoffa has struggled to express herself in writing. Her handwriting is sometimes _________ and disorganized, and she used to have trouble holding a _________. In her first years at school, her teachers didn’t _________ that anything was wrong. But that _________ when she met her third grade teacher, Valerie Holmgren.

“Mrs. Holmgren realized that there was something more going on than just the _________ writing problems,” Lila said. Lila was diagnosed with dysgraphia (书写困难症). So her teachers and her parents held a meeting to _________ what to do next. “We were all sitting around a long table,” Lila _______. And Mrs. Holmgren pulled out a _________ and opened up a speech-to-text program that _________ changed spoken words into typed text.

“This was a/an __________ moment for me because I realized all of the stories and the ideas that I had __________ in my head — there was an easy way to get them down onto __________,” Lila said. Lila now uses speech-to-text software every day. The first story she __________ was called “The Girl Who Couldn’t Stop Reading — AKA Me!”, which became a __________ the moment it was published.

If Holmgren were standing in front of Lila today, this is what Lila would say, “Thank you for noticing my __________ and noticing that there was so much more to me.”

An Unforgivable Mistake

A few years ago, the company I work for sent my wife and me to live in New York for a year. I’ve always loved jogging, so I was really happy when I found the apartment they had rented for us was next to Central Park. This meant that every morning I could go for a run before I went to work.

Because a lot of people had told me to be careful of muggers (行凶抢劫者) in the park, I didn’t usually take anything with me. How could they rob me if I didn’t have anything? But one morning my wife asked me to buy some bread on the way home, so I put a $10 bill in my back pocket.

It was a beautiful morning and the park was quiet with very few people walking or jogging around. While I was running, another jogger bumped (撞) into me. He apologized and continued running. For a while, I didn’t think too much of it. However, when I noticed the wide path where I was running, I thought it was kind of strange. The warning of muggers in the park occurred to me. It could have been a mugger! I suddenly became alarmed, so I checked my pocket. The money was missing! I immediately started to run after the jogger. I finally caught up with and grabbed him firmly by the arm. I started shouting and demanding that he give me the $10 bill. I’m not usually a hot-headed person, but I really lost my temper at that moment. I couldn’t believe the robbery was actually happening to me. Filled with anger, I shook my fist at him. This seemed to frighten him. He quickly put his hand in his pocket and gave me the money. Then he ran away as fast as he could.

I bought the bread and went home. As soon as I got home, I couldn’t wait to tell my wife the story. “You won’t believe what happened to me,” I started with pride. She immediately interrupted (插话), “I know, you left the money for the bread on the kitchen table.”

Looking at the money on the table, I stood there, shocked.

For several days, I waited at the same place.

10 . High school graduations are one of the most important moments in a teenager’s life. However, heading into the ______ on June 6th, David was stopped at the door by a gatekeeper. So you can imagine how ______ David was. Although his sneakers were not extremely unacceptable, David learned they were in ______ of the school’s dress code and he was ______ entry.

David was about to ______ his chance to walk across the stage with his classmate when he caught sight of a ______ face. Butler, a famous local educator, came to the graduation as a parent. Learning David’s unpleasant situation, he ______ the young man back to the entry to see if he could ______ the gatekeeper’s mind.

“I was hoping that she would let it go, but she ______ not letting this young man in, and I didn’t have time to ______ with her,” Butler said. “I wasn’t going to let him miss the most ______ moment in his life for anything.” Without missing a beat, Butler simply changed his ______ with David. Just as the ______ closed, David made it inside the hall. Eventually he ______ David from ruining his graduation day.

Although firstly ______ by the last-minute substitution, Butler’s family were thrilled that his quick thinking turned a very ______ situation into a joyful celebration. “I wasn’t ______ because Mr. Butler is always helpful,” a ______ parent of David’s said.

It’s said that a truly generous man will give the shirt off his back to someone ______. Now it seems, the saying also ______ to the shoes off his feet.