5 . I started to worry when the golf car taking me, Steve, and our suitcases stopped in the middle of the Maine forest. A yurt (蒙古包) is a tent tall enough to stand in and wide enough to fit a big family. But I didn’t see it anywhere.

“You hike from here,” said the driver, pointing down a weedy (杂草丛生的) path. The woods were darkening, and Steve encouraged me to pick up the pace. My summer sandals (凉鞋) slipped on the wet leaves. Steve and I spent a good hour until we spotted the light of the yurt.

Steve skillfully lit a fire. We ate some sandwiches, had a few beers, and settled in for a good night’s sleep. But I couldn’t relax. I shook Steve awake. “The door to the yurt doesn’t lock,” I said. “What if a bear wanders into the camp?”

“Don’t worry. Moose (驼鹿) are a bigger problem here than bears,” he said.

“Well, what if someone decides to rob us? Or what if one of the locals wants to teach us a lesson?” “OK,” Steve said with a heavy sigh. He forcefully placed a chair under the door handle. “There, additional protection.” He smiled. “And even if someone gets through the door, you’ll have time to grab that book and use it as a weapon.” I laughed. Sleep moved in. We could enjoy our weekend.

When we “checked out” three mornings later. I was the first one up. That’s when I realized that the door opened ... out. The chair had been serving no purpose other than to keep me quiet.

“So,” I said, as we walked heavily back to meet the golf car. “How else have you been ‘handling’ me this weekend?”

He smiled. “Well. I decided not to tell Von about the snake that lived in the firewood.”

Opening presents carefully selected by our parents is our family tradition on Christmas morning, which always pushes the festive atmosphere to the climax. However, this year’s Christmas seemed not as happy as usual.

It was Christmas Eve when my sister and I decided to open our presents before our mom got home from work. Though worried about ruining my mom’s original plan, we still wanted to sneak a peek (偷看) at the gifts in advance, driven by a strong impulse of curiosity. Since my sister was older, and that put her in charge, she opened the first gift while I was ordered to stand guard at the big picture window in our front room. I was to report any suspicious activity or person, namely our mother, who can easily capture the details of life.

I was so excited that I could barely stand still. I also couldn’t keep my eyes on the window very long. My head moved from the window to my sister and back to the window again. I felt like I was watching a Ping-Pong match.

“All right!” my sister shouted. She pulled out a jewelry box. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

I jumped up and down. “Yeah, it’s my turn!”

“No,” she said. “It means that there must be some jewelry under here.” I watched my sister rummaging (翻寻) through the presents under the tree, trying to find one she thought was small enough to be a necklace or earrings.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” I complained, stomping my foot.

“Are you watching for Mom?” is all that she said. I couldn’t do anything except stand guard as she opened present after present. Finally, when my sister’s curiosity was satisfied and she had finished wrapping her last present back up, we traded places.

My heart hammered so hard that it felt like my chest was moving in and out. My sister reminded me to be careful so I wouldn’t tear the paper, and to wrap the present back up the same way that I had found it.

After unwrapping a few presents, I found it faster to open one end of a present and peek inside. “Headphones! How can my mom know what I want! Without any hesitation, I pulled the headphones out of the box.

I was about to put them on when my sister shouted, “Quick! Mom’s coming!”

Christmas morning finally approached, and we were ready to open our presents again!_

8 . Chris Person lost his wallet outside a Publix store. After he searched his pockets and the parking lot _________ with the store manager, but came up empty, he’d completely _________ his hope.

The wallet contained his license, credit cards, plenty of cash, and even a gift card that could easily be _________ by anyone.

The next day three _________ who Chris Person never met before drove to his home in Palmetto Bay, Florida.

15-year-old Lucas Perry had _________ the wallet in the parking lot by chance, which had fallen out of Chris’s _________ and he with his father and sister had decided to drive to Chris’s address to _________ it in person.

Chris became impressed with the _________ that Eduardo Perry had _________ to his children, __________ because every note of the more than $1,000 in cash was still in the __________.

“They all refused my offer to __________ the money that was inside it. They only wanted to do the __________ thing — and they did,” Chris told CNN. “Eduardo __________ on teaching his children the meaning of a selfless and __________ act, but I have a strong __________ that these two teens would have done it anyway. Besides, I found that the good boy liked rock and roll, which reminded me of my school days.”

The __________ weekend Chris and his wife got a new surround sound system. Chris __________ Lucas is very much into __________ so he called him up and asked if he wanted it — and he was __________ by the offer.

10 . Charlotte Whitehead was born in England in 1843, and moved to Montreal, Canada at the age of five with her family. While _____ her ill elder sister throughout the years, Charlotte discovered she had an interest in medicine. At 18 she married and _____ a family. Several years later, Charlotte said she wanted to be a _____. Her husband supported her decision.

_____, Canadian medical schools did not accept women students at the time. Therefore, Charlotte went to the United States to study medicine at the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. It took her five years to _____ her medical degree.

Upon graduation, Charlotte _____ to Montreal and set up a private _____. Three years later, she moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, and there she was once again a busy doctor. Many of her patients were from the nearby timber and railway camps. Charlotte _____ herself operating on damaged limbs and setting _____ bones, in addition to delivering all the babies in the area.

But Charlotte had been practising without a licence. She had ______ a doctor’s licence in both Montreal and Winnipeg, but was ______. The Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons, an all­male board, wanted her to complete her studies at a Canadian medical college! Charlotte refused to ______ her patients to spend time studying what she already knew. So in 1887, she appealed to the Manitoba Legislature to ______ a licence to her but they, too, refused. Charlotte ______ to practise without a licence until 1912. She died four years later at the age of 73.

In 1993,77 years after her ______, a medical licence was issued to Charlotte. This decision was made by the Manitoba Legislature to honor “this courageous and pioneering woman”．