2 . For as long as I can remember, I’ve been part of a team of some sort of extracurricular (课外的) sport. I started swimming at a young age and then I was ________ to water polo (水球).

Water polo is a ________ sport. We grow together, we hang out together, and we succeed together. ________ in this sport depends on the successes of each other rather than the success of the ________. This is important because we all realize that ________ we can grow fast alone, we grow more and get closer to our goals ________.

I was never good when I first started a sport. To be honest, it was ________ when I first started playing water polo. My coach has always ________ me. She once said that we’re never going to be ________ at first and that’s okay because we can always get better. And get better? I did. No matter how ________ I got I noticed that there was always somewhere I was lacking and somewhere I could ________.

Being an athlete is ________. You have to wake up early every day. You have to ________ yourself every day. You have to balance your life outside of sport. But for me, ________ is never an option. I knew that simply throwing in the towel would cause me to be filled with great regret. So don’t let hard work ________ your desire to become someone greater than you are today.

3 . Hearing the Olympics were coming to Vancouver, I decided to go for its voluntary work. I’d forgotten what it was like to put myself out there to make friends. I was glad I didn’t have anyone I knew with me because I wouldn’t have met Callie ________. Taking the risk of sitting by her started a ________. I still keep in touch with her.

As night fell before the opening ceremonies, I was stationed outside the MMC. Accents from all over ________ my ears. The games seemed to ________ the whole world. Suddenly, I could see people running toward the harbour. I turned to Callie, “Isn’t that the way to the torch (火炬)?” We looked at each other and started to run. My heart pounded as I sprinted. The air seemed to be ________ with everyone’s excitement, like a kind of electric energy pulsing through us. I’d never felt a(n) ________ like it before. Then, fireworks ________ into the air above us. Their bright colors glittered against the dark sky. I had ________ the lighting of the torch many times on TV, but to actually see it ________ was amazing. When the last of the fireworks ________, there stood the Olympic torch unveiled (揭幕) in all its ________ with its flames licking at the night sky.

Even now, I can still remember the heat from the torch. I had been one of the ________ MMC staff to walk underneath it while it burned. A beacon (灯塔) of ________ for the future. I stood for a moment right under it, listening to the ________ voices of my new friends, and I knew I’d made one of the best ________ of my life.

4 . It’s just one little valve (阀门). I’m just guessing that it takes about 42 seconds to walk from the couch to where the valve is in our front yard, _________ it and return to the couch. And yet I didn’t.

Not that I wasn’t _________ to do so. The city already warned unpleasant results could follow our _________ to turn off that valve. My wife, Anita, also talked about it several times. Each of those _________ went something like this: “Joe, have you turned off the valve to the watering system?” she would ask sweetly. “Oh, that’s right,” I would say. “I _________ to do that.” “It would be great if you could do it before the ground freezes,” she would add, _________. Then I would _________ sincerely that I would do it tomorrow. But I didn’t. In my mind, there was no great rush to complete the task because we were having such a _________ fall followed by a usually warm winter. I kept telling myself that if it got really cold, I would do it. _________, it would only take about 42 seconds to do it. And it was such a(n) __________ thing.

And now we’re __________ it, with a couple of broken valves, a flooded basement floor and probably some __________ to the wall through which the water travelled on its way to the basement floor. The repairs to our watering system and the room have cost us several hundred dollars, not to mention the great __________.

So delaying is not simply putting off an action or a decision. It will have its own __________. Doing __________ is, in fact, doing something.

5 . American teen donates 15,000 books to children with cancer

When 19-year-old Emily Bhatnagar from Maryland, US, found out her father had stage four thyroid cancer, her response was a little different than you might expect. To _______ her father, who she also describes as her best friend, she decided to start a book drive called For Love and Buttercup, _______ books for kids with cancer.

“It was very much an _______ idea,” she explains. “I posted a message on an app called Nextdoor asking my _______ for used book donations. I was only expecting a few here and there, but the response was truly incredible and it was just the push I needed to co-exist with my _______ rather than letting it consume me.”

“It was absolutely heartbreaking to watch my dad _______ cancer and see him lose a little bit of himself each day, _______ the book drive allowed me to develop a newfound sense of purpose intertwined with an even greater sense of compassion to help others in any shape or form. I wanted to help kids. They’ve always held a soft _______ in my heart.”

Using _______ she earns from working at her parents’ bread shop, Emily has bought many books out of her own pocket. ________, she receives donations through her Amazon wishlist, which can be found in the biography of the book drive’s Instagram account, @forloveandbuttercup.

Emily and her older brother spent a ________ summer driving around town, loading boxes of books into their car. “It was such a ________ knowing people have carried these books all their lives through generations, and they wanted to gift it to my ________.”

The project has ________ huge success, with For Love and Buttercup donating over 15,000 books and being ________ by The Washington Post, Forbes, The President’s Volunteer Service Award and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation.

6 . I started playing field hockey(曲棍球) when I was in seventh grade. Going into middle school, I knew I wanted to____ a sport, since I loved being on a team with friends. ____ together after class, driving to other schools to__ and just having an overall sense of unity were all ____of playing a team sport that I knew I couldn't ____ get.

To be honest, before spring of the seventh grade, I ____ even knew what field hockey was. The only thing I knew was that my friends thought it sounded cool. I don't really know what ____my friends to field hockey. Maybe it's because it's mainly a women's sport, ____ maybe it's because the ____ is a really nice English teacher. Even though I chose it on a whim(一时兴起), I'm really glad I decided to ____ it.

I am certainly not a field hockey prodigy (天才) or anything like that, but it honestly adds to my ____. Yes, it leaves me with my legs ____ and my arms drooping heavily, but this pain doesn't compare to the feeling of happiness that comes ____ playing. When you're running with a wooden ____ in your hand, chasing a white ball, there's no need to worry about anything. It offers an amazing way to be free from the ____ and hardships of school.

8 . Andrew Powell was pulling envelopes from the large mailbox outside his contemporary house when he noticed something ______: A tiny doll couple were sitting on a love seat inside the mailbox. A small note was attached.

“We’ve decided to live here,” the ______ read. It was signed from Mary and Shelley. Andrew initially figured that somebody must have left them there ______ . So he asked the neighbors whether anybody had left ______ in his mailbox, and everyone said no. Soon, Andrew and his wife discovered that the small couple had ______ a tea table, a pretty carpet and a pillow.

Over the next few months, additional items mysteriously ______: a bed, a painting and a wood-burning stove, to name a few. For Christmas 2022, a decorated tree was left with tiny presents. But the gifts were taken back right after Christmas ______ Andrew could open the boxes to see if anything was inside.

More than a year later, Mary and Shelley are still living rent-free in the mailbox, to the delight of the neighbors who now ______ Andrew’s updates on the village’s website to check the ______. Andrew first posted about the tiny dolls on Aug. 21, 2022, hoping his fellow villagers might help solve the ______.

“It’s just somebody out there who is having some fun, giving us all a little community ______. But whoever is doing this is obviously very ______ and clever,” says Andrew’s next-door neighbor.

Andrew says he now doesn’t want to know who is ______ for the mail-box affair because he’s hoping it will continue. “Also, people in the neighborhood are ______ it and some ask if I’ve thought about installing an outdoor ______ , but personally, I like the mystery of it.”

9 . Recently, a man who thinks himself wise complained to me about his bad luck. He interviewed an architect for his project, but he intended her to offer a plan right away and he thought she _______ him too much. Afterwards, he was totally stuck in the cost problem because he _______ to find another nice architect at a lower price.

Was this a poor choice or just bad luck? If we play out the same situation 100 times —where a man _______ the selection of an architect, and focuses on picking the cheapest and immediately _______ project plan —how many times do you think it runs in a _______ way? Not once.

One way to visualize the man’s _______ is through the game of billiards (台球).We focus on making the first shot instead of considering how we _______the ball for the next shot. When we go to take the next shot, the difficulty _______ .

Life is full of such examples. We _______ the $500-an-hour lawyer with years of relevant experience and choose the $200-an-hour lawyer. Unavoidably, we find ourselves paying for the ________ sooner or later. We do the same when it comes to ________ .Often, we choose the “cheaper” alternatives ________ we realize our mistakes. As the saying goes, buy nice or buy twice. The current cheapness ________ means the overall cheapness.

The main ________ here is to aim at the long-term consequences. ________ might appear to win in the short term, but foresight undoubtedly wins in the end.