2 . When my father was a teenager, he had been declared a genius by his art teacher. He ______ to become an art major and had some ______ of his paintings. But when my mother got ill, his creative life came to an end.

I remembered my father’s ______ for art. One day, I asked whether he was interested in drawing a cartoon. My father was not much of a ______. When learning to drive, I had asked if it was more important to ______ the cars ahead or those behind. “Both.” Then he was ______ for the next three miles.

He gave no ______ answer to my query (询问). I asked again the following day. Still no real ______. I ultimately ______ the idea. I understood he had enough on his plate already. But a week later, I received an email from my father — with a(n) ______. I downloaded the file and there was the cartoon I had asked him to draw!

We began to draw cartoons. The process of creating gave him ______. As he built his art muscles back up, his teenage self’s enthusiasm ______.

It never ______ me that he could talk so much that I had to pretend I was getting a call to ______ his excitement. He is now painting and drawing. If he were to ask me whether I was prouder of the cartoon or of him turning his life around, I would say, “______.”

3 . I found a wonderful picture of Maolan karst cones online and presented it to the innkeeper. “You can’t go there,” the innkeeper ________me with a smile. “The viewing platform has been closed due to________that too many visitors could cause geological damage.”

Though disappointed, we________an alternative: a seven-hour hike through the“funnel forest”. Initially, we were ________to run the risk. However, I had________the tourism motto in the nature reserve: “If you don’t do it now, you won’t do it in your lifetime.” Three of our group ________decided to venture into the forest. The innkeeper responded with a knowing ________:“Great. Bear Grylls went there.”

The next morning, we set off with a local________. Rain came and went three times, and before I actually________to climb over the first mountain, I had already got wet to the skin. I was a walking________of mud and water.

Our guide, in his 50s, behaved like a botanist, introducing the locally specific plants to us, but I was hardly in the________. Every step sank into the muddy, sucking ground. Every log or rock in front of us was a physical________. “One can never reach those places without strong willpower,” I murmured, reciting that millennium-old________, over and over again.

Sinkholes and entrances to underground rivers kept popping up along our________. Thinking of them leading to an unknown world, I began to________the road that I can control even more.

Wandering in a green chaos without any obvious landmarks is also breathtaking.

4 . “A bird with a broken wing will never fly high.” I’m sure that John would agree with this saying, as he felt this way almost every day in school.

By high school, John was the most famous _________ in his town. He was always absent, didn’t answer questions and got into_________. He had failed almost every exam by the time he entered high school, yet was_________a higher grade level each year. Teachers didn’t want to_________him again the following year. John was moving on, but definitely not moving up.

I met John for the first time at a weekend leadership training program since John was one of the 405 students who_________. At the start of the training, John was just standing outside the circle of students, against the back wall. He didn’t _________join the discussion groups. But slowly, the interactive games_________him in.

The ice really melted when the groups started building a list of_________ and negative things that had occurred at school that year. John_________some constructive ideas on those situations. The other students in John’s group __________his comments. All of a sudden John felt like a__________of the group, and before long he was treated like a leader. By the end of the training, he had joined the Homeless Project team. The other students on the team were__________with his passionate concern and ideas. They even elected John co-chairman of the team.

John started__________at school every day and answered questions from teachers for the first time. He led a second project,__________300 blankets and 1,000 pairs of shoes for the homeless shelter from house to house.

5 . Lowri Moore, aged 15, of Nottingham, England, has worn eyeglasses since she was a baby. But she hasn’t always seen glasses ________ in the cartoons she loves. Lowri is making it her ________ to change that.

When Lowri was 9, she sent a letter to Disney asking them if they could create a(n) ________ role model who wore glasses. Glasses are a great tool because they give you the ability to see. This should be ________ . But kids at school ________ not to think so.

Disney ________ Lowri, and three years later, the movie En-canto came out, whose main character, Maribel, wears glasses! En-canto director Jared Bush said, “She’s my hero. I can’t imagine being that age and being that ________ . She is such an inspiration to all of us.” En-canto is a movie putting people on the screen that ________ to be seen and audiences from all over the world have been able to find themselves, their family members in these stories.

In 2019, Lowri Moore, called for more glasses-wearing ________ . She pointed out that figures wearing glasses are usually ________ as “nerdy instead of beautiful.” Having more positive figures with glasses on will help people feel ________ about wearing their own glasses. It also allows people to see the ________ to add glasses like we already have the ability to change skin and hair color on emojis(表情符号). Natalie Owen, ________ heard of Lowri’s story and decided to help her dream come true. Owen created a princess wearing glasses in his new book just for Lowri.

With her dream ________ , Lowri posted a message on her personal website: If you believe in something, don’t be afraid to say it. Don’t think that because you are young, you can’t make a ________ .

6 . Zhao Yuan, who was a dance teacher, lost one leg in an accident at the age of 24._______she had to use a wheelchair, and leave her_______ position and started to make a living in business. She opened a hotel in her hometown and used some of her earnings to help_______for the college cost of 13 poor students.

In 2020, she set up an offline sales platform called Good and Fresh, which mainly sold goods produced by Zhao’s disabled friends. _______ the pandemic (疫情), however, Good and Fresh _______making money, so Zhao _______ online sales instead.

She became a livestream(直播) host on social media platforms, _______ the sales of goods like brown sugar, sweet potato flour and honey that her friends made. Although Zhao Yuan, who only had one_______, had to deal with her own disability, she had made her business succeed in creating a_______ in e-commerce   (电子商务) and had helped more than 2,000 other________ people sell agricultural products. Everything she sold came from 55 agricultural centers around the province________ by the disabled. She had also trained 57 hosts, all of whom were disabled.

With the________ of her business, Zhao has set up the Good and Fresh Agricultural Science and Technology Development Company, of which she is________. She is planning to________ another 1,000 hosts, and hopes that they will also be able to achieve their personal and social________ through work, just as the way she is doing.

9 . My husband, Russ, and I drove through our neighborhood, the place we’d called home for 28 years. The foothills, once thick with towering pines, were _________. The ground was covered with a heavy layer of ash. The trees that _________ were burnt stumps (树桩).

Two weeks earlier, we’d gotten an early-morning call telling us to _________ immediately. The wildfire burning through Northern California had spread and was headed our way. We’d jumped in the car with our cats and a few belongings. For days, we’d moved from hotel to hotel, _________ for news. What finally came wasn’t _________. Our house had been right in the fire’s path.

Now we’d been allowed to return. Russ and I brought _________, work boots, N95 masks and gloves. We would _________ anything we could. We drove slowly through the ruins, where chimneys marked where homes once stood. I wasn’t prepared for what _________ us. Our house was _________ but broken stones, I wiped away tears as we dug through the ash.

“How will we survive this?” I wondered. “How will we go on?” It felt as if our lives had been destroyed. Later that afternoon Russ __________ what we’d found in the car. “Let’s go,” he said.

I turned to get in the car. That’s when I __________ something stuck to my boot: a bit of paper, dirtied with ash. I picked it up. The words were surprisingly __________, “If life seems difficult, I stop and reflect on the blessing sometimes hidden within every situation. With renewed belief and __________, I begin again.”

Words that must have come from one of my books, a passage I couldn’t recall but now said everything I needed to __________, words that rose from the ashes. I framed (给……做框) that scrap of paper. It now sits in a place of honor in our new home, a reminder that we can __________ again.

10 . In 1982 Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone in his sailboat when it struck something and sank. He was out of the shipping lanes and floating in a life raft,________. His supplies were few. His________were small. Yet when three fishermen found him seventy-six days later, he was much skinnier than he was when he_______ , but alive.

The thing that________my eye was how he managed to keep himself going when all hope seemed lost, when there seemed no________in continuing the struggle, when he was suffering greatly, when his lifeboat was broken with a hole and after more than a week struggling with his weak body to_______ it, it was still leaking water. He was________and thoroughly exhausted.________would have seemed the only wise choice.

When people survive these kinds of circumstances, they do something with their________that gives them the courage to keep going. Many people in _______desperate circumstances give in or go mad. Something the survivors do with their thoughts helps them find the________to carry on.

“I tell myself I can________it,” wrote Callahan in his account. “Compared to what others have gone________, I’m fortunate. I tell myself these things over and over,________my determination to keep going.”

I wrote that down after I read it. It________me as something important. And I’ve told myself the same thing when my own goals seemed________off. And every time I say it, I always come back to my________.

So here, coming to us from the extreme edge of________are wards that can give us strength.________you’re going through, tell yourself you can handle it. Tell this to yourself over and over, and it will help you get through the________spots with a little more determination.