1 . Just before New Year, the principal (校长) called me into his office and asked me to read a poem written by me at the New Year party. “Sure,” I said with a smile, my dreams of being a famous ________ floating in my mind.

For weeks, I worked on my poem, ________ bettering the structure, sound, and voice. I reread my Emily Dickinson and William Wordsworth for ________. I practiced reciting it aloud. I revised, revised, revised. By December 30th, the day of the event, I was ________.

Well, I was confident until I looked around and realized how many people were there. And how big the hall was, and how ________ I felt about myself. How could I ________ a piece of my poetry to 800 people? My heart was beating so hard I thought everyone around me could ________ it. I was nervous. I could feel cool shakes run down my back. I couldn’t remember why I had said yes to the ________. Then the light darkened, the crowd quieted. It was starting.

Suddenly, I was on stage with the bright white lights blinding my view of the audience and the feeling that my ________ was closing up. I leaned in to the microphone and tried out my ________ as I read the title: “Let There Be Light.” My voice boomed (声音低沉洪亮) from the speakers loudly and sounded much more confident than I felt.

The room was ________ as I began my piece, and I tried to focus on the words and ________ the people. The words somehow ________ in the right order, the lines flowed together properly, and I even remembered which words to ________. I finally came to the last line of the poem and breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was over.

The room was dead silent. Maybe no one liked it. I felt like I was going to faint. Then out of the silence there was ________, cheering, and smiling. I had done it. I had shared a piece of my poetry with the world.

2 . I love and enjoy playing the piano. So when the recital (音乐演奏会) was ______, I was disappointed. I had expected it for long and already ______ my best songs.

However, Mom turned this ______ into something worthwhile. “You should ______ at Carriage House Manor. I’m sure the ______ there would really appreciate the music.” To me, this was a win-win situation because not only would I play more songs, but I have the chance to ______ the residents, some of whom tragically didn’t have families.

The much-anticipated day ______ arrived. Stepping into the dining area, I saw several gray-haired people seemingly enjoying a dinner and the ______. Despite on-going conversations at tables, ______ still hung like a dark cloud in the room. After introductions, I sat down in front of the piano, butterflies in my stomach. But my ______ melted away as I played on.

The dinner hour flew by. One woman got up and began to cheerfully ______ about the room to the beat of the ______ while others snapped their fingers (打响指). I was ______ to see how music brought big smiles to their faces.

Calling off the recital was a blessing because it led to us ______ the gift of music with those who needed it most. Go spread ______ whenever possible.

3 . Post-It Notes and poster board may seem like nothing more than standard school supplies. However, in Erin Castillo’s hands, they are a powerful mental health ______.

Here’s the way it ______: About once a week, the high school teacher ______ the “mental health check-in board.” The board instructs students to write their ______ on the back of a sticky note and then ______ it next to one of six coloured hearts. The hearts are ______ “I’m great,” “I’m OK,” “I’m struggling,” “I’m struggling and need a check-in,” and “I’m in a dark place,” and allow the students a ______ way to describe and share their feelings before class starts.

Then, during independent study time, she ______ one-on-one with students about their sticky notes. Some kids just need ______ or a listening ear, but for those who are more ______ or dealing with a serious issue, she says she has a variety of ______ ready and waiting to help them, such as the school psychologist they can see that very day.

She got the idea for the ______ after a couple of weeks where many of her students kept telling her they were having a bad week. While she was ______ they were sharing, she needed more ______ to help them—and the board was born. “I didn’t want to miss any student that might be struggling, and this was a way to easily ______ how everyone was feeling,” she says.

4 . When Marion Sheppard was unable to see in her 40s, she cried. Wasn’t it _______ that she’d been partly deaf since childhood? That struggle and the _______ that usually came with it didn’t defeat her, but made her _______.

Sheppard had always been an enthusiastic dancer since childhood, but now she was so scared that she _______ left her apartment. She worried about the way she would _______ to the world. Hard as it was, Sheppard later _______ herself to go out.

At 61, Sheppard attended a camp organized by Visions for blind people, where she taught her first dancing class. She _______ to teach her class there after that. But she was _______. She soon convinced Visions to let her teach on a _______ basis. About four years later, her classes won so much ________ that Visions hired her to be on staff. Sheppard’s students were mostly seniors whose eyesight had ________ as adults. With confidence-building praise, Sheppard also ________ dignity and independence into them. As a way to combine movements with her faith, Sheppard ________ a group called The Blind Sisterhood. What is her ________ for maintaining both physical and mental health despite ________ life throws at her? “Keep it moving!”

5 . If life were a book and you were the author, how would you like the story to go? That is the question that _______ my life forever.

One day I went home from the training of snowboarding with what I thought was a flu, and less than 24 hours later, I was in a _______ on life support with less than two percent _______ of living. It wasn’t until days later that the doctor diagnosed (诊断) me with a _______ blood infection (感染). During the course of 2.5 months, I lost the hearing in my left ear and both my legs below the knee. When my parents _______ me out of the hospital, I _______ that I had been put together like a patchwork (拼缝物) doll and I had to live with _______legs. I was absolutely physically and emotionally broken, _______ running down.

But I knew in order to move forward, I had to let go of the Old Amy and _______ the New Amy. It was at that moment that I asked myself the important ________. That is when it hit me that I didn’t have to be five-foot-five anymore, but I could be as tall as I wanted. And first of all, I can make my feet the size of all the shoes. So there were ________ here.

Four months later, I was back upon a ________. And this February, I won two Board World Cup gold medals, ________ me the highest ranked snowboarder in the world.

So instead of looking at our challenges and our limitations as something ________ or bad, we can begin looking at them as a wonderful ________ that can be used to help us go further than we ever know we could go.

6 . 23-year-old Taleigh Loven walked downstairs to her graduation party last October. She was ______ balloons, treats and congratulations from her family. What didn’t cross her mind was her ______ wearing the same graduation cap as she did. ______ him carrying a certificate (证书) with his name on it, she instantly burst into tears.

Mike Loven, 47, decided four years earlier that he was going to restart his study in Grand Canyon University, the ______ school his daughter had just been ______ to. A few weeks later, Mike was taking his first______ course while Taleigh was getting settled in her dorm — with no ______ that Mike was a fellow freshman.

“There was no real reason for ______ it a secret from the family—I merely thought the _______ would be fun,” Mike said. “I work a lot and I’m always on my computer, so no one ______ knew that I was working on stuff (材料) for ______ all those years.”

The ______ part about the whole thing, Mike said, was during ______ midterm seasons when his family would constantly ask him for help with tricky (棘手的) school-related issues. He had his own ______ as well, but he couldn’t tell them. That, he said, ______ many late nights at the computer.

7 . This past summer was really special for Jaequan Faulkner, a 13-year-old boy living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He set up a hot dog _______ outside his home to make some extra money. The boy took care to make sure that all food was fresh and clean. People in the neighborhood _______ the boy’s spirit, but there was only one _______—he didn’t have a permit.

When the Department of Health received a _______, instead of shutting down Jaequan’s stand, they did something _______. They helped the teenager get a permit so that his business could _______.

Daniel Huff, director of the department, said they were _______ to help a young man with such a sense of business. The health inspectors helped to pay for his first permit. _______, Huff took another step and helped connect Jaequan with the Economic Opportunity Network, which gave the young businessman tips on _______ a small business.

“I was kind of ________ and so grateful,” Jaequan said about all the ________. “Because usually I would have one person at a time helping me, but there ________ to be so many kind people at once.”

The food stand now operates with a ________ and is open four hours daily from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Jaequan handles 90 percent of the business, and he is also planning to ________ to organizations that assist teenagers in need. With such a ________, the boy surely is going to have a bright future.

8 . Generous billionaires are not hard to come by, but it is definitely a challenge to find a billionaire who spends all his fortune on charity just to end up broke. This is ________ what happened to “former” American billionaire Charles Feeney.

Feeney, who grew up in a poor neighborhood of New Jersey, is a ________ at finding business opportunities. Since childhood, he would take any job to make a few cents for his family—jobs like ________ umbrellas in summer and selling Christmas cards in winter. In his college years at Cornell University, he sold home-made sandwiches to other students and is still ________ there as the Sandwich Man. Then, in the 1960s, Feeney ________ airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers (DFS), which helped him reach his billionaire ________ by the 1980s. However, Feeney never felt ________ with the lifestyle of the wealthy. He lived modestly, and often thought of what to do with all the money he made.

Influenced by his own experience, Feeney decided to ________ all his money to those in need in his lifetime. In 1984, the then 53-year-old Feeney signed over everything—his DFS shares and the various businesses and ________ he had acquired worldwide—to Atlantic Philanthropies, a charity ________ he established. In the following decades, Feeney donated through the organization more than $8 billion anonymously, to charities, universities, human rights ________, and foundations worldwide. Such incredible secret generosity ________ him the title “James Bond of Philanthropy” from Forbes magazine.

________ the idea of “Giving while Living,” Feeney is a ________ model for many famous billionaires today, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. He encourages people to donate at least half their fortunes before death. In September 2020, Feeney’s go-for-broke mission was ________, and he now lives happily with his wife on a pension in a modest apartment in San Francisco.

9 . The classroom was full of those of us who wanted to work on school newspaper. I didn’t write a lot, but working on the paper ________ fun. I liked the idea of being a reporter, interviewing my friends, and ________ middle school events.

To be chosen, we had to turn in an example of our ________. I wrote an article about the joys of summer, and showed it to my father, a(n) ________ poet. He read it and frowned (皱眉). “It’s okay,” my father said, taking out a pencil. “But how about changing this sentence to…”. And as a result, he rewrote the ________ piece without me for I never said anything to ________ him. No surprise, his version (版本) was wonderful. He had a gift for language. It was so much better than my piece that. I turned in his version ________ mine.

“Welcome to the Dundee School News,” my teacher said to me. But before I could be ________ about the news, he added, “based on that excellent article you wrote about summer, I ________ you to write a personal opinion article every week for the second page of the paper.” I was so surprised. I was unable to write at that level but I couldn’t tell ________ to the teacher, and I couldn’t ask my father for help, either.

That term working on the paper was really painful. And my teacher expressed his ________, “Can’t you write something more like that first piece you wrote?” he said each time I turned in my article. I couldn’t, because at that age, I didn’t have my father’s ability and experience as a writer. Week after week, I tried hard, but my writing never ________ the level of the first article. At last, to my total ________, another student took my place. I ________ that my father rewrote my first article himself, instead of trying to help me to improve it. But in my heart I knew it was my mistake because I allowed him to do it.

Later, I did become a successful writer on my own. Looking back, I realized that the pain and shame of that school experience had a ________ side. It taught me to depend on myself and be myself. So every day, I try to use my own words, find my own style and be my own best self. It feels great.