In 1989, fresh out of high school, I had the difficult task of choosing a career path before college started in three months. In those days in Pakistan, there were limited choices: becoming a doctor or an engineer, or entering the financial world after getting a business degree. I wasn’t interested in engineering, so that I was left with medicine or business. I couldn’t decide.

My uncle suggested that I do a work placement(实习) to experience it for a month in an international company followed by a month in a hospital. After that, I could make a decision. It seemed like a good idea.

I was accepted for a month’s placement at a foreign bank in Karachi. I got a feel of how the world of finance functioned, made new friends, and generally enjoyed the mostly easy­going work surroundings.

The month passed rapidly, and soon I began working at a leading hospital in Karachi. The experience couldn’t have been more different. The hospital had a stressful environment. The days started early (at 7 am, compared to 9 am at the bank), and were filled with endless duties. And the night calls! This was crazy, working all day, through the night, and again the next day.

I began thinking about my two experiences. The bank had offered a more relaxing atmosphere, better working hours and less stress. The hospital was full of excitement, but studying and training were difficult. It seemed that the business choice was going to win out.

Near the end of my month at the hospital, I was driving home after an especially busy night call. In front of me was a public bus, with college students sitting on the top. As the driver weaved through (穿梭) traffic, I could see the boys shaking from side to side.

Suddenly, a boy fell off the back of the bus.

The next day, when I went to the hospital to see the boy, all his family got up, with grateful smiles on their faces.

3 . When I was five years old, I had a toy cat named Smokey. I took the brown cat everywhere I went.

One day my parents and I went to the store with my toy cat. I remember I liked ______ with my parents. I always imagined that my friend Smokey and I were going on a(n) ______together. When I walked into the store I went ______to the teddy bears. I made my toy cat Smokey play with his new friends Ted and Beary. By the time we got all the things we needed my parents told me it was time to ______. They were already by the checkout counter ______ I left immediately. In my hurry I left the toy cat on the shelf.

We walked to the car and I started to help my parents put ______ we bought inside.

Then we all started to ______ home. But then I realized that I left my toy cat at the store. So I started to cry, ______my legs. But my parents didn’t want to go back. So I   ______ them to go back to get my cat. I ran into the store as fast as I could. Smokey was just sitting there in the same place, ______ . I ran to my toy cat and ______.

I still have my toy cat sitting on my desk. I haven’t played with it ______I was five or six. Sometimes when I look through my desk and see it, the ______brings back many ______ memories. Even the ______ things in life, like a brown cat named Smokey, can influence you in a very personal way.

5 . It was Sunday. I had one last patient to see. I _________her room in_________ hurry and stood at the doorway. She was an older woman, sitting at the edge of the bed, _________to put socks on her swollen feet. I crossed the threshold, spoke quickly to the nurse, and glanced at her chart (表格) noting she was in stable condition.

I was almost in the clear. I leaned (倚靠) on the bed looking down at her. She asked _________ I could help put on her socks. _________, I began to say something like this: “How are you feeling? Your sugars and blood pressure were high but they’re better today. The nurse mentioned you’re _________ to see your son who’s visiting you today. It’s nice to have family visit from far away. I bet you really _________ seeing him.”

She stopped me _________ a strict voice.   “Sit down, doctor. This is my story, not your story.” I was _________ and embarrassed. I sat down. I helped her with the __________.

She began to tell me that her __________ son lived around the corner from her. She just had this one child but she had not seen him in five years. She believed that the stress of this contributed __________ to her health problems.

After hearing her story and putting on her socks, I asked her if there was anything __________ I could do for her. She __________ her head no and smiled. __________she wanted me to do was to listen.

6 . As a young man, Al was a skilled artist. He had a wife and two fine sons. One night, his oldest son developed a stomachache. Thinking it was only some common illness, neither Al nor his wife took the condition very seriously. But the illness became serious, and the boy died suddenly that night.

Knowing the death could have been prevented if he had only realized the seriousness of the situation, Al’s emotional health was weakened under the effect of his guilt. To make matters worse, his wife left him a short time later, leaving him alone with his six­year­old younger son. The hurt and pain of the two situations were more than Al could handle, and he began to take in a lot of alcohol and became an alcoholic．

As the alcoholism progressed, Al began to lose everything he had—his home, his land, his art objects, everything. Eventually Al died alone in a San Francisco motel room.

When I heard of Al’s death, I thought he was a loser because he ended his life with nothing material to show for it.

As time went by, I began to change my judgment. You see, I knew Al’s now adult son, Ernie. He is one of the kindest, most caring, most loving men I have ever known. I watched Ernie with his children and saw the free flow of love between them. I knew that kindness and caring had to come from somewhere.

One day, Ernie told me, “From my earliest memories as a child until I left home at 18, my dad came into my room every night, gave me a kiss and said, ‘I love you, son.’”

Tears came to my eyes as I realized what a fool I had been to judge Al as a failure. He had not left any material possessions behind. But he left love to his son, who became one of the finest, most giving men I have ever known.

7 . One morning a deer rushed into a courtyard where a little boy was playing. The deer hooked the boy’s clothing with its antlers (角). This scared the little boy so much that he let out a loud cry which brought his mother running out to see what was happening. She came out just in time and saw the deer running off towards the mountains with her little boy.

The mother was so afraid! She ran after the deer as fast as she could, and not too far away，she found her son sitting on the grass safely. Seeing his mother, the little boy laughed and reached out his arms to her. His mother held him tight. She was so happy that she cried.

She hurried back with her dear son. When she got home, she was amazed at what she saw. The huge tree behind her house had fallen down while she was out running after the deer. The whole house was destroyed under the tee’s great weight.

Then the mother remembered the day about a year before when a deer, fleeing from a hunter, had run into her house. She felt sorry for the frightened deer, so she covered it with some clothes and let it return to the forest.

The deer seemed to understand that she had saved its life. When leaving, it kept bowing its head to her, as if it were thanking her for her kindness.

She never imagined that the deer could remember her help. It somehow knew the tree was going to fall and kill her and her son, so it came back to save them.

When the mother remembered all this, she said, “Saving the life of another is the same as saving the life of your own.”

It was somewhere between spring and summer, and my mom and I were driving through the countryside. Back then, I was 13 years old, and always felt unhappy with Mom. But I didn’t know that this trip was going to be a special one.

A pot of flowers sat in the back seat, whose heavenly fragrance(香味)filled the car. Suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, my mom stopped the car. “What are you doing?” I shouted, fearing that the car had broken down and we’d be trapped there, so far from home. But that wasn’t the case. My mom jumped out of the car, grabbing(抓)the flowers from the back seat. “It’ll just be a minute,” she called back through the open windows.

I impatiently looked at the side of the road before finding a little sign showing that it was a nursing home. I looked back to the building, a little annoyed, as my mom reappeared ——empty- handed.

Before she started the car, curiosity drove me to ask, “Do you know someone there?” She shook her head. “Then what did you do with the flowers?” She smiled slightly, “I gave them to the receptionist (前台接待员).” “What?” She laughed at my confusion. “I told the receptionist to give the flowers to whoever needed them, especially those who haven’t gotten any in a while.”

I kept silent for a moment. Not long after we continued our driving, I spoke again, “Did you leave your name?” To this, she answered instantly, “No. Leaving flowers there for someone who will appreciate them makes me feel good, which is enough of a thank for me.”

Suddenly, still thinking about Mom’s deeds, I heard something burst loudly. It was our car that broke down! Nothing could be worse, because neither my mom nor I understood how to repair it, and we didn’t know where the garage was. It also seemed impossible to wait for any passer-by, since we had seen so few people along the way.

We were worrying about what could be done.

As we drove along, a flower shop came into sight on the road.

9 . In 1992, when Xi Jinping worked in Fuzhou, he came across a newspaper report about “My Guling,” written by a Chinese student studying in the United States.

The report described an unsuccessful attempt by an American couple to revisit the small town of Guling in southern China. Her husband, Milton Gardner, spent 10 years here as a child before moving back to the United States in 1911.

Gardner later became a professor of physics at the University of California. He has been eager to return to Guling since China and the US established diplomatic relations in 1979. But because of his failing health, he never made the trip.

Gardner spent his final hours saying “Kuling, Kuling,” according to the newspaper.

After his death, his wife, Elizabeth Gardner, decided to carry out her husband’s last wish and has since made several trips to China to try to find the small city her husband loved so much. Her efforts were in vain as she had few clues (clues) as to the exact location of the town. But a Chinese student of the Gardner family identified the town as Guling, near Fuzhou, from a postmark on some of the late Mr. Gardner’s old mail. The student wrote an article about Gardner’s story and sent it to the People’s Daily, one of China’s leading newspapers.

“After I read the story, I immediately contacted Mrs. Gardner through the relevant authorities and invited her to visit,” told the press. There she met nine of her husband’s childhood friends, all of whom were over 90 at the time.

“She said she would cherish the friendship (bond) between her husband and the Chinese people, because after seeing the beautiful Guling and the warmth and goodwill of the Chinese people with her own eyes, she now understands why her husband is so attached to China.”

I believe there are many such touching stories between the Chinese and American people.

10 . Colin Coleman was a 16-year-old employee who had been working for 6 months at a Kroger grocery store where Josh York_______does the shopping, so they became_______with each other. Unluckily, Josh York has impaired_______, so he needs some help to see the products at the grocery store.

One day when Josh went to Kroger for his_______grocery shopping, Colin recognized him and immediately began to guide him around the store and help him find what he_______. He didn’t stop until Josh’s_______was entirely checked off. Colin guided the shopping cart around_______that could be obstacles. Throughout this moment of_______, Colin and Josh were overheard making small talk and finding out one another’s lives.

Another customer saw this_______act and took a picture of it, where the two really worked together as a(n)____________to get the shopping done. The picture____________being posted on the social media, where it received 46 thousand likes, and 9.9 thousand shares.

Josh York really____________Colin’s actions, not just because he helped him around the store, but because Colin made sure to____________the experience with respect and kindness. Colin often helps____________out, especially Josh. Even though Colin doesn’t seem impressed with his own kind behavior, lots of other people felt their____________ are lifted because of him.