3 . One summer night, my friends and I stole into the Jordans’ backyard and started harvesting their sweet, juicy raspberries (树莓). We were enjoying every bite of the tasty berries_______Mr Jordan came charging outside all of a sudden.

“What are you boys doing out here?” he yelled as my friends ran off_______all directions. He attempted to catch one or two as they rushed past him, but they were too_______for the older gentleman to catch. Within seconds, the boys_______into the dark of the summer night. All except me.

However, speed was never my_______. I took the tongue-lashing(痛骂) that Mr Jordan gave me as he marched me down the block to my house, where my mother took over and scolded me_______. My friends said they could hear every_______word she spoke from the darkness of our backyard, where they had gathered to_______their escape and to observe my capture.

They teased me about it for days afterwards, while all I could do was complain about how_______it was that I was the only one who had to pay the price. After about a week of this, I complained to my father about the inequality of the situation. Dad said, “You took raspberries without________, and you get exactly the punishment you deserved.”

“But what about the other guys?” I asked. “They didn’t get punished at all!”

“That’s not my concern nor should it be yours,” Dad said. “You can’t________what happens to others. You can only________what happens to you. You made a bad choice that night, and you were punished for it.”

________the duration of the following years, I come to realize there is no guarantee that life will treat us fairly. That’s why we can’t________comparing our lives with the lives of others. Like Dad said, that isn’t our________.

4 . Last year, I fell into a deep depression. It was caused by a car accident. I was in physical recovery from the accident and suddenly all of my old hurts started coming up. I found myself crying on the floor of my apartment.     1     I didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

Let’s pause for a moment. I don’t want you to bleed with me or to pity me. But I also don’t want to cover my reality. And the truth is, beneath the shiny photos you see on the Internet, I’m still a work in progress.     2     Like all of us, I’m doing the best I can and making the best choices I can. Back to the evening when I found myself lying on the floor.

What happened next? I started writing.

There was a TV show I absolutely loved. I started writing fan fiction. It provided a beautiful place of escape from the thoughts swimming in my head.     3     I started to feel like myself again.

After completing four-part fan fiction totaling around 12,000 words, I had an idea. I should write a novel to give a hand to those like me.

I continued writing, having no idea where it would lead. I didn’t know I would publish it but, after much resistance on my part I finally made the decision to publish the book under my own name. No pen name. No hiding on the deep bowels of the Internet.

And so here we are.     4     Sure, readers will enjoy the twists and turns. And I can see myself in the character.     5     I wrote it to help people. To give them a place to belong to. A place to talk about this fictional world. The very same thing that saved me last year.

If the story provides this to just one person, I’ve done my job.

5 . A family had had a cat for years. Then one day, the children finally _______ to persuade their parents to get them a dog as well. So a little Labrador (拉布拉多犬) _______.

The dog was so _______ that everyone wanted to hold him and he charmed everyone by just loving them. The cat made it very clear that she did not welcome another _______ in the house, but the little dog _______ her everywhere, trying to make friends with the angry cat.

The family thought the cat would _______like the dog.

Then one day the family heard horrible _______ from their back yard. They ran to the _______ to see what was happening. They lived in the suburbs and so they saw a real lynx (猞猁) was just planning on _______ their cat for lunch. The poor cat had nowhere to run or hide. It would only be a matter of seconds and their cat would be ________.

And then suddenly a black lightning ran to the cat. The little dog ________ the big lynx with all its strength. He was not frightened, nor did he stop to think. He saw his ________ in trouble and did what had to be done. The family opened the window and started yelling and the father ran to the yard. The lynx soon disappeared into the ________.

And ever since that day the cat’s behaviour towards the dog ________ totally. Now it was the cat that followed the hero dog everywhere.

So we can draw a conclusion: if ever anyone is ________ towards you, don’t turn your back on them. They may not rescue your life — but their kindness can certainly rescue your day!

6 . My wife and I moved into our home two years ago. We had a yard with a lot of ________. Very often when we have flowers, Denise or I would plant some between the rocks, just to add some ________ to the area.

Last summer, I found a tiny little plant in the yard that I could not immediately identify. I knew I didn’t plant it and Denise said she didn’t either.

We decided to let it ________ growing until we could find out what it was.

Weeks passed and as I made my way back to the ________ plant, it appeared to be a sunflower. I decided to ________ the weeds (杂草) around it. As I pulled rocks from the area to get to the weeds, I noticed something ________.The sunflower had not ________ where I saw it begin. It actually had begun under a big rock and grown under and around it to reach the ________.

That’s when I ________ that if a tiny little sunflower didn’t let a big rock stand in its way of developing, we too have the ability of doing the same thing. If we ________ ourselves like that little sunflower, we can reach where we ________ to go and get what we need for growth.

We need to believe in ourselves knowing we have the ________ to achieve our goals. Like the sunflower, it knew it had the ability to get over the rocks because it had ________ in itself that it would succeed. Stand tall like the sunflower and be ________ of who and what we are, and then the environment will begin to ________ us. We will find a way to go under or around any “rocks” in order to reach our goals.

9 . There’s that old saying: How you do one thing is how you do everything.     1    , it shows in everything that you do, even when playing music.

I recently went to a concert with some other musicians in town (many of whom I was meeting for the first time).     2    , I spent more time in my head thinking about my drumming instead of actually paying attention to what was going on. This time though, I found that I was more attentive and was able to support the other musicians more through my playing.

    3    . And I could feel the audience was enjoying the music more too, because the music was no longer about me, it was about all of us connecting through the universal language of music.

Afterwards, the musicians I played with told me they felt like our hearts were connected while playing, and that we were able to achieve a new level of playing together thanks to our collected approach. When playing, we didn’t consider how to show ourselves off.     4    .

I believe that the best musicians in the world have this in common; which is to see past their own values, and to listen to/connect with their audience and fellow musicians. I’ve realized all of this thanks to my practice of being a more compassionate and caring person.

So, I would like to thank everyone on this website for opening your hearts and showing me how to be a more caring person.     5    , but also through my music, and to those who listen.