1 . One day, Fainsilber Katz, who is 60 years old, went to visit her favorite ______ . She parked her car and ______ the beach with everything she ______ for the day: a chair, a beach umbrella, flippers, sunglasses and a cooler. With so many things, it was ______ for her to keep her body balance when climbing over some rocks.

When she reached a part of the beach entrance, she found there was a large step down. Unsure whether she could take the step ______ , she stopped, ______ what to do. ______ a young man, about 30 years old came over to Fainsilber Katz, and asked, “Do you need some ______ ?” “Sure!” Fainsilber Katz ______ .

The man took some of the things that Fansilber Katz was ______ . Then he gave Fainsilber Katz his ______ to walk her down the ______ . Fainsilber Katz felt ______ .

The man’s act of ______ comforts Fainsilber Katz and reminds her that when life gets hard, one doesn’t have to do it ______ . Where there is a help, there is a hope.

2 . My photographs are the items I would definitely take or guard in case of an emergency. But what else? This was the question I asked myself as a ________ came toward us.

Unlike some friends and________, we decided to stay in our home. We didn’t have to choose what we would save by ________ it into the car, but we still had to decide what required protection by storing it in our walk-in closet. Surprisingly, few items made the cut - an obvious ________ that we had surrounded ourselves with beautiful yet unessential items. We needed ________ for the truly important things: ourselves.

Because when you hear the roar of the winds, or when something ________ hard against your windows, you don’t think of photos.You don’t worry about your big screen TV, or those paintings you’ve covered with towels to protect them, or that ________ car that you still haven’t finished paying for.

As ________ goes on outside, this is what you think: My children, are they OK? Are their impact-resistant(耐冲击的) windows working ________? Are their roofs keeping out the damage? My grandchildren, are they crying out in fear? Are they ________ as their own grandparents are? My relatives — yes, even those I try to avoid — have they ________ the worst of it? My friends, will they be forced to move somewhere else permanently? You don’t think about what you own but about what you love; what money can’t buy back.

Months and years after the hurricane, I often told people that there are two parts to ________ this kind of catastrophe: the horror of the hurricane itself and then the rebuilding that follows. The ________ together of a life, however, will take months, perhaps years.

But we will do it, ________ and as a community. Of that I have no doubt. In fact, I’ll make one more prediction. Piece by piece, item by item, we will once again collect the material possessions that decorate a home. I hate to admit this, but lessons learned ________ fear aren’t always long-lasting.

3 . In high school, I got my first job at the local hardware (五金制品) store, all thanks to Mr. Anderson, our neighbor. He offered me a chance to _________ there. My parents gave the thumbs (拇指) up, so I _________ the world of part-time jobs.

My daily tasks weren’t too _________. I tidied up shelves and helped _________ find what they needed. But working in a(n) _________ hardware store during the summer turned out to be more _________ than I thought. I had to manage between helping customers with screws and refilling shelves with goods.

At dinner, I’d _________ tales of my day, admitting that the _________ was proving more difficult than I first thought. My dad, who had his share of hands-on experience fixing cars, would laugh and share _________ from his early mechanic (机械师) days.

He’d say, “Jobs like this teach you more than just about money; they __________ your character.” Back then, I didn’t realize that my summer __________ at the hardware store was turning out to be more than just a way to __________ some extra money.

As the summer went on, I found myself gaining a __________ understanding of responsibility and the essence of hard work. The simple __________ in the store became life lessons, teaching me to appreciate and __________ the people who work hard every day to make everything go smoothly.

4 . “Keep staring! I might do a _______!” That’s the message on a T shirt of mine.

People stare at me all the time so I thought this shirt would be funny. See, I’m a dwarf(侏儒). Most of the time people aren’t trying to be _______ they just haven’t seen many dwarfs like me before. I can_______ that,but I also want to let them know that I see them staring.   

I was born with achondroplasia(软骨发育不全症), the most _______form of dwarfism. Right now, I am almost four feet tall and that’s _______ as tall as I’m going to get.

I’m not going to pretend my height isn’t a _______. It is light switches and _______ are usually too high for me. It takes me almost three steps to _______ one step of an average size adult and my mom has to shorten almost all of my _______ .

But everyone faces challenges. You have to face them with a good attitude. So, I have a long barbecue fork to ________ things from shelves and drive a car with the help of pedal ________. If all else fails, I ask for things. The way I see it, I can do just about ________that an average size person can do. I’ll never play professional sports, but I have no problem ________ my limits. It may take me longer and it may be harder, but I can still do it.

My shirt shows people the ________ me a kid with a sense of humor. And maybe that’s the trick showing others that I’m just like them. I’m just shorter, but I’m ________ of who I am.

5 . I stopped at the top of the hill, my right foot pressed back against the coaster brake (脚刹) on my bicycle. All I needed to do was to_______ my foot, and I would be swept down the hill. But I _______ . To my 12-year-old eyes, the hill was a mountain and the slope was _______ steep, which prevented me taking up the challenge.

When I returned to my hometown more than three decades later with my friends Dave and Scott, we _______ to the base of the hill and walked our bikes _______ . We stood once more at the top of that hill, looking down from the edge, but this time with a _______ set of eyes. To our surprise, now the _______ seemed more obvious, even larger than we’d imagined as kids. We knew that once we started down, there was no stopping or _______ . And right at the bottom of the hill, we would have to turn left to _______ dumping into the stream.

Dave went first. Then I was next. My heart was pounding. I ________ on the bike for a moment. Then I released the brake and yielded myself to ________ . I skidded to a stop next to Dave. Scott followed. The three of us spent several minutes laughing, draining off the adrenaline (肾上腺素) . We had ________ the childhood challenge of riding our bikes down the steep hill.

We didn’t know it then, but we’d face many similar ________ over the years — leaving home, getting married, moving to a different town, starting a new job, and many others — that would cause us to pause at the ________ and collect our courage ________ we launched ourselves down the trails of our lives.

6 . At the age of 12, I withdrew into my bedroom with my guitar. I had neither musical talent — many_______music lessons had proved that — nor musical training. My fingers ached as I tried to press down on the strings without making them buzz (发出嗡嗡声). _______, I worked my way through 2-, 3- and even 5-chord (和旋) songs and discovered the _______ thrills of these musical notes. No one _______ me to do this. I did this myself and of my own free will for a week, and the sense of happiness－ true happiness _______ in absorption in something － has _______ me. Fifty years later, that week’s self-directed practice became a model and _______ for almost every meaningful thing I have done since. It makes me understand the _______ between achievement and accomplishment.

The world favors achievement while _______ accomplishment. The former is the completion of the task imposed (强加) from the outside — the ________ being a path to the next task. The latter is the end point of an activity we have chosen, whose bonus is the sudden ________ of happiness.

The seeking of accomplishment always ________ people. I learned so long ago in that ________ week that simply lifting one finger from the guitar’s C chord, you should get the most moving ________ in tune. I didn’t know then it was a major 7th chord, a favorite of some masters’. I just ________ accomplishment. That’s real human “achievement”.

7 . Ida Keeling was 67, weak and sick, when her daughter Cheryl suggested a run to her. Cheryl thought that maybe what would pull her mother out from dark cloud was something that would get her _______ again.

Keeling lived a hard life when young, growing up _______ in Harlem, and doing hard work in factories during the Great Depression. She had _______ her husband early, and two of her four children died in drug-related incidents in 1978 and 1981.

Keeling had sunk into a deep _______, her health had begun to _______, and her daughters began to _______ that they soon might be losing their mother as well.

It had been decades since Keeling had done any _______, and she would later recall that first “mini-run” feeling as if it would never end. But when it did, “I just threw off all my bad _______.”

She hasn’t stopped running since, and it’s no longer as _______ as it was during that first meet. “I was just exercising then,” she says ________ regarding that first run, “and now I’m all over the world.”

When she’s not running, she must be ________. She’s in the gym three to four days a week on a ________ basis. Part of her healthy diet is occasional consumption of alcohol mixed with her coffee or water to ________ blood circulation.

She’s written a book about her ________, titled Can’t Nothing Bring Me Down: Chasing Myself in the Race Against Time. Her ________ is also suitable for everyone: “Every day is another day forward.”

8 . My son “graduated” from elementary school this week. I put the word in quotations(引语)because as a rising 6th grader, he wasn’t receiving a _______ —and because the school used a _______ term to describe the milestone. On reflection, the school’s term felt even more _______ than the traditional name of the _______ of one stage of a person’s education: they called it Moving On.

At the Moving On Ceremony, each member of the 5th grade class _______ one sentence of reflection on what they were thankful for or would _______ about their primary school years. One _______ words caught my attention — he said he was _______ for what he called “a step on the ladder”. I was really _______ by this 11-year-old’s ability to summarize the emotional heart of the “moving on” moment. That was totally beyond my imagination.

Growing up is the work of a ________ — a ladder that has no top. And the gift of a “moving on” moment is that we get to celebrate the firm foothold   (立足点)we’ve gained on our ________ step, even as we reach upward toward the next. We get to ________ —not beyond what we’ve learned and accomplished so far, ________ because we are able to build on today’s experiences to move ahead toward tomorrow.

We look forward to our son ________ more graduations in his lifetime. But perhaps more than that, we pray that he will have the ability to recognize many “moving on” moments to celebrate and enjoy with ________ .

9 . Do you enjoy the Olympics? I certainly do. Every four years we get to see the best of the best competing for the _______. But sometimes the best inspiration _______ those who don’t win.

In 1988, Eddie Edwards became the first athlete since 1928 to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping. He had no money, no equipment, no _______ — and some called him the great British loser.

“When you _______, it’s probably about 500 or 600 feet high. So you do have to be not a little _______ to go down, but probably a lot.” Eddie recalled, “I got out and the crowd started _______ ‘Eddie! Eddie!’. It’s the most _______ feeling in the world.”

How did Eddie do? Eddie’s British record of 71 meters _______ him in 58th place — 19 meters behind the competitor who placed 57th. But it didn’t _______. His fans loved him for other reasons. If you ask anyone in Britain, “Who won the Olympic ski jump in 1988?” Almost no one could tell you. ________, if you ask, “Who is Eddie Edwards?” They’ll tell you all about the crazy ski jump guy who they still remember and ________ to this day. The British people were proud of him for just trying, thus ________ didn’t matter a bit. He will be forever and ________ memorized by his country for doing what no one else had done in 60 years.

So what ________ thing are you afraid to do? Take Eddie’s example and just go for it. You might just become a ________.

10 . Many years ago, I was on an early morning flight to Ecuador. ______, during such long journeys, I would put my headphones and go to sleep. ______, on this particular day, I decided to take a little risk.

I ______ the silence and started a conversation with the man sitting next to me. I learned that this companion was a ______ and we had a fascinating conversation.

Mid-flight, I gathered the courage to take another ______, sharing with him a book proposal I put together for something I was doing in my class. He read it, but politely declined it. That risk didn’t ______. Upon landing, we exchanged contact information.

Months later, I ______ him, inviting him to my class to discuss a project on redesigning the book. I shared my students’ project videos. One particular project caught Mark’s   ______.

He expressed a desire to meet these students. I admitted I was a little bit ______ for he seemed more interested in working with my students than with me.

After meeting the students, I, together with him and his colleagues, had a dinner together where life once again showed a(an) ______ turn. During this dinner, one of his editors asked me if I’d ever considered writing a book. I shared the ______ proposal that I had showed his boss a year earlier. Within a fortnight, we had a contract, and within two years, over a million books had been ______ around the world.

This journey may seem lucky, but it ______ a series of small risks, beginning with a ______ “hello.” Anyone can follow this path by ______ these small risks and finally increase your chances of being lucky.