2 . I lost my elderly mother a few weeks ago. Actually, my mother had fallen over during the night and had not been able to get up again. She had woken up the neighbors by banging(敲击) on the wall. The _________ called an ambulance, which took her off to the hospital.

My mother has _________ thought that hospitals are a real horror. She believes that doctors and hospitals give you fatal diseases. My father went to hospital a year ago, and after a few weeks, he _________. The fact that he was also in the final _________ of lung cancer was certainly related, but by my mother’s logic, my father’s death was _________ with the hospital.

When a neighbor _________ me up and told me that my mother had been taken off in an ambulance, the first thing I did was similar, which was to ring Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The paramedics had told my neighbor that my mother would _________ be taken there, _________ I was told that no one by that name had been _________. So they gave me the numbers of two other West Midland hospitals. Neither of them said that they were holding my mother. I rang the police and asked them to find her, but the nice officer said he could only do that if she had been reported as a(n)__________ person.

It took six calls to __________ my mother. She had been in Queen Elizabeth Hospital all along, but because their computer system hadn’t been updated overnight, there was no record of her __________. My mother had spent more than a __________ in the hospital when it turned out there was nothing __________ with her. I managed to get her out within 10 days, but only by agreeing that in the future, she would live downstairs. In return, the hospital said they would __________ for a social worker to visit the house three or four times a day.

Luckily, my mother is safe. Thank all the people who have given their help to us.

3 . I had driven home to celebrate my 38th birthday with my mother. When I arrived, I found her sitting proudly at the kitchen table, a chocolate cake and two boxes wrapped in orange ribbon(丝带) in front of her. “Happy birthday!” she said, _______ at the boxes. “Open them. ”

As she knows me_______ than anyone, she’d gotten me exactly what I wanted — running clothes. I hugged her and thanked her and proceeded to eat the cake.

“Too many_______, ” I said, not really caring.

“You’ll run them off tomorrow, ” Mom said.

Many adult children with a parent suffering from_______ memory will tell you there was one day that _______ to them that their relationship with their mother or father would be forever changed.

For me that day_______two weeks later, when I drove back for another short_______. I came upon exactly the same _______: my mom sitting at the kitchen table; a chocolate cake resting next to two boxes wrapped in curly ribbon. The ribbon was green this time. That was the only _______. “Happy birthday!” my mom said.

I was totally confused. “What’s going on?” I asked. She smiled, “Can’t I celebrate my daughter’s birthday?”

This was no________. This was real life, and since my mother clearly only wanted to make me ________, I pushed aside my fear and fulfilled my role as the ________ daughter. I hugged her, thanked her and ________ the clothes… I did not mention to her that we’d done all this two weeks ago.

My house is her world now. My mother and I have the________ conversation roughly 10 times a day. ________, I consider it a pleasure, because every minute is new for her.

5 . When young, my parents often told me that it was time to teach a man everything. I didn’t understand and wondered why time had such a big influence ______ a person. I thought I could grow up quickly to find it out as a (n) ______. But now, ______ I come to knock at the door of adulthood, I feel ______ to express my own ______ on this saying. I know that I’m just a high school student with very ______ experiences. There are still many things ______ me in the future, yet I would like to express myself in a childish voice.

I once read this sentence, “To make this world a happy place to live in, you’d better change yourself and your heart, instead of the whole world.” I was ______. It made me think about life ______. There are so many things around us that ______ our will We can’t force life to ______ our wishes. The earth won’t stop turning no matter whether we accept it or not. What we can do is just to make ourselves ______ the world. I think we learn to accept ______ life gives us, no matter whether it’s the spring sunlight or the winter snowfall, and try to be ______.

Deeply moved by the pop song Grandmother (by Jay Chou), I always try to catch every pleasant thing in my life, but now I see I can’t catch most of the pleasant moments. It is more ______ that they slip by and leave you feeling ______ that I’m not just living ______ myself and that there are the others around me I ______ think of. They all pay attention to my growing up, even if it’s just a little progress.

Everyone has his or her own attitude towards life, positive or ______. It doesn’t matter, I think. There is one ______ that should be obeyed—and that’s to make this world a better place to live in.

6 . “Have you checked the oil in the car?” my father used to say to me, his version of “Hello, hope you are well.” Sometimes our phone calls would begin with an inquiry about the oil and end with one about the oil.

Fathers have a lot of love to give, but it’s often supplied through the medium of practical advice. In my experience: it’s mostly about my motor vehicle. My student car — an old green Toyota bought for $500 — was the vehicle for which my father carved his paternal (父亲的) affections. I bet it’s always been so.

Why can’t fathers just say “I love you” or “It’s great to see you”? The point is: You just have to translate from the language that is Fatherlish. Listen closely enough and the phrase “love you” can be heard in the slightly lengthier “I could come around Saturday and replace the seal around the base of your toilet because I assume that thing is getting really smelly.” The affectionate phrase “You made my life better from the moment you were born” may be rarely heard, but there is the more common “I’ll hold the ladder while you get the leaves off the roof.”

When I was 17, I went on my first road trip in that Toyota. My father stood on the corner. “Highways are dangerous,” he said, “so don’t try overtaking anything faster than a horse and carriage. And take a break every two hours. And every time you stop for gas, you really should check the oil.” At that time we thought his speech was pretty funny and would repeat “horse-and-carriage” every time I sped up to overtake some other speeding vehicles.

Dad’s long gone now. But after all these years, I realize that had I owned a copy of the Fatherlish-to-English dictionary, I’d have understood that the speech my friend and I so laughed at was simply dad’s attempt at affection.

7 . “I hate New Orleans! I wanna go home!” I _______ to my mother as we moved boxes. _______, going home was not easy because my home was 1,100 miles away.

I was born and _______ in Virginia. Virginia was my home, and I never expected that to _______. Last year, my parents decided to move to my mom’s hometown, New Orleans.

Only three months after my parents made the _______ to move, I found myself moving boxes into our new house. My announcement to my mother that I _______ the new environment was mostly due to the fact that I felt like my entire life had been turned upside down. Far away from almost everyone and everything I had ever known, I was _______. To make matters worse, I was starting high school in two weeks. Starting high school is a scary _______ on its own.

I spent my first few months in New Orleans, _______ wanting to go back to Virginia. But after that, I ________ that I had a choice. I could continue missing my old home, or I could start trying to build a new home right here. I ________ the latter.

As soon as I stopped giving all my ________ to how much I missed Virginia, I was able to begin accepting the love that local people were giving me. I joined some clubs at school, which gave me the chance to make friends. My neighbors taught me how to cook some local food, and I found a wonderful ________ of neighbors. Overall, I seized every possible opportunity to ________ myself and to rebuild my life.

Because of my resilience(适应力) in creating a new home for myself and the ________ that local people have shown to me, home is right here.

8 . A culture’s values can be mirrored by its humour. Humour has been evaluated by many great minds such as Thomas Hobbes, who disliked humour, and thought laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from sudden thought of feeling far better than others. He thought humour to be a negative quality of human narrow-mindedness.

However, Mordechai Gordon, PhD of Education, insists that humour allows us to view the world from an angle that is amusing rather than serious. I agree with Gordon. Learning to look at the world through humour is important.

In the United States, every four years an election occurs. Without humour as a way to express their feelings, how would Americans be willing to support the election? Television shows like The Daily Show have become important parts of American culture. They are affecting the masses by unconsciously inputting politics into their minds. They make politics fun.

Of course, politics is only one type of humour. Social humour helps people through the twists and turns of the human condition. American pop culture promotes an unhealthy self-image. On the topic of self-image, Hari Kondabolu stands out. He has a joke about the popular musical group The Pussycat Dolls, describing their hit song Don’t Cha as a negative representation of women. He points out the obvious offence in American culture.

A study from Loyola University Maryland has shown that humour is one determining factor in selecting a partner. Among other things, people look for an outstanding funny bone in a potential partner.

Of course, humour is not always used for good purposes. Humour can be linked to vulgarity (粗俗) and racism, but, like everything else, it has the potential to unite human beings by allowing us to laugh at ourselves, our failures and our connections with one another.

Though life may seem tough and depressing at times, all I have to do is look in the mirror at my increased wrinkles (皱纹) to know that there is comedy out there that even Chaplin wasn’t aware of. With that in mind, remember to laugh with humanity.