Just like everyone，I have experienced ups and downs in my life. I am an aerospace engineer（航空工程师）from India. I was told by my relatives，close friends and others that it was _________ for a non-IT student to pursue（继续进行）a master's degree in IT and graduate from a US university.

I had never taken courses _________ to computers or programming. I was never interested in being a _________，but things changed. Computers became my companion and I _________ how dependent on them I was. I _________ imagining the backend processes happening inside the CPU and they amazed me. That's why I _________ to pursue a master's degree in IT.

At first，it was too _________. Coming from a middle-class family，the huge cost was a big _________. My English accent was terrible. Most _________，the course seemed impossible at first. But I never __________.

I got a few offers，but I decided to choose my university __________ it promises students to help them learn practically. During my first month，it was difficult to understand the American's __________ and finish my assignments. But I never gave up. I walked two miles to the __________ every day so that I could use my travel money to buy a meal. I started looking for __________ and I got an offer to work as a student assistant.

I took it as a __________, and I believed that hard work was my strength. Right now I am graduating with good grades and a job offer from a company that has asked me to start right after ________.

If you want to achieve something, you need to __________ yourself and start working on your __________.

Hard work always pays off. To be __________, you need to start from somewhere and always question yourself about the limits of how far you would go to __________ your goals.

   During my school days, I was one of those shy and distant kids who would just sit in a corner for an entire day. For me, my books were my _____ world. Even during breaks, I used to sit in a corner of the _____ and see others play games. It was not because I wasn’t interested in _____ others or making new friends, but because I always felt lacking in energy when _____ others. I always had an opinion that if I attempted to be close to new _____ I would be rejected. And I just didn’t want to _____ a rejection.

Once during my English class, my teacher shared a(n) _____ with us. It was about King Bruce and a spider. Although having lost a battle, King Bruce _____ in the end as he was _____ by a little spider. The way the spider dealt with rejections ______ me a lot. I myself started ______ the movements of spiders at home. Once, a spider took around an hour to reach the top of a wall and I ______ knocked it down. To my ______, within seconds it started making its ______ up again.

For me, this ______ was a game changer. I realized that rejections are ______ a failure. The world may treat me ______, but I can stand up and start working again. There will be a time when people would like and ______ me. At present, I ______ mixing with people, learning new things and making new friends. I think there are just no such things as rejections or failures as everything can ______ at any moment.

   I left England for Sydney in September. It was a career move for my husband, and our 20-year-old daughter was feeling adventurous and decided to come, too. However, just before leaving England, my 79-year-old mother suffered a stroke (中风). Being strong and independent, she continued to live at home with the help of social services. But she couldn’t look after the garden. I thought how wonderful it would be if there was an organization offering volunteer help. Friends asked me what I planned to do in Australia, and I told them I would be looking for a volunteer position with a gardening charitable organization. Imagine my surprise when I found just the organization I had been looking for — Easy Care Gardening (ECG)!

There are several reasons why I volunteer for ECG. Firstly, as a newcomer to Australia I meet many people who, like me, volunteer some of their time. We cover a large age range, but all love gardens and helping others.

Secondly, through working with ECG I have been lucky enough to explore Sydney’s North Shore that I might not have had the opportunity to visit otherwise.

Finally, there are all those wonderful people we call “clients (客户)”, but they are more like friends when we visit them often and tend their gardens. What great people I have met, and the stories they have to tell — the family histories, where they come from and the reasons for immigrating to Australia. I find it a privilege to have access to private gardens which, in many cases, have been the joy of their owners for many years. Each one is individual and reflects the character, needs and the history of each family. Indeed, the gardens reflect the multicultural and historical background of Sydney.

   It was Christmas evening. I just _______ home from the nearby grocery store with all kinds of things. The kitchen was _______ with brown bags and boxes. On seeing me coming back, my youngest son, Isaiah, reached me and _______ if I would play a game with him.

I took Isaiah's _______ . He stood there and his green eyes were _______ . “Here is a Christmas _______   for you. Please find it. You can look for something silver. ” he said. I began to do it. I _______ the table in the corner and some other places.

After a few seconds, I saw there was a _______ snow globe on the top of the piano. It was silvery and beautiful. I held the cool _______ in my hands. Isaiah said to me that it was to ________ the one that he had broken the year before. I was puzzled completely. So I bent(弯曲) my ________ beside him. He added how he ________ enough money and asked his elder brother,Logan, to help him buy this one to ________ the broken one. They just wanted to give me a (n) ________ .

Logan nodded and smiled. When I ________ the key on the bottom of the globe, the quiet room was full of music. Isaiah said,“Mum, do you remember how I by accident ________ your snow globe? It broke on the ground ________ the music was still going on. I was so,so sad. ”His face turned a little ________ . But the truth was that I did not quite ________ the broken snow globe after a long time. But Isaiah had been sorry for his ________ all the time. I was sure I would keep this snow globe in my mind forever.

   A little girl studied at her desk in the purple bedroom of her childhood home. The girl’s homework was to _______ a true story. Simple. Yet there she was, _______ it for a long time for better past her bedtime.

So attentive was the girl — changing words to _______ the mood (语气), erasing passages to move the story along, reading out loud to _______ the rhyme — that she jumped when she _______ her father’s hand on her shoulder. Dad was a business manager. He liked to _______ and watch TV at night. It was not his _______ to check up on her.

“Daddy?” she said, looking up at him. “I think I just decided what kind of job I want when I grow up. I like to write about things that really _______. I like to move the words around.” “I’m glad to see you take your schoolwork so _______,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”________ he kissed the top of her head.

Decades later, the girl made great efforts in writing, which ________ her a top job at Reader’s Digest, a ________ that has for nearly a century told true stories of ________ interest. As she walked out of the office that afternoon, she ________ the night in her purple bedroom and decided that for every issue (期刊), she would write her editor’s note as a story. That way, she would honor the ________ of the magazine. She ________ her mom with the news of her job. “Oh, honey, I wish your father were ________,” her mom wrote. “He would be so proud.”

“As an ________, I am doing the work I love, writing about people of interest doing things that matter. It’s been a (n)________ to connect with the thousands of you who have ________ to me. Let’s continue to do so,” the girl said.