What to Do when You’re Falling Behind

When I was a kid, it took me longer to learn how to ride a bike. I kept using a bike with training wheels and I didn’t _______ much, so of course I didn’t learn how to balance.

One day I _______ that my sister, 2.5 years younger than me, was getting close to _______ how to ride a bike. She wasn’t quite there yet, but she was _______ much closer to balancing than I was. I couldn’t let her _______ me to it!

So I took my bike, _______ it out to the street, and decided that I was going to learn how to ride it right now. I _______ the training wheels, jumped on, and swerved (突然转向) all over the place like an out-of- control madman. I tried to stay near the grass when I could get some degree of _______, so when I fell, I’d _______ fall to the lawn instead of the street or sidewalk.

After many attempts, I finally learned how to ________ Then I rode my bike a lot that summer and have had the ________ ever since.

Up until that point, I’d been making a big deal out of the whole process. It seemed ________ and discouraging. I was afraid of falling. But once I began to face the fear and ________ the courage to risk getting hurt, I quickly showed my ________ ability on the other side with a whole new skill. From the moment of making the decision to the time I ________ to get the basic skill it probably took me less than an hour.

What finally ________ me to face the fear and take action? It was the ________ that I was falling behind. My sister was leaving me in the dust. She could ride ________ I couldn’t. I really didn’t want that to happen.

I had no idea that I could learn to ride a bike so quickly. The feeling of falling behind served as a powerful motivator (动力). ________ trying to hide the disappointment, I allowed myself to feel the weight of that pressure. I used the ________ feeling to motivate myself to take action.

   One night in the pouring rain, Tawny Nelson's car broke down on the road. Her four young daughter cried in the back of the car _______ countless people just drove by as she begged for _______.

"I must have _______ more than twenty people in the course of two hours for help, "she said. "They all ignored me. They just acted as if I hadn't _______."

As her newborn screamed, her 2-year-old cried from hunger, and her two older daughters _______ tried to help, Tawny started to break down. "I was crying loudly and felt like the worst mom ever, "she _______.

An old man _______ on the window at that moment. He _______ her a plate of food and bottles of water for her _______and let her know that a tow truck（拖吊车）was on its way and that he was going to drive them home. The next ________, the gentleman returned to her house with a mechanic（机械修理工）and they made repairs to her ________.

After the kind ________ left, Tawny asked the mechanic if she could set up a payment plan, but he informed her that the man had already taken care of the ________.

"He said that the only ________ the old man wanted was for me to never ________ and keep being an amazing mom, " Tawny said. "I was deeply ________. Things had been completely awful, and without knowing us or our ________ this kind man helped us in ways he will never know."

Tawny is ________ to the man for restoring her faith in humanity（仁慈）when she ________. And while she knows that she can ________ repay him, she hopes to do what he did for her to others one day.

   Blind people can read. They do so by running their fingers along a line of raised points or dots on paper. Of course, they first have to learn the code（代码）. Here are some examples of it. One dot stands for the letter “A”. Two dots side by side mean “C”. Four dots arranged to look like a box（：：） stand for the letter “G”. By placing the dots in special patterns, all the letters of the alphabet can be formed.

This code was made up by a Frenchman called Louis Braille. Though he could see at birth, he became sightless when he was only three. Braille was cutting leather in his father’s shop. His knife slipped and cut his eye. Infection（感染）spread to both eyes, and he became blind.

At 10, he was placed in a home for the blind. But young Braille had great talent. He became a skilled musician and soon got a job as a church organist（风琴弹奏者）in Paris.

Because he had talent and was quick, he became a teacher at a school for the blind. While there, he heard that a captain had sent messages to his soldiers that they could read at night without light. His messages were in the simple form of raised dots and dashes. This was the clue Braille needed. At the age of 15, he worked out his own six-dot code. Each group of dots is called a cell. The cells are three dots high and two dots wide. For the rest of his life, Braille taught his young flock to read both written and musical works using his code.

For the last 17 years of his life, Braille was ill with tuberculosis. He died at the age of 43.

When Elizabeth married Joseph Fry, it seemed as if her life would be 【小题1】 (comfort) and peaceful. However, Elizabeth was not content with her easy life. One day Elizabeth Fry visited 【小题2】 prison. At first the prison officers did not want her to visit the women prisoners because they feared the prisoners would attack her, but Elizabeth was not afraid. She found that the prisoners behaved 【小题3】 (bad) because they were being treated like animals. So the first thing that Elizabeth 【小题4】 (do) was provide food, clean clothes and straw for beds. Her 【小题5】 (kind) helped her gain the friendship of the prisoners. Later Elizabeth 【小题6】 (ask) by the government to see the leaders of Britain to discuss how 【小题7】 (improve) the conditions for prisoners. Of course she did not do all the work 【小题8】 her own. Other women helped her and went around the country, 【小题9】 (raise) money for her work. Some people did not like her ideas and quarreled with her. Other people said she enjoyed being famous too much. However, her husband, Joseph, supported and encouraged her, so she continued working to help improve the lives of prisoners 【小题10】 she died.