Nathan Sawaya showed a strong 【小题1】（prefer）for building blocks when he was young. At the age of 5, his grandparents bought his first set of building blocks and he 【小题2】（play）with them ever since. He even took his building blocks to college with him. Instead of books and a computer, he had a model of Greenwich Village 【小题3】（make）of bricks on his desk.

Nathan started as a lawyer 【小题4】 gave up his well-paid job to become 【小题5】 artist that uses toys in his art. He uses toy bricks to build everything from the Statue of Liberty to Superman！He has more than 1. 5 million colored bricks 【小题6】 are used by him to make pieces of art in his office in New York. He started by building small models but then decided to do something big and created a self-portrait. It took him two days just 【小题7】（build）the eyes.

Nathan's works have appeared in museums around the world. People love his arts because they are 【小题8】（fascinate）. Since it began in 2007, Nathan's exhibition "The Art of the Brick" has been very popular 【小题9】museum visitors everywhere.

"I'm proud that I have fulfilled my childhood dream, and I have actually made a job out of it, "says Nathan. "To do what you love in life is 【小题10】（important）thing. "

   Driving home from work every day on a long winding country road, I passed a house where an elderly man sat on his front porch (走廊). I had been _____ to him only when I first moved into my home. For these past fifteen years, I have _____ my window, waved, and shouted, “Hi, Charlie.“ I felt _____ to greet him in this way because I couldn’t _____ going through a day without hearing someone say my name. I felt he also needed to hear his name _____ by someone else.

I used to _____ his wife, too, when she was out walking their dog. She was a _____ woman in a long wool coat0, whatever the _____. I didn’t know her name, but I’d _____ and say “Hi, Grandma“ and she’d smile and wave back.

But then came the day when she was not ______ walking their dog; instead, Charlie was doing so. I realized he was alone, and the desire to greet him grew ______. My window was rolled down before I came around the corner, and ______ he was not on the porch, I’d shout to him, hoping that in his ______ he’d hear me. As long as there was a ______ on in the house, I felt that he was all right.

But that day came when he had to sell his belongings; Charlie’s pickup truck was ______ on the front lawn. A few days later, a sign was ______, and I knew Charlie was gone. I still wave and ______, “Hi, Charlie” as I pass just as I did in the past. The house is dark now.

It is my ______ that all of us need to be greeted at least once a day and that we need to hear our names spoken aloud by another person, to know someone sees us and ______ the truth of our being. I believe it is our duty to greet each other each day, in this way to prove that ______.

   A total of 17 paintings worth between 10 and 15 million euros were stolen at a museum in northern Italy, local officials said on Friday.

Three armed men with masked faces broke into the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona on Thursday night, a local newspaper reported. Located inside a castle which was built in 1354 ,the Castelvecchio Museum is one of the most important museums in the northern city.

The stolen paintings included masterworks from Andrea Mantegna, Jacopo Tintoretto, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacopo Bellini, Hans de Jode and other world-famous artists. The group controlled the only private security guard who was there and the cashier, and then forced the guard to accompany them to the rooms where they stole the paintings.

Verona Mayor Flavio Tosi, who stayed at the scene until late in the night, said that surely someone sent them, because they acted professionally, and knew what they were looking for. The paintings stolen, he added, basically  were the most valuable works on display. An investigation was opened into the theft.

The museum displays a very important collection of Italian and European art in 29 rooms including early Christian finds, Lombard gold work, sculptures from the 10th to the 14th century, medieval arms  and armor, and paintings from the 14th to the 18th century.

The museumi's director, Paola Marini, called herself shocked by the theft. The experienced art historian, who is about to leave her post after over 20years, was receiving an award in a nearby restaurant when she was informed of what had happened.

The theft came just a day after two stolen paintings recently recovered by Italian heritage police were displayed in Rome during a ceremony attended by President Sergio Mattarella and Culture Minister Dario Franceschini.

   When Dekalb Walcott Ш was just 8 years old, his father, a Chicago fire chief, let him tag along on a call. Dekalb says a lot of kids idolized (崇拜) basketball player Michael Jordan when he was growing up in Chicago in the1990s. Not him.

“I wanted to be like Dekalb Walcott Jr, ”he says of his father. So when his dad asked if he wanted to go on that call with him when he was 8, Dekalb was excited. “I'm jumping up and down, saying, ‘Mom, can I go? Can I go?’”

The experience changed Dekalb's life, and he told his dad on a visit to StoryCorps. “My eyes got big the moment the alarm went off, ” the younger Dekalb says. “This is the life that I want to live someday. ”

Now 27, the younger Dekalb is living that life. He became a firefighter at 21 and went to work alongside his dad at the Chicago Fire Department. Before his father retired, the pair even went out on a call together-father supervising (监督)son.

“You know, it's everything for me to watch young row, ”his father says. But he also recalls worrying about one particular fire that his son faced.

“I received a phone call that night. And they said, ‘Well, your son was at this fire. ' I said, ‘OK, which way is this conversation going to go?'”Dekalb Walcott Jr. recalls.

“And they said, ‘But he's OK. And he put it out all by himself. Everybody here was proud of him. ’”

“And the word went around, ‘Who was out there managing that fire? Oh, that’s Walcott!That's Walcott up there!’So, you know, moments like that, it's heaven on earth for a dad. ”

Dekalb Walcott Jr. has retired. The younger Dekalb says he's proud of being a second-generation firefighter. “You know, it makes me look forward to fatherhood as well, because I'm definitely looking forward to passing that torch (火把) down  to my son. ”