After stepping out of the international plane, I realized my 10-hour sleepy voyage finally came to an end. Sitting on the bus, I was waiting anxiously for it to start. A woman, sitting next to me, and her daughter both seemed _______ . She told me that her daughter had an upset stomach and would throw up（呕吐）continuously；_______ the mother had lost her _______ . Apart from a significant amount of money ,the purse also had her cellphone and a phone number of an important _______ , a person she was traveling 90 kilometers to meet for discussing an urgent matter which had to be _______ by the next morning.

I handed her my cellphone _______ and told her that she could make any call she wanted. I also _______ a bottle of water I had in my bag to relieve her daughter of her _______  

After making several calls, they finally _______ to the official. They turned to look at me ________ and thanked me many times. The woman tried to pay for my _________ , but I jumped to do it before her _________ I knew she had lost her money.

The next morning, I received a _________ from the mother, saying that they couldn’t tell how my _________ act touched them. They were so considerate that they had taken down my number to thank me. I was _________ to be thanked in this way. I never thought my simple offer _________ so much in her heart. And I thought of how many opportunities for _________ we had lost by focusing on cellphones and being _________ from the reality around us - _________ with easy access may make a big _________ to others.

   54-year- old Abdul has a special job. He has been working as a living statue (活雕像) for over three decades, standing perfectly still for six hours a day and resisting people’s attempts to make him move or smile, anything that proves he is a living person.

Abdul, known as “India’s Statue Man”, has been performing his daily routine ever since 1985, soon after getting a job as a security guard. His boss had ever traveled to the UK, where he was so impressed by the statue-like members of the Royal Guard outside Buckingham Palace that he wanted to do something similar back home. So he had his guards receive three months of training, where they would sit perfectly still for around four hours. They weren’t allowed to talk, smile, eat, drink, or even shoo away a fly if it sat on their faces. In the end, Abdul proved the best of the group, so he got the strange job.

Abdul isn’t the only person in the world acting as a living statue, but what makes him special is the fact that he can do it for as long as six hours without even blinking his eyes. Once, a $155 prize was put up for anyone who can make him move a muscle. But try as they might, no one had ever succeeded. Actually, Abdul tries to move about as much as he can in his spare time, and only eats healthy home-cooked food to keep his body in shape. But he claims yoga has been the biggest help. In the 12 years, Abdul has become a celebrity in India and other Asian countries. Many Bollywood celebrities have come to witness this living statue and try to make him move, but none have succeeded finally.

Abdul earns about 10,000 rupees ($156) a month, which is enough to support his family, but definitely not enough to encourage his children to follow in his footsteps. It’s just too stressful and taxing (费力的) on the body. “Despite all the hardship and health problems, I love my job and I am thankful to people for the love and respect they have showered on me,” he says. “When the time comes, I want to die playing a statue.”

   When I was 17, I paid a long visit to Iowa to see a college I was thinking of attending. While the _______ was fun for the most part, I was feeling depressed and _______. I was realizing that I wouldn't be seeing my family _______ if I went to school here. I was also _______ the forests in Appalachian mountains of my home. I loved how the leaves turned a thousand _______ of green in spring and then became a sea of colors in autumn. I loved the _______ of the forget-me-nots and countless wild flowers that grew on the hillsides.

Here in Iowa everything was _______. The grass looked brown and _______. All that I could smell was a_______ of corn, mud, and pigs. One day I lay down on the ground. Eyes closed, I ________ being back home over and over again. When I ________ opened them, however, I saw something that ________ my soul: a prairie (草原) sunset. It seemed to fill the whole sky from the________. Gold, red, purple and pink clouds all flowed together and________ an amazing picture. It was so huge that I was________. In comparison with it, our mountain sunsets ________. I was filled with wonder and a sense of ________. I realized too that I had been picky and________. This place too had its own special ________

Over the years to come I learned something else. Each of us has a special beauty too —everyone has their own________talents and abilities to share.

   Saja Pahad, a small village in Chhattisgarh, India, has been dealing with severe water shortages for as long as anyone can remember. With only two wells available, locals were barely able to secure enough water to feed their cattle, let alone irrigate their crops. Villagers didn’t know what to do and the government ignored their difficult situation, but one “crazy” teenager took matters into his own hands.

Shyam Lal was only 15 when he took it upon himself to solve his village’s water problem. He identified a spot in a nearby forest and decided to dig a pond to collect rainfall that could then be used by the entire village. Lal shared his idea with the rest of Saja Pahad, but instead of volunteering to help, they just laughed at his crazy plan and called him a lunatic (疯子). But the young man didn’t let the people’s reaction get him down. Instead, he grabbed a spade (铁锹) and started digging the pond himself. He kept on digging for the next 27 years.

Now 43, Shyam Lal is considered a hero by his community. That small hole he started digging nearly three decades ago is now a one-acre, 15-feet-deep pond filled with precious water that serves the entire village.

“No one helped me in my work, neither the government nor the villagers,” Lal told the Hindustan Times. “It was my dream to secure enough water for the whole village and their cattle.”

The story of Shyam Lal’s determination recently went viral in the whole of India, and prompted authorities in Mahendragarh district to finally acknowledge his achievement. A member of the government recently visited Saja Pahad and offered Lal a $ 156 prize for his contribution to the village.