Today, nobody talks to anybody anymore. Everybody is _______ at their phone. But sometimes, there are unexpected moments of _______. I happened upon one just the other night. I was going home, taking the _______ as usual and was glad to get a seat. I _______ my phone and started reading. Then I noticed that nobody was sitting in the three seats across from me.

I _______ figured out why. Next to the _______ seats was an old woman. She smelled as though she hadn’t _______ for a few days. The next thing I knew was that a man stood up from his seat and sent some _______ into her hand, then sat back down. She nodded and gave a _______ smile. Another man standing near the door started ________ to her. “Grandmother,” he called her, “Are you okay?” We all looked at her for her response. More ________.

“It could be you. It could be me. It could be one of our relatives,” he said to the rest of us. “So true,” said the ________ with him. He also dug into his ________ and took out some cash to give to her. Others were ________ to do so, too.

Just before they got off, the couple made an unexpected ________ . “We just got married in City Hall.” There was a short round of ________ from this group of strangers. “Congratulations!” someone ________ out. It occurred to me that the first thing they were doing was giving, a perfect start to a ________.

I put something in the old woman’s hand before I ________ the subway. It was cold outside. But I felt ________. I hoped that she would find a home — somehow — for a warm night’s sleep.

   When John Gurdon was 15, he ranked last out of the 250 boys in his grade at biology. He also came in last for every other science subject. His teacher wrote in a _____ , "I believe he has ideas about becoming a _____; form his present performance this is quite foolish. "

Luckily the teacher's words didn't _____ Gurdon's love for science. He kept working hard. He went to labs earlier and left _____ than anyone else. Finally he realized his dream.

On Oct. 8, 2012, 64 years later, the British professor _____ the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka had contributed to the research and therefore _____ the award.

Gurdon got the honor _____ his research into cells and cloning. When he was studying at Oxford, he did some _____ on cells. He took a cell from an adult frog, moved its genes _____ , and put them into an egg cell. The egg cell then ______ into a clone of the adult frog. His research ______ for the first time that every cell in the body contains the same genes.

At that time, many people couldn't ______ Gurdon's idea. But later it helped to ______ Dolly the sheep in 1996, the first cloned mammal in history. It also led to important findings in the ______ use of cells. For example, cells from someone's skin can ______ into any type of tissue in the body. This is good news for those ____ who have diseased or damaged tissue.

Gurdon always remembers the ______ he had when he was 15. He even puts the report on his desk as a daily ______ to himself.

"When you have problems, like an experiment which doesn't work, it's ______ to remind yourself that perhaps you are not so good at your job and the teacher may be ______ ," he said.

However, the facts suggest Gurdon is pretty good indeed.

   All of my friends had jobs but I didn’t. That’s because they had a “hook up”. At times, I wished I had a hook up! If I did, I wouldn’t have to go through all those nervous interviews, or waste my ink on those applications that probably got thrown.

One day I asked my grandmother, “Why does no one want to hire me?” She said it was because I didn’t have any experience. How was I supposed to have experience when I’d never had a job before? Even McDonald’s wouldn’t hire me. I applied there so many times. It was a shame.

The Gap was one of the hardest places to apply. Once you filled out an application, the managers would interview you right on the spot. It made me so nervous that I couldn’t talk right. The first question they asked was, “Why do you want to work for the Gap?” Your mind was telling you to say, “For the money.” But you didn’t want to say that because you didn’t want to make yourself sound greedy, even if it’s the truth. So I said, “Because I’m familiar with what the company does, which is selling clothes.”

However, not for long there was another question that always seemed to get me every time, “What can you bring to this company?” I didn’t know, maybe more customers? By the time I got ready to pick it up, I heard them say, “If we don’t contact you in 24 hours, you don’t get the job.”

But if I was asked that question now, I would say, “I’m a hard worker and a very reliable person, and with these kinds of abilities I cannot only do a good job, but I can influence other employees to do so too.”

Despite all the bad luck I seemed to have, I didn’t give up. Eventually, I finally found a summer job.