I’ve had many opportunities to experience living in a foreign culture, but my first experience came in an unexpected place-my own country. When I was 20, I got an internship(实习职位)in New York City. It was my first time to _________ outside of my home state of Texas.

With my move north came culture _________. I grew up in a big city in Texas. But it was no comparison to the tightly _________ New York with their 8 million citizens. I was used to life at a _________ pace; New York moved fast. The saying is true-this city never _________ . I had to adjust.

My first reaction was fear. Fear I would _________ at my new internship in the 54-story office building. Fear of getting lost on the subway. Fear that the locals wouldn’t have _________ for my frequent moments of confusion. My _________ ranged from reasonable to silly. But I _________ my fears and kept trying.

I learned quickly never to __________ a New Yorker always speaks English. New York is home to people of all walks of life, from all corners of the world. At weekends, I would spend hours __________ along Canal Street in Chinatown—the closest I’d ever been to an __________ country.

By the end of my internship, I was a little older, a little wiser and sick of big city life. I __________ the skyscrapers, tourists and the high price I had to pay for a cheeseburger and fries. But I had __________ , too. I was quicker, smarter and more independent. I knew I would miss that feeling of having the world right at my doorstep. But it was good __________ for the life of travel I’d soon begin.

In January 2022, when Luigi Quintos, 54, held his newborn grandson, Ayden, for the first time, the baby weighed just over a pound. Ayden had been born two________ premature, and doctors thought he might not________. Extremely shocked and sad, Luigi turned to art to________ himself. He had been drawing portraits of people________ since grade school.

This time, Luigi drew a graphite portrait of Ayden with his parents-Luigi’s son and daughter- in-law-________ down at him. “It was my way of making sure they’d________ be together,”he says

After five months in intensive care, Ayden ________. Buoyed by the good news, Luigi set up a Facebook page, Priceless lmages, where he offered to draw portraits of other kids who were sick or________.“I thought my work might offer ________,” he says.

Within days, requests filled his inbox. Often, parents e mail Luigi a photo of their child along with a(n) ________ of his or her illness or how the child died. Sometimes they request that the artist exclude oxygen tubes and wires that________ in the photo, and one family asked for their child’s eyes to be drawn________, an image they never got to see in real life.

Each drawing takes Luigi a few hours. When he’s________, he mails an 11-by-14 inch portrait to the parents and posts a(n) ________ of the drawing on his Facebook page.

To date, Luigi has completed 450 portraits, with another 350 on the waiting list. But Luigi doesn’t mind the hard work. “The drawings give families something they can________,” he says.

I sat nervously and waited for Kathleen to speak. Being called to the human resources department is a little like being called to the principal’s office. “Annie,” she said, “A food bank in our town that serves the elderly is asking for _______. I’d like you to organize the event and see it through.” “Well, um, errr...sure. I guess so.” As I stutter(结结巴巴地说) through my _______ , all I could think was, “What? Why me?”

I walked back to my office without any idea as to where to _______. This was a time when the economy was _______. The rise in unemployment forced the families of many of my coworkers to _______ to survive. How could I ask my coworkers for more?

That evening I drove home filled with _______ . Then I remembered a time long ago when my father was out of work. Mom wrote a note to Jim, the milkman, asking him not to _______ any more milk. Two days later Jim picked up the _______ and left four liters of milk. He wrote his own message on the back side of Mom’s. It read, “Kids need milk.” The milk delivery_______ as usual and Jim left four liters of milk every other day, never collecting a cent with us.

The memory of Jim’s ________ fired my enthusiasm. Perhaps I’d be in for a pleasant surprise.

The next morning I ________ signs about our food drive all over the cafeteria and on every notice board I could find. Each sign read, “Food drive to support the elderly poor of our town! ________ of non-perishable(不易腐的)foods are greatly needed.”

Within a few days I had to locate empty office space to ________ the massive number of contributions we had ________. One of my coworkers, Maggie, made the rounds with me every day from one department to another to pick up the canned goods and other ________. Maggie was over sixty but pushed our food trolley around with the ________ of a woman half her age.

As we were making our rounds one day, I asked her where she got all the energy and enthusiasm. “Annie,” she said, “with the unemployment rate touching 10 percent, I can’t think of a better way to be ________ for keeping our jobs when so many have ________ theirs. Sure money is ________. But when isn’t it? People need food.”

As I listened to Maggie, the milkman’s words ________ in my ears, “Kids need milk.”