A father gifted his daughter an old car at graduation. The father said to his daughter: “You just _________, and this is a car that I _________ when I began to work a long time ago. But before I give it to you, take it to a car dealer (商人) in the city and _________ how much they offer for it.” Then the girl did _________ as her father told her to.

The girl _________ to her father and said: “They only offered $1,000 because it looks very _________.” The father replied: “Hold it and take it to the second-hand car dealer.”

The girl _________ to her father and said: “They offered $100 because it is a very old car and it needs a lot of _________.” Lastly, he told his daughter to show the car to a famous car club. She returned and said to her father: “Some people in the club offered me $100,000 because it is a _________ car that is in very good __________, with good performance and very difficult to __________.”

Then the father said: “I wanted to let you __________ that you are not worth anything if you are not in the right __________. If you are not valued, do not be __________, that means you are in the wrong place. Don’t __________ in a place where no one sees your value.”

I teach economics at UNLV three times per week. Last Monday, at the beginning of class, I _______ asked my students how their weekend had been. One young man said that his weekend had not been so good as he had his wisdom teeth removed. The young man then continued to ask me why I always seemed to be in high spirits.

His question _______ me of something I’d read somewhere before: “Every morning when you get up, you have a choice about how you want to _______ life that day.” I said. “Choose to be cheerful.”

“Let me give you an example,” I continued, addressing all sixty students in the class. “In addition to teaching here at UNLV, I also teach out at the community college in Henderson, 17 miles down the freeway from where I live. One day a few weeks ago, I drove those 17 miles to Henderson. I _______ the freeway and turning onto College Drive. I only had to drive another quarter mile down the road to the college. But just then my car died. I tried to start it again, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. So I put my flashers on, grabbed my books, and _______ down the road to the college.

“As soon as I got there, I called AAA (汽车协会) and asked them to arrange for a tow truck to meet me at my car after class. The secretary in the office asked me what has happened. “This is my _______ day,” I replied.

“‘But your car breaks down’, she was confused, ‘What do you mean?’”

“‘I live 17 miles from here,’ I replied. ‘My car _______ have broken down anywhere along the freeway. It didn’t. Instead, it broke down in the perfect place: _______ the freeway, within walking distance of here. I’m still able to teach my class, and I’ve been able to apply for the tow truck to meet me after class. If my car was meant to break down today, it couldn’t have been arranged in a more _______ fashion.”

“The secretary’s eyes opened wide, and then she smiled, I smiled back and headed for class.” So ended my story.

I scanned the sixty faces in my economics class at UNLV. Somehow, my story had touched them. Or maybe it wasn’t the story at all. In fact, it had all started with a student’s ________.

There is a 1,200-square-meter museum in the city of Yining preserving more than 800 accordions(手风琴)from over 20 countries. They ________ the 40 years’ living and working of Alexander Sergeevich Zazulin, a 62-year-old ethnic Russian in Xinjiang, known far and wide for his skills at repairing accordions.

The accordion is the ________ of Russian folk songs, Alexander said. His father used to play the instrument to ________ guests and neighbors. That was when his love for it started. An accordion was a ________ at that time. Alexander ________ that his father, to make ends meet, had to pawn(典当)and buy back his accordion time after time.

Alexander learned how to play and even ________ an accordion. He bought his first accordion at 18, with the money he saved from doing part-time jobs for months. Later he did border trade for a living. At first, he recycled ________ accordions from Xinjiang and brought them back home for repair. Soon he began to ________ antique ones from overseas. ________ these accordions and restoring their sound gives me a strong sense of ________,“ he said.

Having spent all his life dealing with the ________, he spent all his savings in building a ________ museum to display his accordions. They ________ the house even onto the roof, but some still had to be kept in boxes.

In 2019, Yining and the province of Jiangsu invested over 4 million yuan in building the ________ museum. In this way, Alexander ________ saw his dream come true.