When I think of the word “perfect”, I think of something only a few can achieve, like high beauty standards, the super-smart girl in my class, or anything that I can compare myself to. For a few weeks now, I have been _________ the girl in my middle school classes. She has fabulous (极好的) long dark brown hair, big hazel eyes, and the most _________ face. She always _________ the prettiest dresses and seems to be the most _________ girl in the school, at least in my point of view. It seems like she has a _________ life, lots of friends, all A’s, and everything anyone could ever want.

One day, I was talking to my teacher about one of the _________ tests, hoping to know more key points, when I saw the girl _________ me in a strange way. I immediately started think, “Why is she looking at me? Did I do something_________? Is there something on my face?” When the class _________ and everyone was rushing to their next class, she caught up to me and said, “I just thought you should know, I think you are really pretty.” I replied, “Oh my god, thank you!” I then watched her as she __________ away and thought, “She thinks I am pretty?”

The whole day, I __________ thinking about one thing. That was, “Why does she think that?” After thinking about that __________ in my head through each second of the day, I came to learn one big lesson. I learned that everyone has their own __________ even though it may not seem like it on the outside. In this case, I was thinking that she was everything I wanted to be and she thought the __________ as me. Both of us are not perfect. We are all that perfect person. We have been __________ ourselves to in our own __________way. It is our __________ to either accept that and love ourselves or keep torturing ourselves with harsh comparisons. When I really look at myself, not from my point of view but a(n)__________one, I do see everything I want to be. I see a beautiful smart kind girl who is __________. I think that being able to fully love ourselves is the __________ meaning of the word perfect.

One afternoon，I was walking with Evan on the second floor. I talked on and on and Evan walked_______in front of me. As we turned a corner，Evan_______me and said the ten words. “Why are you talking to me?”I'm not your friend. " Those were the_______words he said to me that day. I stood there_______. He kept walking and never looked back. I_______to my next class with tears coming up in my eyes.

We rarely spoke to each other after that. I_______into a shell，like a turtle，to hide from the world. For the rest of my time in middle school，I didn't_______myself to get close to anyone. I pushed away most of my friends_______being hurt again. I avoided unnecessary_______.

It wasn't until high school that I was able to________my head out of my shell and begin________people again. But even today，I am still________in choosing who I open up to. It takes me a very long time to warm to________.

I was twelve then. I was too trusting（轻信的）and I took what Evan said seriously. Maybe he was having a bad day________maybe I was talking too much. In my view，what he said to me that day________the course of my life. But if it weren't for that________，I wouldn't have met my best friends in high school.

I understand that，in middle school，we were all young. I’ve been able to________all the people who bullied（欺侮）me，but for some________I can't seem to forgive Evan. Those________that day hurt me more than anything. I believe that one day I'll be________enough to forgive Evan too. But right now I'm still that twelve-year-old boy running down the hall with eyes filled with tears.

Veteran (老兵) Willenbring has always been a fighter. She grew up with her parents on the West Coast during an adolescence she describes as sometimes _______. But the military struck Willenbring as a way to _______ the aggression she says built up during an unstable upbringing. In 1998, she joined the army and was _______ to a foreign country.

“We were actually part of the initial _______to go into the country,” she says. “And I can’t even describe the _______.” In the scenes of destruction, Willenbring recalled some ordinary sights that briefly woke her from the stress of the war every night. As her mission came to an end, her luck ran out. She ended up severely _______ and had to be taken away in an air ambulance.

She _______ returned to her home country, and spent three years living in her hometown, a city called Salem. She _______ to adjust to civilian life. Fireworks would _______ particularly difficult episodes. “I had PTSD (创伤后应激障碍) so badly that I could not ________ living in a city anymore,” she says.

Instead, in 2010 Willenbring ________ on a plot with sheep in rural Oregon. The sheep, she says, have helped her manage her trauma symptoms. She’s surrounded by animals that ________ her emotions and can tell her own mood.

The ________ rural life is an apparent contrast to the chaos of battle. Willenbring hasn’t had a major ________related to her PTSD for eight years. Farming has its dramas, she says, “but it is also something that is about creation, about ________ over death rather than death over life.”