Liz was quite excited these days. She was going to travel to Asia with her mom. Neither of them had ______ traveled out of the United States before. They were going to ______ to Hong Kong. They would travel on their cruise(乘船游览) ship to Shanghai and Beijing after ______ in Hong Kong for three days.

“Beijing is inland, so we have to _____ about a two-hour bus ride to get there from the port. I _____ the name of the port. Anyway, we’re going to ______ the Great Wall, the Tian’anmen Square, and the Forbidden City. It's going to be so ______!” she told her neighbor Jane.

From China, the cruise ship would go to Pusan in South Korea, and ______ to Tokyo. From Tokyo, they would _____ a flight back to Los Angeles.

“The trip is going to ______ three weeks. It's only going to ______ us about $ 2,800 each if we don’t _____ anything.” She laughed.

“I hope your trip is more _______ than mine was” said Jane. “I took a cruise to the Bahamas, _____ almost all the passengers got _______. I caught some kind of disease that made me ______ for almost three days. They ______ us a discount(折扣) that we could use on a _____ trip. No more cruising for me. That is really a pity.”

“We’ve ______ those things,” said Liz. “Mom and I are going to be ______ our hands every 30 minutes, and we’re bringing surgical masks with us.” Good preparations may help a lot in the travel and make it a pleasant and successful one.

During the coronavirus lockdown, a fifth-grade teacher contacted me asking for help. She was ________ with students not attending online class but her students all loved the story in my book. So she asked if I had any ________.

My immediate ________ was for me to do a weekly book club where I would read to the students. The idea was ________ by Mrs. Sandberg, my first teacher in America.

When I moved to America from Iran in 1972, I spoke seven words of English. Despite the language ________, I immediately loved school. My favorite part of the day was ________ lunch, when Mrs. Sandberg read to us. Her kind voice ________ me to magical places where animals could talk and where kids had grand adventures.

With this joyful ________, I started the club. At the first session, five kids ________. I read to them and tried to ________ a conversation. Whenever I asked a question, I was met with complete ________. The following week, a few more kids came; they ________ started responding, but with one-word answers. The next session, they gave ________ answers and more students participated in the conversations.

This club has quickly become the ________ of my week. I have gotten to know the students and grown fond of every single one of them. Reading out loud forces me to forget everything else for an hour. I recently wondered if our post-lunch reading hour had given Mrs. Sandberg a chance to forget her ________, too.

As I stood at the base of the mountain range beside a remote African village, the male villagers all repeated the same question: Are you certain you want to climb the mountain?

It had________been climbed by local and foreign men, and local women, but a Western female had ________, unaccompanied and wanted to climb the mountain, which was quite _________

I explained that I’d been________for some time --in research and in physical strength-- and showed them the________I had got from their government authorizing my climb. I stressed that I’d be very________to follow their local traditions and hire one of their villagers as a guide, but it seemed to do little to reduce their________.

The male villagers told me that the ‘quick mud’ I’d meet would swallow me. While they couldn’t remember anyone this bad thing actually________, they seemed convinced it was a real ________. The village women, however, smiled at me, indicating their________for my climb.

The men________ telling stories of unpredictable danger. However, I was________ because my aunt’s words kept ________in my ears --the greatest risk is not taking a risk, and we should always ________our dreams.

Eventually, the men agreed to a(n)________that seemed to put them at ease with my climb. Besides the local guide I’d hire, they also________ me to hire three men guards with guns, for protection.

As I started walking down the dirt path toward the mountain, I was________not only by my new mountain support team, but also by every village woman. While two women walked hand-in-hand with me, the others danced in circles around us as if in ________of a victory.

I knew I wasn’t the first Western female to make the climb. But with the women villagers________accompanying me, I felt a strong sense of ________. And I guessed they felt the same.