It never occurred to me to think about my future job till I entered high school. In the years before high school, I ______ much on football and music. That was ______ I spent most of my spare time. After I entered high school, my ______ for civil engineering (土木工程) inspired me to make greater efforts.

I found my way to civil engineering ______ when I read an article about the Los Angeles earthquake in 1994. Its consequence was so awful that I was totally shocked. During the earthquake, many buildings fell down. The disaster led to heavy casualties. The ______ sent me into thinking about how the building projects could be safer, and how I could get them that way. From then on, I ______ to learn civil engineering. ______ different kinds of buildings is a form of recreation for me. Sitting on my bicycle for hours watching the houses around me has made me feel the ______ to shape our buildings into solid ones

To achieve my ambition, I must ______ that I can get high grades in all my subjects. In school, I am truly fond of science and good at math. ______ my high school years had been challenged. My poor writing skills used to ______ me a lot. Fortunately, I had a strong wish to achieve my dream. It was the desire, which ______ me to keep practicing, that helped me overcome my shortcomings.

Over the years, I have learned to stick with things that I find right ______. This character will stay with me till my efforts ______. That, combined with my longstanding curiosity about ______ our world, is what will make me a great civil engineer someday soon.

It was the start of the winter track season. I stood with my friends, carefully _________ new teammates. There was something about a girl with green suede（绒面革的）_________, as my friends gossiped about her. “Does the girl over there honestly think the shoes look good?” I heard someone say, pointing in her _________. Noticeably different, she trembled in the wind as we began our _________. Following us to the starting line, the girl looked _________, “What is a 400-meter repeat?” she asked with a slight accent _________ to me. I thought about her _________ for a moment, but then I quickly forgot about it as one of my teammates sarcastically（讽刺的）yelled the _________.

Quickly, though, I remembered that just last year I would have asked the same _________ . I wondered if they had been that sarcastic with me. No, that was __________. I looked like a runner. So I __________, showing off my speed as the girl with the green suede shoes fell farther behind. Moments later, I heard the loud sound of tired feet __________ me. Thinking it was one of my friends, I __________, only to see the girl with green sneakers looking confused again.

“What is ‘cool down’?” she asked, her __________ more obvious this time. __________ about her accent, I asked, “Are you from this country?” “No, I am from __________.” For the next lap, I found myself asking her about everything: her favorite foods, how she liked America and how to say different words in German. I was enjoying our __________ till we finished our run.

Disappointed in myself, I realized how __________ I had been. Her personality was not __________ by the shoes she wore. How could I have been so wrapped up in __________?

This wasn’t the way I wanted to see Rome. Sure, it felt _________ to spend Christmas there and stand in awe of the city’s attractions. But life wasn’t meant to turn out like this.

I was supposed to go to Rome with my mom back in 2012. However, life had different _________. A week before our trip, I got a stomach infection, a condition that required a week of _________ . What’s worse, my mom _________ a cough, which later proved a stage-four cancer.

My mom spent the final months of her life _________ the terrible disease though it was a losing _________. After she passed away, I _________ a trip to Rome. And _________, you never get used to a world that mom isn’t a part of. You just deal with it because you don’t really have a _________.

I spent two weeks doing all the things we had wanted to do. Maybe she wasn’t physically there, but I __________ her presence every minute. Her presence also __________ me that life isn’t about the things we buy or the money that we have. It’s about making __________ with the people we love. They never really __________ us since they are constantly influencing our lives in __________ ways.

After my trip to Rome, I __________ knew that my mom would always be there because she had forever changed my life in the best possible way.