For most people, graduation is an exciting day-the ______ of years of hard work. My graduation day...was not. I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends ______ from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my finance graduating class, I had watched the ______ turn from bad to worse in my senior year. We graduates had degrees, but very uncertain _______. Numerous applications had been ______ and I knew that the next day, when my lease（租约）ended, I would no longer have a place to ______ home.

The weeks ahead weren't _______. What I thought would take a week dragged into two，and then four. 100 job applications later. I found myself in the ______ spot as I was before. And the ______ date to pay back my student loans was drawing _______. You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just filled with _______?

Don't give up. Things change. If you work hard, give it _______, things will always get better. Often times our dreams ______ just a little further upstream. All we need is the ______ to push beyond the river.

Matt Shaha, 27, grew out his hair for two years to make it into a wig (假发) for his mom, Melanie Shaha, who has been _________with a benign tumor (良性肿瘤) since 2003.

Melanie underwent two _________to remove the tumor between 2003 and 2006, but it returned in 2017 and doctors _________radiation treatments. Three months later after radiation, she lost all her hair _________. “When you wear a hat everywhere, it makes you _________from the crowd,” she said. “I don’t mind being sick, but I do mind looking sick.”

Matt was _________to make his mom look like herself again when he saw his mother’s _________. Although his mother initially didn’t want to accept his _________, he persisted and grew 12 inches of hair by March 2022. And Matt had it cut and _________with a hairdresser to create a wig that month, Matt said, “The whole_________was super rewarding for me.”

By mid-June, the wig finally arrived, Melanie — wearing her son’s long blonde hair — said she felt _________that she could feel like herself again. “The coloring is a remarkable _________to my complexion (面色), as you can imagine, as we are family and _________the same coloring! Two years was a long time for him to have longhair. Matt _________so much to give such a thoughtful gift. I am able to have a more normal _________with it,” Melanie said.

I could feel the thrill rising in me as I held the beautifully wrapped present in my hands. Unable to _________ my curiosity any longer, I tore it open. It was a brand-new laptop. I had scored straight A for my examinations and this was my _________. I had always _______ my friends who were exchanging news in “chat rooms”, all of which I knew nothing about. Now I was going to find out.

It started out _________ enough. I was searching for information online when I came across a social networking site. Soon I was _________ to my new-found electronic friend and then my sleep was _________ to some short naps, and my _________ at school also began getting worse.

It was about this time that my parents started voicing their _________. I was asked to reduce my _________ of the Internet. Yet, however hard I tried, I was unable to pull myself away, unable to stop my chat __________ and unable to concentrate on my lessons. I was __________ for just another click and another look. Then one day, my father took away my laptop. I complained but __________.

Over time, I realized that Dad and Mom had always __________ the best for me. That was when I decided to take the big step—to __________ my Internet addiction. Quitting was harder than I expected. But with fierce determination, I knew that I would __________ a new leaf.