Last fall I put a bird feeder(进食器) outside my window. I thought as soon as I hung it up, a great_______beautiful birds would come. Days, weeks and months went by; _______, no birds. I asked many people, why? What was I doing_______? “Nothing,” most of them replied. “Just_______.” So I waited, waited and waited.

I cleaned_______the deck(露台), I change the feed, I_______the feeders, and I_______made the cat out the other door! But_______seemed to work. So I waited with patience and hope.

Two months later, on a Saturday afternoon, I was_______. A beautiful bird had been on the bird feeder. All of a sudden, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of birds________from everywhere.________a beautiful lesson this living thing taught me: “patience and hope” will________the most beautiful things in life.

So I keep hoping and waiting, waiting and________. I will try to use this “little lesson” in________many other things in my life. I guess, “________is a virtue (美德)” after all.

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.

I remember the first day when I saw Sally playing basketball. I watched in wonder as she _____ her way through the crowd of boys on the playground. She seemed so ______, but she managed to shoot jump shots just over their heads and into the net. The boys always tried to stop her but nobody could.

I began to notice Sally at other times, basketball in hand, playing ______. She kept dribbling(运球) and________over and over, sometimes until dark.

One day, I asked Sally why she ______ so much. Without a moment of hesitation she said, “I want to go to college. The only way I can go is to get a ______. I’m going to play college basketball and I want to be the best one. I believe if I am ______ enough, I will get one. My father has told me that if the dream is big enough, the facts don’t ____.

I ______ her through those junior high years and into high school. Every week, she led her team to ______. One day in her senior year, I saw her sitting on the grass, her head ____ in her arms. Slowly and quietly, I walked

I felt she was extremely ______. I asked her if she had talked to her dad about it yet. She told me that her father said those coaches were ______. They didn’t understand the _______of a dream.

The next year, Sally was seen by a college basketball coach after a big game. She was ________ awarded a scholarship and ______ to the college education that she had ______ and worked toward for all those years.

It’s true: if the dream is big enough, the facts don’t matter at all.