There once was a king in a faraway country. One day, he decided to ____ a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of____ . So many artists _____. At last, the king looked at all the pictures. ____there were only two he really liked, and he had to ____between them.

One picture was of a ____ lake. The lake was a perfect mirror with peaceful huge mountains all around it. Above was a ____ sky with light white clouds. All who ____ this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had ____ , too. But these were not peaceful at all. Above was an ____sky. Rain fell heavily and lightning played ____. Down the side of the mountain was a waterfall with loud sound. This did not look ____ at all.   But when the king looked ____, he saw a tiny tree ____ in the rock behind the waterfall. In the tree a mother bird had ____ her nest. There, with the current of angry water, the mother bird was ____ her hungry children in the nest, taking no attention to its ____ surroundings --in perfect peace.

Which picture do you think ____ the prize? The king chose the second picture. Do you know why?

Hello. A single word that can change everything. At least it did for me. When I first moved to the Golden State (also known as California), I was _________. I had my family, but those were the only people I knew. It was like I was a polar bear that had just been thrown into the Amazon rainforest, _________ in circles, afraid, knowing nothing about its surroundings. I stayed in my house for a week, never going out, _________ the encounters(相遇) in this new, foreign land. After a while, I went grocery shopping with my dad, stepping out of my _________ sanctuary(避难所). I learned that the people here spoke a language called _________, and I was to learn it. But all I _________ was a barrage of(连珠炮似的) sounds, mixing together, forming indistinguishable words. After that, I only came out of the house for important business.

When school first _________, I begged my mom to homeschool me, _________ of interacting with children that had lived their whole lives in this state. My mother _________, and she drove me straight to school. The moment I stepped out of the __________, I heard 10, no, 100 times the sound of the grocery store. I shrank away, trying to fold up within myself, to __________. My mother __________ me no attention, just __________ me along to a room. It was small, with a woman sitting __________ the reception desk. She jibber-jabbered(叽里咕噜), and Mom jibber-jabbered back. The woman __________, and directed us to a __________. I’ll admit that I was terrified. Everything that I was trying to __________ was right there in front of me. I __________ sat down next to a __________ that looked similar to me. And as I listened to all the foreign __________, the girl turned to me. And she said, “Hello.”