When I was young, I wanted to be a teacher if I grew up, simply because I wanted to write on the chalkboard! My teachers seemed to be the _______ printers, curving their letters just so, and I wanted to do it _______! Now, after “higher education”, and three _______ career paths, I have come back to want to be a _______, but my reasons have changed. I was _________________, to have teachers that really _______ me as an individual, and I want to _______ this back.

A teacher’s gentleness needs to be shown when _______ or encouraging the students. It is important to make the corrections in order for the students to learn. _______, this needs to be done in a __________ that will help to __________ the student to make the changes necessary,__________ discouraging them from learning. Being patient is also extremely important, because the class needs to know what to __________ from the teacher. This will also help to build a better agreement with the students, and help both the teacher and students to learn more about each other.

If a teacher exhibits a true love of __________ and helping students learn, many of the qualities __________ above will just fall into place. The teacher that had the most __________ on me had the best fame in the school. She was strict, and she did demand a lot, but she was able to show us it was ___________she cared for us. She knew each of us was worth it, and she knew we each could do it. She __________ knowledge, gently, firmly, patiently, respectfully, and most effectively. She gently encouraged us to make __________ when we needed to, and __________ us when we did. She was a true teacher, not just someone who taught, and this is the kind of teacher I hope to be.

I had a good job in the marketing division of a Fortune 500 company. After working for this first-class ________ for fourteen years, I got to ________ what it would be like to design a job around what I enjoyed most while using my strongest skills. I hoped to spend the next ________ of my career doing what I loved most and spend more time with the people I ________ most, my wife and sons.

My wife was a stay-at-home mom, so I would sacrifice (牺牲) our only income and insurance for nothing more than a ________. Yet, after ________ extensive (广泛的) research, reading books on how to launch this type of business, calling the authors for additional details, freelancing (从事自由职业) for ad agencies and design firms to ensure I could write on any subject, and purchasing insurance, this goal slowly developed from ________ to probable.

I ________ then that author Henry David Thoreau was onto something when he said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” At thirty-seven, I had a window of opportunity to ________ a dream — to run a home-based business and spend more time with my family. I pulled the plug (终止) — and ________ my advertising and executive speechwriting business in June 1991 — thirty-two years ago. While working with different clients and sharpening my writing skills on ________ subjects, I watched my sons grow up for ten years, played hundreds of unscheduled backyard baseball games, and enjoyed countless father/son ________ while walking around the block.

How would I have ________ if I had never taken a ten-year break from my corporate (公司的) career? It’s a question I've asked myself before. The answer? I’d have more money in the bank — but I would also have a major deficit (赤字) in my memory ________.

Life provides windows of opportunity, but they close quickly. For me, to remain in my former company during this “window” came at a price too high. Thoreau was right; I wasn’t willing to ________ more of my family life for my professional life.

For many young Canadians, planting trees is more than just a job. It’s a way of ______   and it could be catching on, thanks to a popular ______ by Leslie. While working for a logging company, the 29-year-old filmed herself using the ______ method that allowed her to plant 4,545 trees in a single day. She said that the work is incredibly ______.

Planting trees is not easy work, according to Leslie. Not only is it ______ tiring, but it also exposes laborers to the bad weather. “It could start the day off ______ and then minutes later, it will just be raining or snowing. You never know what to ______,” she described. “There were some days that we were planting through a heat ______, so we had like 37 to 40 degree weather for several days straight and that was really ______.”

So far, Leslie has planted a total of 372,290 trees in the past few years. ______, she’s still nowhere near beating the Guinness World record. That honor ______ Kenny Chaplin, who once planted 15,170 trees in 19 hours. After 35 years on the job, he says he’d ______ it to anyone.

“I think every parent in Canada should ______ their kid out tree planting because it will turn them into a worker,” he ______ . “They’ll learn how to work, they’ll have ______ and they’ll have money in their pockets.”