Johann Strauss was born in Vienna in 1825. Although his father did not want him to become a {#blank#}1{#/blank#}(music), Strauss Junior studied the violin {#blank#}2{#/blank#}(secret) as a child. When his father discovered his son practising on a violin one day, he gave him a beating,{#blank#}3{#/blank#}(say) that he was going to beat the music out of the boy. But that didn't prevent the boy from becoming one of the {#blank#}4{#/blank#}(great) composers of all time.

    He wrote his first waltz(华尔兹）at the age of six. At nineteen, he decided to devote {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(he) to music. He formed his own orchestra and made a successful tour of Europe and soon became known {#blank#}6{#/blank#} the Waltz King. The emperor of Austria was so {#blank#}7{#/blank#}(please) with his music that he appointed him the conductor at the court balls of Vienna. It was for these occasions {#blank#}8{#/blank#}he wrote some of his most popular waltzes, among {#blank#}9{#/blank#}was the well-known favorite The Blue Danube（蓝色多瑙河）in all, the talented Johann Strauss {#blank#}10{#/blank#}(write) more than 500 masterpieces.

    What might life be like if you looked very different from others? Most of us are lucky to be born with "normal" faces. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}, the movie Wonder shows us that there is no such thing as being normal and that beauty is more than skin-deep.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (base) on a bestselling novel, the movie is about a boy named Auggie. He has a facial deformity(畸形) and has spent most of his life being home schooled. But as he enters middle school, his parents decide to send him to a private school. There, Auggie must deal with judgmental classmates and learn to accept {#blank#}3{#/blank#}(he) as he is.

    In the US, most kids {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (teach) that it is OK to be different. Most people in the US celebrate being unique.

    But some kids have difficulty {#blank#}5{#/blank#}(accept) uniqueness. It's easy to pick on someone who's different, {#blank#}6{#/blank#}(especial) if you have your own problems to deal with. This is another central theme from the movie—even the kids {#blank#}7{#/blank#} pick on Auggie have their own {#blank#}8{#/blank#}(person) struggles.

    As Auggie's classmates get to know him better, they come to find that he's a nice kid {#blank#}9{#/blank#} a great sense of humor. They start to change their attitude toward him. In real life, it may take longer to see such changes happen. But if we give people {#blank#}10{#/blank#}chance, their hearts and minds may change in the end.

    As I write this, I'm sitting on a bus back to Santiago in Chile where I am working {#blank#}1{#/blank#} a writer. I've just spent the weekend in a city called La Serena north of Santiago. I was lucky enough to see the flowering desert, a natural scene that {#blank#}2{#/blank#} (occur) around every five years here in the Atacama Desert.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (follow) a particularly large amount of rainfall earlier, a(n) {#blank#}4{#/blank#} (vary) of flowers come into blossom. Bright purple flowers create {#blank#}5{#/blank#} unbelievably beautiful scene at the base of the surrounding mountains.

    {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (have) a look at this wonderful treasure of nature, we took a bus from La Serena to a nearby town and then rented a car to go to the desert. {#blank#}7{#/blank#} we saw did not disappoint us, and as expected it was even more fascinating than the pictures we had seen online. The bloom was particularly {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (impress) this year due to the strong presence of El Niño (a band of warm water in the Pacific Ocean that changes the temperatures and increases the rainfall in certain areas). The vast carpet of color {#blank#}9{#/blank#} spread into the distance towards the green hills was {#blank#}10{#/blank#} (simple) breathtaking and deserved a large amount of photos! A real reminder of the beauty our planet can provide.