【推荐1】Robert Ballard is probably the most famous deep-sea explorer in the past 100 years. While he is best known for his historic discovery of the wreckage(残骸) of the R.M.S. Titanic which sank to the bottom of the sea in 1912, he also discovered the wreckage of the Bismarck and the Yorktown. Over his career, Dr. Ballard has completed over 120 deep-sea journeys and continues to push exploration to new depths with new technologies and strategies. His new high-tech Inner Space Center at the University of Rhode Island links scientists all over the world and makes it possible to identify new discoveries in realtime.

Reporter: What were you like as a kid?

Ballard: I was a very “active” kid with lots of interests including sports (football, basketball, and tennis), fishing, and studies.

Reporter: Do you have a hero?

Ballard: My hero is Captain Nemo from the book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne and his submarine the Nautilus.

Reporter: What do you daydream about?

Ballard: I dream about undersea exploration.

Reporter: How did you get into your field of work?

Ballard: It started with a scholarship to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, in the summer of 1959 when I was a junior in high school. That summer, I went to sea on two separate expeditions in Baja California with various oceanographers(海洋学家). During one of those expeditions, I met Dr. Robert Norris, a Scripps graduate with a Ph. D. in marine geology, who invited me to come to the University of California, Santa Barbara where I ended up getting my undergraduate degree in Geology and Chemistry with minors in Math and Physics.

Reporter: What’s the best piece of advice that anyone has ever given you that you can share with us?

Ballard: Follow your dreams and don’t let anyone talk you out of them.

Reporter: Do you have any good jokes?

Ballard: I prefer sayings to jokes. My favorite is, “Never get into the thick of thin things.”

【推荐2】Adding to the achievements of a remarkable year, Taylor Swift has been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2023.

Already a superstar before 2023, Swift’s career has reached new heights thanks to the beginning of her Eras Tour that brought her 3.5-hour performance to 66 shows in 23 cities across North America, Argentina and Brazil. Promoted by her tour, Swift has been named the most-streamed female artist in the history of Spotify and Apple Music. According to Billboard, the tour made about $900 million (about 6.4 billion yuan) in 2023. In addition, the tour’s movie Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour became the biggest concert movie of all time, taking more than $250

As she was declare a billionaire by Bloomberg in November, a hidden “Taylor Swift economy” also promoted sales for business owners across the US. From soaps to a cruise inspired by her different “eras”, interest in Swift-related products went way up.

Apart from her financial contributions, Swift made a significant cultural impact by taking back control of her music. In 2019, her old record label, Big Machine, sold the master tapes of her first six albums (专辑) to Scoot er Braun. The sale meant that she didn’t have the rights to the albums. In response to this, Swift began re-recording her first six albums, tagging (加标签于) them “Taylor’s Version”. This move stressed her belief that artists deserve to own their work. “It’s all in how you deal with loss,” she told Time. “I respond to extreme pain by resisting.”

Heading into 2024, Swift will start the Eras Tour again in Japan and Australia. As USA Today noted, “Her current top has been a long time coming, but it may also be just beginning.”

【推荐3】Taylor Swift added another great honor this year—the first-ever Taylor Swift Award—at the 64^th yearly BMI Pop Awards.

Held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, the ceremony honored the writers and publishers of the most-performed pop songs during the past year. The Taylor Swift Award was a recognition（认可）of both Swift’s musical influence and creative gift.

In her acceptance speech, Swift said that she was happy to get the award named after her. “It is really a relief that BMI decided to give me the Taylor Swift Award, because if they had chosen somebody else to give it to, I’d be like kind of angry about it.” the singer joked.

This eponymous（同名的）award marked only the second time in BMI’s history that the organization has presented an award in an artist’s name. Michael Jackson, a legendary（传奇的）artist, was the first to get that honor in 1990.

“Taylor Swift is one of the most popular singers in US. She has shown pop culture through her songs,” said Barbara Cane, BMI’s Vice President of Writer/ Publisher Relations, “She has had a deep influence, not only musically, but also through her personal belief and commitment to create a standard that values and respects music for everyone. We felt it suitable to award Taylor with an honor that is an special as she is.”

Swift also claimed four of the year’s most-performed songs to earn the honor of Pop Songwriter of the Year.