【推荐1】College Student Guide to Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break, for many college students, is a big gift in the middle of fall semester. Lots of students go home for Thanksgiving, but some stay on campus.     1     Whatever your situation, though, there are things you can do to make sure you squeeze every last drop out of the long weekend.

Thanksgiving is nearly always about friends and family. However, every college student has a unique situation. Not all the students choose to return home for Thanksgiving.    2     If you find being back home stressful, try planning to see friends or a trip to your favorite coffee shop.

For many students, it’s the first chance they have to visit friends from high school. If you had a large circle of friends» getting to see everyone you wanted to see might be hard.    3     So it is wise to try to plan group activities where you can spend time with as many of your old friends as possible.

Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel times of the year, so knowing what to expect can prevent a fun trip home from turning into a travel nightmare.    4     The other half is planning your route home. If you plan to fly back home, book tickets at least six weeks in advance.

For most students, Thanksgiving falls either right before or right after midterms. So while you’re relaxing over the break, it doesn’t mean you can let your academics slide.    5     Even if your professors didn’t assign you anything over the break f you probably have a larger project to work on. Remember the end of the semester is really only a few weeks away.

【推荐2】Did you know that creating a product that fails terribly could get you featured in a museum? Hundreds of failed products and inventions are getting attention and appreciation in the Museum of Failure in Hollywood.

It is the brainchild of Samuel West, a Swedish psychologist who created it to change the way people think about failure. “Failure is necessary for any kind of progress,” West said. It had a traveling exhibition in Shanghai in 2019 with over 100 “failed” products from big-name companies such as Nokia, Apple and Coca-Cola. “I really hope you see that these well-known brands that everybody respects screw up too,” West told the New York Times.

West's opinion isn't new. The famed physicist Albert Einstein once said, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” This idea has even been embraced by big companies in Silicon Valley. A common slogan is “Fail fast, fail often.” “The best companies are those that encourage failure, embrace out-of-the-box thinking, and allow employees to make mistakes and see what happens,” wrote Simon Custo of Forbes.

But some people are skeptical of this so-called “culture of failure”. They are worried that if failure becomes “a badge (徽章) of honor”, it may even be seen as “uncool” when someone tries to reduce the risk of failure. This may lead to carelessness and lack of effort. “Sometimes people hide behind failure, when they could have prevented,” wrote Anna Issac of The Telegraph.

So it's important that people set apart the 2 kinds of failure: the kind that shows laziness or incompetence and the kind that takes you forward. The key is whether you've learned something from your mistakes.

【推荐3】Christmas can easily become an expensive time of a year. From gifts to decorating, the money spent on the celebration adds up quickly. But there's no reason to completely break the bank.     1    

Make a budget (预算). Set the amount you're willing to spend for the holiday, including gift giving, decorating and travel.     2     And if you can keep to your budget, you'll lead an easy life in the following weeks and months.

Start shopping for Christmas decorations early. Stores have sales for decorations between Halloween and Thanksgiving.     3       Better yet, go shopping for next year's decorations the day after Christmas. You can buy many things at very low prices right after Christmas.

Shop for gifts all year round. Whenever you're out shopping, keep an eye out for great Christmas presents.     4     Shopping early can prevent you from spending more money than you can afford. And if you spend little here and there throughout the year, Christmas will have a much smaller influence on your wallet in December.

Scale down (缩减) your gift giving. Sometimes you just can't afford to get something for everyone. Remove the people from your list whom you rarely speak with.     5     The people you do choose to buy for don't need something expensive. Keep in mind that it's the thought that is more important.

【推荐2】Recently, American President Trump announced his budget. One of the budgets would cut all money to The Institute of Museum and Library services and libraries across the United States. However, as far as I’m concerned, we need to save our libraries.

Libraries provide books and after-school programs for children. They help inspire a life-time love of learning and reading in children of all ages. The knowledge of the books in libraries is not available to the children at school. Without them where will kids with no Internet at home do their homework? Where will kids have a place to study or borrow books after school? Therefore, we need libraries for our kids. We need them so kids can grow up with a place, other than school, where learning and exploration is encouraged. Reading books can benefit children’s minds. Books allow them to imagine.

For adults, libraries serve as a place where they can use the Internet to apply for jobs, get job training, early voting centers as well as book clubs to help make new friends. It can also serve as a place to pick up a book and learn something new. Meanwhile, they can also rent a book and get away from it all.

Libraries save our information for the next generation. When we live in an age of alternative facts, where science is ignored in favor of personal feelings, we need libraries now more than ever. We need them to educate ourselves on the facts. We need them to have strong civic participation.

If you assent to me, you shouldn’t be silent on this issue. You can write or call directly to tell the president to save our libraries. You can also write to both your state Senators (参议员) and your district representative. Let them know this is good issue because all people use public libraries in their daily life.