【推荐1】Activities for the St. Patrick’s Day

Celtic Journey with the Nashville Symphony (交响乐)

Enrico Lopez-Yañez, the Principal Pops Conductor of the Nashville Symphony, leads the Nashville Symphony joining the Scott-Ellis School of Irish Dance for a night of Irish music and dancing. Put on your best green dress and get ready for a night of entertainment you’ll never forget.

615-687-4040

All ages. Schermerhorn Symphony Center, One Symphony Place, Nashville. $38~$126.

St. Patrick’s Day Hands-on Cooking Class

Learn the techniques for silky braised meat such as Lamb Stew & Corned Beef, as well as Irish classics Colcannon & Rarebit. Participate in karaoke and enjoy St. Patrick’s Day-inspired snacks.

615-942-7169

Adults. Green Door Gourmet, 7007 River Road Pike, Nashville. $55.

Annual St. Patrick’s Music City Long-distance Running

Runners will start on Victory Avenue, onto South First Street, continue into Shelby Park, turn left to Greenway, 1oop (环绕) around Sevier Lake, then exit Sevier Lake, and go onto Shelby Bottoms till the finish point. For 10K runners, turn around to complete a second loop of the above course.

615-898-1862

Ages 18-50. Nissan Stadium, One Titans Way, Nashville. $60 for the 5K and $80 for the 10K.

Note: For group participants (at least 3 people), there is a 10% discount for the registration.

Lucky Leprechaun Hunt

Bounce on inflatable mats(充气垫)and search for gold coins for prizes. Here we can give kids their best birthday party. It’s the perfect place for great, bouncy fun with huge bounce houses and plenty of games - there is even a special birthday throne!

615-893-8386

Ages 3-6. Bounce U Murfreesboro, 1222 Park Ave., Murfreesboro. $11.95.

【推荐2】Though differences in culture and customs can be broad, there’s at least one thing that unites people across planet—the desire to celebrate. Traveling for a holiday can give you the unique opportunity to take a deep dive into another country and make new friends along the way. Here’s a list of holidays worth traveling for.

From mud to tomatoes, things also get a bit messy in summer in Bunol, a small town in Spain’s Valencia province at Tomatina, the world’s biggest food fight. Thousands of tomatoes are crushed during a whole hour of great fun. People wear goggles (护目镜) to protect themselves from the flying red fruit and the streets quickly fill with red tomato sauce.

Don’t expect to come home clean after experiencing the Boryeong Mud Festival in South Korea. Famous for its mineral-rich mudflats, visitors rush to Boryeong in July to cake themselves in mud, swim in grey pools and enjoy the party, complete with music and fireworks. There are even mudslides and a mud skiing competition for those who are seeking the ultimate mud adventure!

Known as the Festival of Colors, bright colored powder (粉末) fills the air during Holi, a Hindu celebration full of joy that celebrates and gives respect to the victory of good over evil and the end of evil. This festival is celebrated on the last full moon of the lunar month so the date varies, falling between the end of February and mid-March. Holi is one of the most important holidays in India and travelers will be impressed by the celebrations all throughout the country.

【推荐3】Here are a few impressive balloon displays.

Bristol International Balloon Fiesta

Starting in 1979, the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta in the UK is an annual balloon festival kicking off at the start of August for four days. Stealing a little bit of the attention, the RAF’s Red Arrows also squeeze in a sky performance just to keep things interesting.

Albuquerque Balloon Festival

Starting off with just 13 balloons in 1972, this 9 day-long October event now pulls in 550 balloons. That makes Albuquerque, New Mexico, home to the biggest hot air balloon festival in the world.

While you can jump in a basket any day of the week, take part in the photo contest or listen to live music, Mass Ascension days are the best ones to drop by.

Saga International Balloon Fiesta

In early November, by the Kase River in Japan, over a million people and 100 balloons touch down for the Saga International Balloon Fiesta. Going strong for over 40 years, it’s an annual showcase of the best balloon creations.

The event is entirely free and includes access to the Hot Air Balloon School where you can learn what it takes to run a balloon.

QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning

Further north at the Solberg Airport in Readington, New Jersey, you’ll find the QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning. Over the last weekend in July, it runs a schedule of live music and special shape gatherings. But not just about the balloon, this festival helps you blow off your own steam with sessions of stretch classes and a 5-kilometre run alongside the balloons too.

【推荐1】If you have ever lost touch with old school friends, you may find yourself wanting to make contact again. Some teens find that certain school friends are worth keeping contact with and want to keep the friendship going strong.

Hang out at the same places

One way you can get together with old friends from your school is to go to the same places that they go to. If you still go to school together，you probably know where everyone goes on the weekends. If you are able to go there too, you may find that your relationships with your old school friends start up again.

Sports teams

If you are athletic and your former friends are too, joining school sports teams is a great way to catch up with old friends. This doesn't mean that you should join a sport which you do not like just so you can see your old friends. However, if you like sports，wish to join a team and your former friends are on that team, then playing the team sports is a great way to get to know them again.

Take part in school clubs

There are often a lot of school clubs in which teens participate. Depending on your interests and your former friends' interests，you may just find a club at school. Sharing a common interest such as a club activity will help you to have something in common and something to talk about.

【推荐2】Language is in a constant state of change. British English shows this clearly. Take the word “Cheerio!” for example. It has been a British way to say goodbye for more than a century, but it’s dying out as the English language evolves. These days, many young people simply say “laters”. Or take the word “marvelous”. At one time it was a common British word meaning “wonderful”, but over the last ten years it’s been overtaken by the American word “awesome”.

So how and why do words come into and fall out of fashion? The influence of US culture is only one explanation for why popular words in British English may change or even stop being used over time. “Awesome” is a good example, but also “fortnight”, a term not used in the US, is now falling out of fashion in British English, and in some cases has been replaced by “two weeks”.

New inventions also bring in new words. As old inventions are replaced by new ones, the words which described them also disappear and are replaced. So it’s out with the “Walkman” (a cassette player from the 80s) and in with MP4 players!

Then there’s the influence of social media. Text messages and emails have reduced words for convenience, with something like ICYMI (“in case you missed it”) becoming words in their own right. Where “friend” was once a noun, we now “friend someone on Facebook” and where we used to “love” something, now we’re “loving it”!