【推荐1】Music has strong effects on us and different music has different effects. Faster music helps us concentrate better. Lively music makes us feel more pleased.     1    

New findings show that music around 60 beats a minute can cause the brain to synchronize (合拍) with the beat causing alpha brainwaves.     2    

Researchers at Stanford University have said that listening to music can change our brain activities. They also said that music can be reached easily, making it a helpful stress reduction tool.

    3     A bit surprising: drums and flutes (长笛) can have positive effects on relaxing the mind even when played a little loud. Sounds of rain and thunder may also be relaxing especially when mixed with other music, such as light jazz, classical.

How can we choose the music that is best for us?     4     We could start by simply exploring the music on the web page. Just choose the music which can calm us down and make us feel relaxed. But remember that quieting our mind does not mean we will feel sleepy listening to the music.     5     And with our new calm self, we can then do our best in many activities.

【推荐2】The Voice Magazine recently had a chance to chat with Miss Patel, a 21-year-old university student currently living in Edmonton, Alberta. “Honestly, I am not happy with Edmonton because it’s too dead. No one socializes. Everybody likes to stay as it is. Personally, I haven’t found one person who likes to grow in their life. People in Edmonton seem to settle for whatever they get.”

When asked how she best studies, Miss Patel stated, “I was a kid who always took studies for granted. Till one day I realized it’s the most important thing. What keeps me motivated is my goal and the promises I have made to myself. I am completely focused on my career and studies, because believe it or not, hanging out with friends is a distraction.”

And her advice for new students? “Online universities and studies can be very overwhelming. You know, there is too much stuff out there. You may miss out on 90 percent of stuff you really need. But join online groups, call the student center and ask tons of questions. Go through every detail provided in the course. Make a schedule by what time you will finish the course.”

When not studying, Miss Patel is interested in “spirituality-gaining knowledge of nature, how to be the best version of yourself.” She continued, “I hit the gym quite often as well.”

When asked which famous person she would like to have lunch with and why, Miss Patel did not have any famous person in mind. She explained, “The respectful famous leads today were once a common man or woman. I would in fact love to just go on a special elite lunch with myself. I sit with myself and feel every emotion, making a list of my flaws and my positive characteristics. That way I am just getting a step forward of being a better human being. And who knows my betterment can lead me into being famous just like others!”

【推荐3】COURTESY PAUL BOZYMOWSKI-Three New York City police officers paid for a woman’s groceries rather than arresting her.

As temperatures approached 90 degrees in New York City last July 4th, three police officers ducked into a Whole Foods Market to get something cold to drink. What they walked into was a heated human drama.

Once inside, the cops, Lt. Louis Sojo and Officers Esanidy Cuevas and Michael Rivera, were approached by a store security guard who asked for help with a suspected shoplifter. The woman in question didn’t have the look of a career criminal. She was obviously scared, and her cheeks were wet with tears.

The cops peeked inside her bag. “All we saw was containers of food.” Cuevas told CBS New York.

"I’m hungry," she explained quietly.

Caught red-handed, the woman no doubt expected to be sentenced to jail for the crime of being hungry while poor. But the cops had other ideas. “We’ll pay for her food,” Sojo told the surprised security guard.

There’d been no discussion among the three men. It went unsaid. Instead, they picked up the woman’s bag and accompanied her to a cash register, where each took out $10 to pay the tab. She would not be arrested today.

All the woman could do was weep in gratitude. Covering her face with a kerchief and drying her eyes, she repeated, “Thank you, thank you.”

She wasn’t the only one touched by this act of mercy. “It was a very beautiful, genuine moment,” says Paul Bozymowski, who was at the store. He was so taken by what he’d witnessed that he posted a photo on Twitter for all to see.

But attention was never what the officers sought. They were driven by a far more common emotion. As Sojo told CNN, “When you look at someone’s face and see that they need you and they’re actually hungry, it’s pretty difficult as a human being to walk away from something like this.”

【推荐1】Cimabue, the greatest painter of a Middle Ages in Italy, was surprised one day after his lunch break to discover that a fly had seated itself under the nose of a character that he had been working on. He swatted (重拍) at the fly, but it did not move. He reached out to touch the insect, only to find it was only wet paint. Turning around, he saw that his apprentice (学徒), Giotto, was laughing. Giotto had painted the fly when Cimabue was away, and it looked so real that Cimabue had been completely fooled.

Giotto di Bondone was born into a poor family in a village. Legend has it that one day, when Cimabue was wandering around the countryside, he spotted a young shepherd boy drawing pictures of his sheep, which were so vivid that Cimabue immediately asked him to come to Florence and learn how to paint. That was how Giotto’s story began in Florence, where the young student flourished under Cimabue s instruction and soon surpassed his master in skill.

At that time, people in paintings didn’t look real, and the symbolism of art was difficult for viewers to connect with it. Innovation (创新) was not stressed, so art had remained the same for hundreds of years.

However, Giotto thought art should be something more connected with people in a more realistic way. His masterpieces included the forty major frescoes (壁画) for the Arena Chapel. Adopting many techniques that were uncommon then, he painted people the way he saw them, instead of the overly tall and boxy people that other artists painted. He created three-dimensional space by using perspective, something that had not been done since Roman times.

In addition to painting, Giotto wrote poetry and drew architectural plans. When Giotto was in his sixties, he painted the Ognissanti Madomma, another famous work of art. He continued working until the age of seventy. The ideas Giotto brought to painting throughout his life revolutionized the art world and made him one of the greatest painters ever.

【推荐2】Art is a universal language. Music is a universal language. Love is a universal language. Now, it’s the turn of sand to be mentioned in such terms. In her work, sand artist Kseniya Simonova mixes art, music and love to create her own medium which can be understood and appreciated by everyone.

Simonova said she fell in love with sand art by accident. “I never thought I could perform; I was always a classical artist,” shared Simonova. “I just started it as a hobby and I never thought it would become what it is now.” In 2009, Simonova won the “Ukraine’s Got Talent” TV contest. Since then her fame has increased rapidly, and she has become a real sensation.

The art Simonova creates is amazing; however, the medium she uses is quite common. It is ordinary river sand. “In sand art, it is an idea and its visualization that is important. What I do is create a tale in my mind. The sand is a very convenient medium that is very flexible and responds to speed well. It can show what is going on in my head.”

The images created by the artist last only for a few seconds. However, Simonova is not worried by the momentary nature of sand art. “I know that my creations live only for a while, but I believe that to be completely normal because art reflects life. We live every moment of our life, and we can’t go back and do it again. The same is the case with what I do,” Simonova concluded.

Sand art helps the artist to see the world in a new way, painting ever-changing life in every grain of sand.

【推荐3】Many artists draw with pens and brushes, but few “paint” with knives. Wang Jing, a woman from Shenyang city in northeast China’s Liaoning Province, has been engaged in this art form for 27 years.

In 1995, Wang was inspired by an accidental cut by a knife on a piece of red paper, which left a white line, and believed that she may have created something out of the ordinary. Using knives and paper, she then completed a painting of a pair of peacocks that later became a source of motivation for her 27-year endeavor.

Unlike traditional paintings, onto which colors are “added”, “knife painting” requires the painter to use blades (刀锋) to take away colors on specially made coated paper. “Knife painters” apply varied pressure on the paper in different directions to create different colors and tones. “Painting on paper with knives is a delicate art and each line in the painting is as thin as a hair,” said Wang, adding that once the marks are left on the paper, they cannot be covered, so it requires the painter to be completely absorbed in the work.

The novel art form was known to few people just after Wang created it. Even Wang herself was not expecting to make it something big at the beginning. But thanks to her huge enthusiasm for the art form, she has persisted with it for the past 27 years. So far, she has completed hundreds of paintings about auspicious Chinese culture, figures, landscape, flowers and birds, of which her favorite is a 2.8-meter-long painting that depicts 20 lifelike egrets (白鹭). Wang said she will continue working in the craft and make it known across the world.