【推荐1】Plan a Budget-Friendly (省钱的) Summer Vacation

It’s never too early to start thinking about your summer vacation. Deciding where to go and what attractions to see can actually be a fun and exciting part of the experience—particularly when you find ways to save your travel dollar.

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Rethink your “summer vacation”.

If your summer vacation window is wide open, why not skip July and August? The flights and accommodations are about 25% cheaper in the spring or early fall. If you must travel during the busy season, you can still save by being flexible.    2    Flying out on a Tuesday instead of a Friday could save you a bit of money, and flying in the afternoon will likely be cheaper than a morning flight.

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It’s always in your best interest to book your summer vacation early. If you plan on flying to your destination, for example, it will be much easier to find seats on your preferred flights if you book in March than if you were to wait until the last minute. The same applies to hotels, where prices are based on supply and demand.

Use the right websites.

There are a lot of websites competing for your travel dollar.     4     For example, when you make five reservations with Booking.com, you can have access to their “Genius Program” which gives you 10% off as well as early check-in and late check-out.

Consider a tour.

With so many places to see and things to do, planning a trip can wear you out quickly.     5     Seasoned tour operators, such as Trafalgar, take the stress out of travel so all you have to do is show up and enjoy yourself. More importantly, a guided vacation represents a significant saving.

【推荐3】Since 1979, Grandparents’ Day has been observed in the US on the first Sunday after Labor Day. Here are some ways to show your grandparents how much you appreciate them.

Surprise them. Though Grandparents’ Day has been marked for 40 years, many families don’t know about it. If you haven’t observed it before, give them a surprise this year.     1    

Spend time together. Many grandparents say they wish they had more individual time with their grandchildren. So one of the best things you can do for Grandparents’ Day is to simply spend time together.     2     Another way to connect is to ask your grandparents to teach you about one of their hobbies and then do it together. While you do this, tell them about what’s going on in your life.

Record a message. If you can’t physically be with your grandparents, consider sending them a special message. Ask your parents for help recording you on video.     3     Then share some of your favorite memories of times you’ve spent with them. It’s like a digital card, and your grandparents can watch it when they’re missing you.

    4     A survey showed that 90% of grandparents think it’s important that their grandkids know about the heritage they share. Many grandparents are like the historians of their family.     5     They know the most about where your relatives came from. To learn about the past of your family, you can go through old photos with them. Another option is to interview a grandparent on video and share the result with the rest of your family.

【推荐2】Artificial intelligence (AI) has hit the headlines in recent months, particularly since the launch of ChatGPT in November. The chatbot can not only answer a broad range of questions, but also create original poems and stories.

Japan’s first fully AI-created comic, Cyberpunk: Peach John, was released on March 9 by Shinchosha, a major publishing house.

The comic is based on the futuristic imagination of the author, whose pen name is Rootport. It describes how the Japanese folklore (民间传说) hero Momotaro, who is said to have been born from a giant peach, lives in a dystopian (反乌托邦的) future.

All the fancy futuristic objects and creatures in the book, however, were designed and created by Midjourney along with other popular online image-generation AI tools such as Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2.

Unlike traditional comic volumes which are usually black-and-white and short in length, Cyberpunk: Peach John comes in full color and spans more than 100 pages. A work of this length would normally take over a year to complete by even authors who are familiar with comic creation. However, with AI creation, it took the writer a surprisingly short period — only six weeks — to finish the whole work.

Despite gaining widespread attention as the first fully AI-drawn comic in Japan, the work has also raised some questions and concern as well. According to Gulf News and CNN, some people are worried that AI technology will threaten jobs and copyright ownership in the nation’s thriving comic book industry, as well as creativity and artistic value.

One Twitter user described the project as “an absolute insult (侮辱) to comic and comic artists everywhere.” Another wrote: “Weird to publish a comic by AI when your country has some of the most talented artists in existence.”

But Rootport has insisted that his comic book should be considered a work of art. “AI cannot yet create a perfect work on its own. Human assistance is essential,” he said.

【推荐3】According to Americans for the Arts, more than two-thirds of U.S. adults say that the arts “lift me up beyond everyday experiences.” Still, only 30 percent attended a concert of any type in 2017; 23 percent visited an art museum; six percent attended a literary event. Fewer than half actively created art of any kind.

What has caused this phenomenon is that we do not have time for art — we are weighed down by our day-to-day responsibilities. Maybe you like to play a little background music while you work but most of us rarely, if ever, went to see a live performance, let alone visited a gallery. And reading poetry? Perhaps not since high school.

Too often, we let the realities of life get in the way of the arts, which can feel insignificant by comparison. But this is a mistake. The arts might be the single most in-depth experience you will ever be given to explore the nature and meaning of life. And if you make time to consume and produce art, you will find your life become fuller and happier.

Some philosophers address the problem of life consumed by work and material pursuits. They argue that art provides relief from this routine, expanding our perspective and bringing us closer to true reality.   

Think of a time when you heard a piece of music and wanted to cry. Or recall your fast heartbeats as you stared at a delicate lifelike sculpture. Chances are that it probably stimulated (刺激) a sudden awakening, much like the shock from a lungful of pure oxygen after breathing in smoggy air.

If you are among those who feel that art is “pure pleasure to experience and participate in,” you might see it the same way you see eating out, or skydiving: as a luxury (奢侈品) item in your limited budgets of time and money. As such, it probably gets the same sort of treatment as any minor hobby. Don’t make this error. Treat art more like exercise or sleep: a necessity for a life full of deep satisfaction.