【推荐2】The summer vacation is coming. It’s time to relax. Come to join us!

【推荐1】Looking for family-friendly places this summer? Ontario has got it all.

Check out this collection of family routes from across Ontario, From beaches and farms to big cities, planning your family trip just gets a boost of inspiration. Before packing up the car and the kids, make sure you book ahead, check for activity reservations and ensure that businesses are up and running.

Family Getaway in Toronto

Are your families planning a vacation? Toronto has attractions your kids won’t want to miss, from exciting sports and cultural and scientific wonders to treats and eats that everyone can enjoy. You can even visit the Aga Khan Museum for a window into the ancient world.

Fun Roadside Attractions in Algoma

Looking for best places to take the cutest photos of you and your family, look no further than this route. Algoma Country has its share of roadside attractions -- some famous, some odd, some you may not have even known about.

Family Adventures in Lennox & Addington

Turn off electronic devices and rediscover family-friendly fun in Lennox & Addington, from camping to hiking to farm visits and more.

Explore Ottawa with the Family

Grab your family bubble and experience Ottawa’s summer atmosphere with this 3-day tour. From the downtown core to the countryside, Canada’s capital is full of fun attractions for everyone, including tours and museums!

【推荐3】Do you want something to have fun? Well, look at a list of some activities.

As the first exhibition in the new space of Fangyuan Art Museum, with the theme of flowers, it showcases many new works by artist Yan Ping. This exhibition aims to express the beauty of the power of life, and to discover the beauty that we have overlooked in the world.

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman will bring his big rubber(橡胶) duck to the Today Art Museum in Beijing, inviting you to participate in this nearly three month party. This exhibition is Hofman’s first large-scale solo exhibition in China. More than 25 new works will be displayed, presenting the landmark of Hofman’s more than 20 years of artistic career.

We are excited to offer a truly magical experience to our community at the absolutely attractive hutong place, Z-Space.Start your Sunday morning with 75-minute movement to awaken your body and mind, and fuel your spirit. After class, we’ll enjoy a selection of snacks and drinks.

Contemporary ink artist Tan Jun will hold his solo exhibition “Guansha Ridge” at Beijing Soka Art. In this exhibition, there will be 8 collections of photography and painting, adding a new experience to the viewer’s way of viewing and feeling the mysterious poetic world.

【推荐1】Libraries around the world still hold copies of books printed hundreds of years ago. Will e-books still be used in hundreds of years’ time? Librarians are worried that digital information and digital books are already being lost. Technology is always changing, and even now, we cannot find the information typed in programs we used ten or fifteen years ago. Is digital data in danger of disappearing into a digital black hole?

Amazingly, we still have copies of the first published collection of William Shakespeare 536 plays The first Folio. That’s not bad for a book that’s nearly 500 years old. The folio was published in 1623. Around 800 copies were printed and 234 known copies still can be found today.

Books are quite easy to store. They hold a large amount of information in a small space. Most importantly, we don’t need any special equipment to open them. But what about the digital books stored on your computer now? Will people be able to read them in 800, 500 or even 10 years’ time?

Technology moves fast. The digital books we saved on some special equipment ten or twenty years ago can’t be opened now. We can’t open them on our 21st century laptops. What about all your digital photographs? Every second, thousands of them are uploaded to social media. There is no physical copy. What will happen to them? Will they be lost in a few years’ time? Now you save them in .jpg or .tiff format (格式). In ten years’ time, there will be another form and another program to open your photos with. This new program will not be able to open your old .jpg or .tiff files. People have recognised this problem and there are now online sellers who will print physical photo albums of your Facebook posts.

When a website closes down, all the information on that website is removed. It’s gone forever. It has disappeared into the “digital black hole”. Organisations have understood this problem. In 2004, the British Library in the UK started to archive (存档) websites that are important culturally and academically for future generations, just like paper-based literature. In 2010, the US Library of Congress signed an agreement with Twitter to archive public Tweets sent by Americans. They have archived all public Tweets sent since the start of Twitter in 2006. That’s 400 million Tweets every day!

With all the amazing new digital technology today, we still have to rely on the centuries-old technology of printing. For now, it seems printed copies are still the safest way to store information.

【推荐2】Traditional feedback (反馈), which often involves criticizing past actions and performance, can sometimes be discouraging. However, there’s a powerful alternative that has been gaining popularity — feedforward. Feedforward is about sharing constructive and forward-looking comments to help individuals and groups move forward together, building a positive path to collective progress.

Constructive feedback has long been a cornerstone of personal development. It helps individuals identify their weaknesses and areas for improvement, but it can sometimes feel like a constant spotlight on one’s shortcomings. Feedforward, on the other hand, shifts the focus from past missteps to future possibilities. It is a tool that fosters (培养) a culture of growth, emphasizing what can be done to enhance one’s performance and contribute to the overall betterment of a group or organization.

Instead of focusing on past mistakes or weaknesses, feedforward encourages people to recognize their strengths and potential, highlighting the possibilities of what they can achieve. This approach not only boosts confidence but also motivates individuals to struggle for excellence. In a world where negativity can often overshadow positivity, the power of feedforward lies in its ability to uplift and inspire people.

When applied in group settings, feedforward becomes a powerful tool for building unity and cooperation. Teams and organizations that welcome feedforward form an environment where team members feel valued and supported. By focusing on future improvement, teams can collectively work towards their goals, fostering innovation, and achieving better results.

Feedforward can also be valuable in building personal relationships. It can be used in families, friendships, and romantic partnerships to encourage personal growth and strengthen bonds. Feedforward instead of being judgemental increases confidence. By offering constructive and forward-looking comments, you can support your loved ones in their pursuit of happiness and self-improvement.

To successfully implement feedforward, it is essential to foster open and honest communication. It’s about providing advice that is specific, practical, and, most importantly, constructive. The emphasis should always be on helping individuals identify their potential and offering suggestions for growth.

【推荐3】How often is your mind quiet? If you’re a typical human being, the answer is probably very rarely. For most of our days, our attention is focused on external things—the tasks of our jobs, TV programs, or social media interactions. In the moments when our attention isn’t focused externally, it’s usually focused on what is called “thought-chatter”—a stream of mental associations consisting of expectations of the future, memories, daydreams, and so on.

But from time to time, we all experience moments when our thought-chatter quiets down, or even disappears altogether. In these moments, we experience a sense of great well-being. We feel a sense of inner harmony. We feel as if we’re free of problems, and feel satisfied with our lives as they are.

There are many activities that have the effect of quieting our minds, and so produce a state of well-being.

For example, think about what happens when you go walking in the countryside. You might feel stressed when you start out, but slowly, after a couple of miles, your mind begins to settle down. The beauty and stillness of nature attracts your attention and you’re no longer in your thought-chatter. By the end of the walk you feel almost like a different person. You feel more alive, and much happier—largely because your mind is now quiet.

This is why people love to look at beautiful works of art. When people see the paintings of Monet or van Gogh, they experience a mind-stopping moment, in which they’re taken out of their thinking minds and experience a sense of great well-being.

The strange thing is, though, that most of the time this happens unconsciously (不知不觉地). We usually don’t associate this well-being with a quiet mind. And we usually don’t think of a quiet mind as the aim or result of these activities.

Our estimate of how enjoyable an activity is may depend on its mind-stopping capacity. In other words, the very best performances—and the most rewarding activities—are those which are so attractive and intense that they can completely stop our minds.

I’m not saying that inner quietness is the only reason why we enjoy these activities. Nevertheless, we should certainly become more aware of the association of a quiet mind with well-being. And at the same time we should be aware that it’s possible for us to consciously and directly create a quiet mind; rather than as a byproduct of certain activities. And in the end we might develop a permanent quiet mind and attain a state of ongoing contentment and harmony.