2 . Two women in their 50s stand beholding in front of Guanyin of the South China Sea, an ancient Chinese sculpture in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Over the past 20 years, they have been visiting the museum, describing the “mother Buddha” as “beautiful and tranquil, a symbol of religious traditions in China”. Measuring 2.4 meters high, 1.68 meters wide and 1.1 meters thick, the larger-than-life sculpture was carved from the trunk of a single poplar tree, which has created a sense of calm and warmth in the hall.

Since its launch in 1933, the museum has been actively collecting, preserving, studying and exhibiting works of Chinese art, ranging from ceramics to furniture, and from paintings to sculptures. And its Chinese art collection contains masterpieces in various historical stages.

An exhibition on the theme of Lively Creatures—Animals in Chinese Art was held at the museum, displaying tens of Chinese ancient paintings with images of animals in many art forms. The creatures on the paintings represented celebration, personal messages, and even political and religious agendas.

Organizers of the exhibition produced a set of cards, with images of animals on one side and their cultural meanings in Chinese artistic tradition on the other. The cards are provided for visitors for free.

“I find it very interesting, and the way that the things are drawn is very cool,” says 17-year-old high school student Camden Lombard after visiting the exhibition. “I want to go to China someday to find more,” he adds.

“It’s kind of eye-opening and we’re bringing the world together,” says Makar, an educator with the school outreach and education programs of the museum. “There are so many similarities as well as beautiful differences, and we are just trying to understand and appreciate one another.”

“We’re in a moment when it’s sometimes hard to look outside of your own personal viewpoints,” says Howard, manager of volunteer engagement at the museum. “I think having access to seeing what other cultures have created, what they valued and appreciated, and what was important to them, is really important in building that understanding about all the people we share this planet with.”

4 . Five years ago, Meredith Arthur, a 45-year-old San Francisco resident, arrived at a neurologist appointment. She spoke a mile a minute, explaining why she thought it might hold clues to her neck pain, frequent dizziness and headaches. “I was presenting my inexpert case to an expert, who stopped me and said, ‘I know what’s wrong. You have generalized anxiety disorder.’”

Arthur is one of the 40 million American adults who experience an anxiety disorder—the most common form of mental illness—every year. Its major factor is the uncertainty about situations in daily life.

“I describe anxiety as a future-oriented emotional response to a perceived threat,” says Joel Minden, PhD, a clinical psychologist. “We anticipate that something bad will happen. Maybe we have evidence. Maybe we don’t. But we have a belief that something catastrophic might occur.”

Almost immediately, Minden says, your sympathetic nervous system kicks into high gear. This leads to the release of adrenaline and cortisol, two of the crucial hormones (荷尔蒙) that drive your body’s fight-freeze-flight response and cause anxiety’s physical symptoms. Your heart races, your blood pressure rises, your pupils dilate, you get short of breath.

Meanwhile, cortisol curbs functions that your brain considers non-essential: It affects immune system responses and suppresses (抑制) the digestive system, the reproductive system, and growth processes. This was helpful for our ancestors trying to outrun tigers but is not so much when you can’t stop struggling with the problem whether you might have caught COVID-19 when the guy behind you in line at the grocery store coughed.

Anxiety can show itself in many ways. You might perceive something as threatening even when it isn’t or go to great lengths to avoid uncomfortable situations. You might constantly overthink plans or spend all of your time creating solutions to worst-case scenarios. Maybe you feel indecisive and fear making the wrong decision. Or you might find yourself restless, nervous, and unable to relax.

The good news is that anxiety is very manageable with some combination of medication, therapy, and lifestyle adjustments.

5 . For high school students, just thinking about your career probably isn’t enough. You have to actively do some research and plan. Here are some of the best careers for the future and how you can get your foot in the door.

Registered Nurses

To become registered nurses, you’re going to need either an associate degree in nursing, a Bachelor of Science in nursing, or another officially approved diploma(文凭) from a nursing program. If you want to be a practicing physician, you’ll need a medical degree in your chosen field on top of your four-year degree.

Data Analysts

Big data is a growing field with profitable opportunities for college graduates. You are required to have a master’s degree in computer science or another related field. Data science is a traditionally male-dominated industry and only 26 percent are held by women. Thankfully, it is holding out an olive branch to females and there are some terrific programs specially designed for them to break into this dynamic field.

Plumbers (管道工) and Electricians

Not all of the best careers for the future will require a four-year undergraduate degree. There’s a serious demand for skilled positions jobs like plumbers and technicians. Many of these positions require a high school degree and often an associate degree in a related field, but don’t necessarily require graduation from a four-year university.

Cybersecurity (网络安全) Experts

The average salaries for cybersecurity experts can start at $80, 000 for IT Security Consultants and can reach six figures for other positions such as a security director. The best way to start your path in cybersecurity is with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, engineering, or other related fields.

6 . If you haven’t decided how to spend your summer, you may want to think about the possibility of participating in a summer program.

Virtual Experience:Harvard’s High School Programs

If you’re wondering what college is like, Harvard offers online college programs just for high school students who are curious. Harvard’s high school programs allow you to take real courses and earn college credit. Financial aid is available for qualifying students.

Virtual Experience:American University High School Summer Scholars

This multi-week, online program helps high school students pursue their interests in a variety of topics. Each online course is 1-credit hour. Rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors with a 3.0 GPA (Grade Points Average) can choose 1 course from 14 subjects-from Political Action and Public Policy to Oceanography and more.

Virtual Experience:Worcester Polytechnic Institute(WPI) — Frontiers Program

This online, summer program is designed for high school students entering their junior and senior years. Program participants are challenged to explore the outer limits of their knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) with current laboratory techniques and exploring unsolved problems across a wide range of disciplines.

Virtual/In-Person Opportunities:Immerse Education Programs

Immerse Education’s summer programs offer in-person and online courses in a variety of subjects and take place throughout the United Kingdom and Australia. Students ages 11-18 from around the world get to learn on the campuses of Cambridge, Oxford, London and the University of Sydney.

7 . It’s that time again when we’re busy buying and giving them. Sometimes we call them ________, sometimes presents. Is there a ________?

The words come from different ________. Gift has its origin in the Germanic root for “to give”. It referred to an act of ________, and then, to the thing being given. Present comes from the French for “to present”. A present is the thing presented. They were both used to express the ________ of something going through a change of ________ without expectation of payment from the 13th century onward.

The words gift and present are well-matched synonyms that mean almost the same thing. ________, even well-matched synonyms have their own unique patterns of ________. Gift applies to a wide range of situations. Presents are more ________. If your whole family gave ________ to your college fund for your birthday, would you say “I got a lot of presents”? It doesn’t exactly sound ________, but since you never hold these donations in your hand, gifts seem to fit better.

Gift can also act like an adjective to describe another noun. What do you call the type of shop where you can buy presents for people? A gift shop. Present doesn’t work well in this role of ________ other nouns. We have gift boxes and gift cards, not present boxes and present cards.

Still, ________ my personal sense of the ________, present—though it may not be as common—is more casual sounding than gift. But whether it’s gifts or presents you ________, I wish you many and lots this year.

9 . Some of the most attractive pictures to come out of the Alaska earthquake are the photos that show slope (斜坡）failures, in which parts of formerly solid hills caved in，tore or let loose. And if there happened to be a road or building on top of the slopes that failed，the result was horrible.

Slopes can fail without earthquakes, as the result of pouring rain qr w：eathering. But the shaking caused by a quake — particularly a large one like what occurred near Anchorage on Friday — can either speed up the process or create entirely new failures that wouldn't have otherwise happened.

Several slope failures were documented in the Anchorage area in the hours after the earthquake Friday, the most interesting of which was on Vine Road southwest of Wasilla. It’s as if someone came along with a large destroying ball and dropped it on Vine Road, which wrinkled like a broken egg.

Scientists seemed surprised at how many slope failures occurred as a result of the 7.0-magnitude (震级）quake. The center of the quake was deep, at 27 miles below the surface — a key reason why the damage in Anchorage was relatively light. Such an earthquake would be expected to produce shaking over a large area, but probably with reasonably modest top ground accelerations, Friday’s earthquake would certainly be felt, but the surface of Earth wouldn't be moving badly enough to produce widespread landslides.   

Photos from Alaska show a lot of lateral (横向的）spread, in which the ground tears open. Whatever is on top of the ground at the place it tears in half is also torn in half afterwards, like highways or buildings. The buildings surrounding the spread are also at risk of damage because of the force of the ground spreading out away from the tear. There’s also documentation of block spread，in which part of the ground breaks off a hill and slides away mostly perfect.

10 . I had not hugged a friend or a family member for more than two years.

I hadn’t had that ______ until recently when my sister-in-law came for a brief visit. For everyone’s safety, we met outside. Despite the ______ weather in January, her hug warmed me from the inside out. I realized how much I ______ embracing loved ones — the warmth that ______ long after our arms untwined (松开).

There was war in my home town in Bosnia, so I found every moment was full of ______. On one peaceful morning, I begged my mom to let me go outside after weeks wilting (蔫) indoors. She ______ agreed. I was outside for only 10 minutes ______ I was caught in an explosion. I ______ to my neighbor’s house for safety and threw my arms around her neck while my legs were ______ underneath me. She hugged me with both arms and ______ me into her house. I was still in her arms when the ambulance arrived.

______, I made a full physical recovery, but the emotional ______ never left me. Years later there was another explosion near my house, when my father was away to buy a loaf of bread. When he came back inside, I gave him the biggest hug ______, choked in tears as I held him tight.

That same night my parents managed to arrange my escape from our war-torn city. They desperately wanted at least some of my childhood to be ______. I was 16 and came to America on my own. A generous host family took me ______. Over next several months, I suffered ______.   The only way I shared my feelings was by giving Oscar, their dog, a big ______.

Now, due to our pandemic lives, hugging a stranger is the ______ thing on our minds. For many of us, ______ hugging a relative or a friend comes with stress and anxiety because of risks and precautions (防范). I ______ that in the not-so-distant future we can safely hold one another again, a friend, relative, or a stranger.