1 . It was through Bill Bryson’s book The Lost Continent: Travel in Small-Town America that I first experienced small-town travelling. I was interested instantly on reading it, for driving across the countryside is always something I like.

    1     True, the convenience and modernity are what small towns don’t have. However, caught up in the crowd, people tend to lose the true meaning of life. They are moving quickly in the streets, as if there were steamy lava (炙热的熔岩) chasing them.

Many tourists don’t realize the real purpose for travelling is to relax.     2     They manage to escape a nine-to-five schedule of annoying work, only to dive into a nine-to-five schedule of shopping or forcing themselves into packed tourist sites.     3     You don’t get trapped in space filled with tourists, but miles of fields and woods. You don’t get tiny parks with crowds of people, but natural forests where rare animals can be seen. Villagers say hi to you warmly as you drive here and farmers will warmly invite you home.

I once travelled to the Midwest and drove through the countryside. The scenery was absolutely magnificent.     4     Farmers’ houses were in and out of sight behind golden corn. Ponds (池塘) hid themselves behind woods, where a lone fisherman sat there, enjoying life.

Suddenly, it seemed to me that life couldn’t be better. Just throw away the sadness and burdens (负担) that annoy us. What matters is the simple happiness of enjoying life.     5    

3 . Kyra Peralte thought keeping a diary during the pandemic (流行病) might help her sort out her feelings. In April 2020, the mother of two in Montclair, New Jersey, now 46, started writing about the challenges of work, marriage and motherhood during a global crisis. She invited women from near and far to fill the notebook with their own pandemic tales.She named the project The Traveling Diary.

Peralte created a website for people to add their names to the queue. Each person gets to keep the diary for three days and fill as many pages as she wishes. Then she is responsible for mailing it to the next person, whose address Peralte provides. So far, more than 2, 000 women from 30 countries have joined in.

The diary reached Colleen Martin in Florham Park, New Jersey, in November 2020. “I had just recently lost my brother. By the time I actually got it and wrote in it, it was much more of a relief,” she says. Adding to the diary, she says, helped her look for meaning and “the growth and development that occurs in terrible times.”

Martin shipped off the diary to the next person, and Dior Sarr, 35, received it at her home in Toronto just before the new year. “I wrote about my ambitions(抱负), my goals and how I wanted to step into the new year, ” she says, “It felt meaningful to pass on something so personal. It felt like these were women that I had known even though I didn’t know them at all.”

Like many of the women who wrote in her diary, Peralte feels a strong bond with the people who filled its pages, none of whom she would have otherwise known. Her idea, Peralte says, has had a great effect on her and, she hopes, the other women who were part of it.

4 . SUMMER BREAK CAMPS

Strategic (策略) Thinking Training Camp

Ages: 6﹣16

Tel: 818﹣699﹣6401

Location: In person (Cobble Hill)+ Online

Full﹣day or half﹣day Summer Break Camps explore strategic thinking using board and card games. Kids will develop and discuss strategies for game play through socialization and learn good sportsmanship through cooperative and competitive play.

Rock Camp

Ages: 8﹣18

Tel: 918﹣210﹣1720

Location：In person (Williamsburg)+ Online

The music school is offering an in﹣person “ Rock Camp”for kids to play music with a band. Kids will spend three hours every day learning and rehearsing(排练) songs from popular bands. The week﹣long camp will get to its peak in a live performance to be showed on Facebook to friends and family. You can also sign up for a “5﹣day Immersion Pass” that will allow kids to learn one instrument in a program.

The Maker Space Camp

Ages: 6+ years old

Tel: 718﹣576﹣3035

Location: Online

The maker space is offering many remote programs at Geek Forest for kids’ exploration, cooperation (合作), self﹣learning, making, and sharing, which includes “Storytelling through Comics” (ages 6–10), “Video Production Lab” (ages 8–12), “Arcade! JavaScript Game Design”(ages 8–12) , and “Creator Collector, Carnifex”(ages 12+).

Virtual Camp

Ages: 7﹣15

Tel: 618﹣966﹣6000

Location: In person (Prospect Park) + Online

They are offering an in﹣person camp where kids meet in Prospect Park and create their own Survivor Kids show. Campers learn all about making short video projects while having fun outside. Virtual camp options include a painting show and a cooking show.

8 . Canada’s new Dark Vessel Detection program is using advanced satellite technology to find illegal fishing ships that attempt to steal fish from waters around the world. Illegal fishing is a major contributor to the decrease of fish and their habitat destruction.

It is said that illegal fishing accounts for about 30 percent of fishing activity worldwide. It means that u to 26 million tons of fish are caught at a cost to the global economy of more than $ 23 billion a year. Illegal fishing occurs both on the high seas and within the 200 mile limits of coastal states. It has an especially negative effect on coastal populations in undeveloped areas.

Now, the government’s Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in partnership with the Department of National Defense and MDA (Canada’s space technology maker), has started a new program that has already led to fines on five foreign ships. The $7 million Dark Vessel Detection program uses satellite technology to locate and track ships. Some illegal fishing ships have switched off their location transmitting (传输) equipment, in an attempt to avoid surveillance (监视) and control.

The program offers state-of- the-art satellite data to small island nations and coastal states around the world. The local economies of those places are often influenced by illegal fishing. Finding illegal fishing ships from space will allow these small island nations to focus on their investigations and protect their fish.

“Illegal fishing threatens the health of our fish population and takes resources (资源) away from hard- working, legal fishermen,” said Bernadette Jordan, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, “This state -of the art system will help Ecuador and small island nations in the Pacific region deal with illegal fishing. Such illegal activity will do great harm to the Galapagos Islands and the food and economic security of its people,” she added.

9 . This will be an essential year for the pioneers developing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft (电动垂直起降飞机), popularly known as air taxis. Several firms are hoping their craft can get the necessary certification (证书) in 2023 to put them into business, providing the first passengers with services.

Air taxis generally carry fewer than half a dozen passengers. They land and take off vertically using many small rotors (旋翼). With clever software controlling the rotors, they are easier to fly than a helicopter (a kind of plane) and enable independent flight. These rotors also help improve safety, as the aircraft can continue to fly if one fails.

Some designs use an extra rotor or two at the back of the craft to push the craft along in level flight. Others, like that produced by Joby Aviation, have rotors that bend forward; a set of small wings then provides lift, making more efficient use of the aircraft’s battery and increasing the range.

After scratching their heads about how to certify these flying machines, officials have been working with developers on safety standards. This is a time consuming process. Besides receiving “type” approval, which shows the safety of a new type of aircraft, factories must be certified before production can begin in large amounts. And airline-style permission is required if passengers are to be carried. Companies are working hard to get these approvals. Piloted operations are expected to be approved before independent flights.

In Germany, Volocopter will flight- test a family of eVTOLs. The firm is hoping its smallest, two-seater VoloCity can be certified in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris where the plan is to operate shuttles (航班) between airports and the athletes’ village. Other air taxi firms also hope to provide shuttles in Paris, or at the World Expo, which will take place in Japan in 2025.