2 . 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.

3 . 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.

4 . Why would anyone want to write a poem? One reason to write a poem is to dig from yourself some thought, feeling, comprehension or question that you didn’t know was in you, or in the world. Other forms of writing, such as scientific papers, political analysis and journalism, attempt to record something known. Poetry is a release of something previously unknown.

Poetry opens our eyes and offers increase of reach. We live so often on a lonely island, separated from ourselves and others due to social or personal reasons. To step into a poem is to agree to risk. Writing takes down all protections to see what steps forward. Poetry is a trick of language, in which the writer is both magician and audience. You reach your hand into the hat and surprise yourself with a rabbit or memory, with unusual verbs or rhymes. Poems lead to revolutions of being. Whatever the old order was, a poem will change it.

What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless.

There is also the matter of connection. You can’t write an image, a metaphor (暗喻), a story, a phrase without approaching the shared world, without recognizing that your supposed solitude (独处) is at every point touching some others. You can’t read a good poem without recognizing your own face in the poet’s experience. It allows us to feel more strongly and accurately what is already present. Then it expands that and expands us.

Does art change anything by its existence or non-existence? I’d argue that art, if it is genuinely art, is a force for the good. That the rearrangement of words can reopen the potential of both inner and outer worlds — I cannot say why I feel this to be true, except that I feel it so when I read good poems.

5 . The biggest risk I’ve ever taken was quitting my job and biking alone across western China.     1     So it was a huge physical challenge but I got stronger every day, and eventually, I could easily bike for eight hours each day.

One of the best parts of the whole experience was the people. I met people from across China and once got to attend a Tibetan wedding-something I never thought I would do.     2     One time I even met a group of Chinese men traveling by motorcycle, who invited me to cook fish that they caught in the lake over a fire with wood. Another instance was when I met a group of cyclists. They were in their 60s and 70s and still cycling better than I was.     3    

The people were some of the best parts of the trip, but mostly each day, I was alone with nature. Throughout the rolling hills and the flowing streams, western China is home to some of the most amazing scenery in the world.       4     With thick forests, icy glaciers, and peaceful lakes, there is so much to see in China.

    5     I got to taste local snacks in every place I went. There are so many different options! My favorite was the cooking of Sichuan, a province known for its hot flavors and interesting dishes. No matter how much I ate, I never got sick of having different Chinese foods.

It was indeed an experience I will never forget. If anyone has an interest in traveling, I would highly recommend going by bicycle!

7 . To much of the world, bullfighting has always been distinctly Iberian. But these days, parts of France are laying claim to this tradition. From the Cte Basque to the arenas of Arles and Beziers, it has spread to towns where bullfighting has long been banned, and been embraced with such enthusiasm you’d think the sport had been born there.

The rising passion for blood and sand has been resisted by animal-rights activists. Last month someone set off a bomb near the bullring in Carcassonne. Yet France’s enthusiasts fiercely defend their right to these moral rituals. Bullfighting, they insist, is part of the heritage, an expression of a shared regional culture that should be protected.

The rest of the Continent should take note. The paradox (自相矛盾) of an ever-more-united Europe is that as borders between member states become less important, so do the nations themselves-and regional identities are valued. It’s easy to forget that most European nation-states were created as we know them only during the 19th century, after a long series of bloody conflicts. “If the chances of war had been a little different, all the regions sharing bullfight might have been together,” argues Jean Michel Mariou, a huge fan of bullfighting. On both sides of the Pyrenees there are Basques, there are Catalans, there are common cultures, he says. “Bullfighting is only one expression of it.”

Bullfighting isn’t the only cultural tradition that has begun to go beyond borders, of course. To name but one other: the Celtic revival, built largely around musical groups along the coast of Ireland, Scotland and Cornwall, Brittany and Normandy. But while bagpipes (风笛) may stir the blood, they don’t spill it. And the violence of bullfighting horrifies many people who don’t feel they share in its culture.

“The concept of lasting local tradition doesn’t mean anything anymore,” says Josyane Wuerelle, coordinator of the Federation de Liasions Anti-Corrida in Agde. Bullfighting is about attracting tourists, not honoring local history, she argues. Robert Marge doesn’t see it that way, of course. He recently declined an invitation to organize a bullfighting in Paris’s enormous Stade de France. “We didn’t want to sell our souls by bringing bullfight to a region where it doesn’t exist,” he explains. But he has also got the sense to know that some traditions don’t travel well.

8 . Beautiful Britain Photo Competition

What represents the beauty of Britain for you? Is it rolling green hills and hidden valleys of the countryside? Here’s your chance to capture it in a photo! The competition will be judged by professional photographer James Eckersley. The judge’s decision is final and winners will be informed by email or post.

You must own the rights to the photograph you submit for entry. You must be able to supply a high-resolution copy of the photograph suitable for print publication. Competition is open to residents of the UK, aged 18 or over, except Reader’s Digest employees and any associated partners or attached companies. There is no cash alternative and prizes are not transferable. Multiple entries will be accepted. Winners must agree to publication of their winning photograph, along with their name. The winning entries will be published in our July issue, with the top winner gracing the back cover. Contributions become world copyright of Vivat Direct Ltd (t/a Reader’s Digest). Your information will only be used in accordance with our privacy policy. Entry implies acceptance of these rules. For more details, tips and guides, visit readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/photo-competition