2 . Working out is such an important part of your overall health.     1     While starting an exercise routine might seem demanding, don’t worry.

Choose your inspiration and set a clear, achievable goal. Having a goal can really help you feel motivated. Take a few minutes to think about why you’re working out and what you want to achieve.     2     Write down your goal and post it somewhere you’ll see it regularly, like your bathroom mirror or on your fridge.

    3     Decide how many days a week you’ll be able to work out. Ideally, you should get at least 30 minutes of exercise per day, 5 days a week. However, if you’re trying to achieve a certain goal, you might want to consider working out for about an hour several days a week.

Push yourself to work hard. The trick is to do it safely and in a controlled manner. If you ran 2 miles yesterday and felt worn out later, don’t try to run 5 miles today. Instead, find a level of effort that leaves you feeling like you got in a good workout.     4    

Work as much of your body as you can. The more parts of your body receive exercise, the more you’ll notice exercises’ positive effects on your weight, mood, stress levels, sleeping patterns, and overall sense of well-being.     5     But some options are better than others. Lifting free weights, for example, works more muscle groups than using targeted weightlifting machines.

3 . Are there any lakes in your hometown? What color are they? Around one-third of the world's lakes are blue, according to a study in September 2022. But global warming may lead them to turn green or even brown.

Xiao Yang from Southern Methodist University in the US and his team analyzed the color of over 85,000 lakes based on satellite photos taken from 2013 to 2020. They found that lakes in places with cooler average summer air temperatures — below 19°C — were more likely to be blue than lakes in places with warmer summers.

The color of a lake is in part decided by what's in the water. Water molecules (分子) absorb the long wavelengths of sunlight, such as red, orange, and yellow, leaving behind the shorter ones presenting green and mostly blue. Simply put, the cleaner the water, the bluer it looks. In warmer lakes, algae (藻) and phytoplankton (浮游植物) develop easily. These microbes (微生物) contain colors from green to brown and red, giving the lake a different color. If the temperature continues to rise with climate change unchecked, one in 10 blue lakes might change color, according to the study.

Lakes serve as a vital part of nature, with their color being one of the oldest ways to determine the health of an ecosystem. Humans get their drinking water from lakes, streams and ground water. As lakes become greener, people may lose lots of clean water. Because of this, treating the water of such lakes becomes more expensive. For lake animals, the thriving (茁壮成长) of algae and phytoplankton in greener lakes can provide more food resources. However, an increase in these microbes may cause lake animals to die for lack of oxygen.

4 . You may have heard the old saying, “The more, the merrier.” It’s usually true, but not for travel. When it comes to travel, I say, “The more, the messier.”

I first figured this out a few years ago. I bought the cheapest airline ticket I could find: the Philippines. It turned out great! Once, I went on a long hike and missed the last bus back to town. No problem! Because I was traveling alone, I was able to ride with some Swiss tourists who only had one extra seat in their van(货车). Traveling alone, I was never really alone at all. It was easier to meet people. I talked to everyone I met.

I’m not alone in my preference for solo travel. According to the Daily Mail, there has been a 143 percent increase in “solo travel” internet searches over the past three years. This makes it one of the fastest growing parts of the travel industry.

To me, it’s obvious why people like it. It’s easier to plan. Just pack your bag and go straight to your dream place. If you involve other people, you’ll have to make compromises with your time and money.

Besides freedom, for some people, solo travel is a journey for the mind and soul. They believe solo travel helps them escape trivial (琐碎的) problems of daily life and social activities. “I need peace. I need quiet,” said Suzanne Joinson in the Telegraph. “And most of all, I really, really need to be alone.” No wonder US author Henry Rollins once wrote: “Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.”

Though Peking Opera and English don’t     1     (normal) go together, they fit together like a dream. They have made up the best     2     (moment) of my life.

After     3     (win) a prize at the age of 10, I went on to win the Silver Award for the National Children’s Peking Opera Contest on CCTV Channel 11. I delivered     4     impressive performance of qingyi, the graceful female role in     5     (tradition) Chinese drama. It was by singing Peking Opera in English     6     I won the judges over and got into the final round of the     7     (compete).

I’m proud that Peking Opera and English come together in my life,     8     brings me the dream to introduce Chinese culture to the world by performing Peking Opera in English. With this dream in my heart, singing Peking Opera in English, I     9     (participate) in the 2019 National Star of Outlook English Contest, and won the first prize.

In the coming days, I’ll keep working hard on Peking Opera and English     10     (realize)my dream of performing Peking Opera in English across the world.

7 . HER Bremble, a great science-fiction movie and TV director, who uses his imagination for Hollywood, is riding a new wave of creation.

Recently, he came to China to apply his wisdom to a new project, which requires creativity and imagination; he's the art director at the Space Travel Theme Park, opened last weekend in Beijing. “Like making a movie, I have to make sure that everything is one complete narrative story,” Bremble said, explaining his job. But the park is different from a movie where you just sit and look at things. Visitors can walk through things and can try on an astronaut's clothes and taste his food.

“Projects like this are bigger than movies as you have to let people's experiences come alive,” the imagineer explained. “To be an imagineer, you have to be up and you have to be ready to do the impossible.” He did admit, however, that even this field, with its fantastic ideas, is not without its limitations. The hardest thing for the imagineer is that his work is “always a dialogue between creativity and money”. That means business is involved.

“So, my role is to be open to different ideas and to make the best compromise (妥协)between what it costs and what you want to do,” he said. When asked about what it takes to become a good imagineer, Bremble said, “It's about dreaming and reading.”

The word “imagineer” sounds good, which makes you think of a stylish profession where you just sit in front of a laptop with a cup of coffee, waiting for the ideas to jump out of your mind. Then you cash in on them. But it's not as easy or as comfortable as that. For one thing, Bremble sleeps less than a lot of people do and eats fast food. For another, he has to keep his mind running and evolving and upgrading. But, maybe that's why this career attracts ambitious young minds.

8 . If you are planning for your summer reading list and are lost in numerous choices, check out the following book reviews on modern classics for consideration.

Apart from having won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2004, this amazingly beautiful novel about Black slave owners in an imaginary town is still under-read. It’s a work of genius and profound humanity.

García Márquez deals with Colombia’s Thousand Days’ War of 1899 — 1902, but in the most indirect way possible and in some of the most charming and excited words possible. The vast majority of people consider this Nobel Prize winning novel as a must-read book in life.

As a book on National Book Award finalist, this novel focuses on the issues of Japan’s occupation of Korea and the impact of World War II through the painful and inspiring stories of multiple (多个) characters over four generations with the best level of modern classic storytelling skills.

This novel brings its readers back to the fire and bombing days of Germany. It breaks so many rules that it will make you rethink what is possible in fiction.