1 . Tickets are now on sale for Walt Disney World’s latest holiday event. Disney Jollywood Nights, abrand new holiday event, will run at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for 10 nights: Nov. 11, 18, 20, 27 and 29 and Dec. 4, 6, 16, 18 and 20. The after-hours holiday event officially runs from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., but event guests are usually allowed to enter the park 90 minutes early.

What to expect from Disney Jollywood Nights?

A live holiday special hosted by Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy at Theater of the Stars

The return of the impressive nighttime firework show

A jazz bar at The Hollywood Brown Derby

An “other-worldly party” at The Hollywood Tower Hotel Courtyard

A “Latin street fair” along Commissary Lane

A “spirited sing-along” at Hyperion Theater

Exciting photo opportunities with Mickey Mouse and his friends

How much are tickets to Disney Jollywood Nights?

Ticket prices range from $159 to $179 for guests aged 3 and up. Please note that children youngerthan age 3 don’t need a ticket. Guests with tickets to this event don’t need a theme park reservation in orderto enter the park at 7 p.m. or later. If you plan to arrive earlier than 7 p.m., valid park admission as wellas a theme park reservation for Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be required.

Only a limited number of tickets are available for each night, and they are non-transferable (不可转让的), non-refundable and may not be resold.

4 . Nature’s beauty is all around you. Wild flowers shine in bright blues, yellows, and reds. Trees, with unique shaped branches, and leaves, decorate the horizon. Under your feet, pine needles, leaves, and grass give their natural beauty on the earth’s surface. But how many of you take the time to notice all of nature’s wonders?

Hannah Bullen-Ryner is an artist who not only takes the time to “smell the roses”, but she uses them as a medium to craft stunning portraits of birds. Bullen-Ryner, a photographer by trade, began her artistic hobby shortly after her twin daughters were born. The young mother suffered from depression and anxiety. To seek a solution, she turned to nature.

Bullen-Ryner started spending time alone in the woods, foraging for materials: flowers, branches, leaves, and grass. On an impulse (冲动), she started forming a portrait of a bird with the items she had gathered. When her picture was finished, Bullen-Ryner realized that she felt calmand hopeful. The process had been healing and therapeutic (有疗效的).

Bullen-Ryner tells My Modern Met, “Finding the medium of land art has allowed my art and soul to connect to the earth. As a full-time Mama of nearly three-year-old twin girls, and someone who suffers from anxiety, my art is my quiet time, my peace.”

When Bullen-Ryner creates her artwork on the forest floor, she never uses glues or any other material to bond the foraged items. This means that a single breeze is able to carry away or scatter her portrait.

“People often ask me why I don’t make something more permanent or they say it’s such a shame that it’s temporary,” Bullen-Ryner explains. “But for me,” she continues, “it is the short-lived nature of what I do that has become therapy for my soul. I get to put down all my anxieties, my fears, and all the chaos from my brain and turn it into something beautiful to honor Mother Nature. I take some photos and then walk or cycle away, leaving it all behind and feeling calmer, more connected, and truly lighter.”

5 . If you recognize yourself as someone who often experiences social anxiety and are wondering what steps you can take to reduce the frequency of these experiences, the key lies in being proactive.     1     Thus the focus should be to learn how to deal with them.

    2     By acting as a protective buffer (缓冲物) against disease and psychological disturbance, doing workouts is one reliable way to strengthen your mind. Workouts promote the experience of positive emotions, which in turn helps build us up.

Mindfulness is another superpower that can help restore your mind. If engaging in a regular practice, users can expect a series of positive outcomes. Even 10 minutes a day of mindfulness practice can dramatically improve both physical and psychological functioning. The beauty of mindfulness is that it does not have to be practiced only in a formal way.     3    

Sometimes, in order to reduce the negative effects of anxiety, you might want to look more closely at patterns of thinking. When we consider that the autonomic nervous system is enabled and symptoms of anxiety occur, we interpret an event as being stressful.     4     When this happens, engaging in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can be a real game changer. CBT, one of the most effective treatments for mental health problems, is often used as a treatment for anxiety.     5     Useful CBT techniques include writing down thoughts and then gently challenging the truth of them, and learning positive ways such as cognitive reframing (认知重建).

7 . A team in Norway recently conducted in-depth research on writing by hand and typing on a keyboard.

The team invited 36 university students who had to either write or type words displayed on a screen. The study participants used a digital pen to write in cursive (草书) on a touchscreen, and they used one finger on a keyboard to type. The researchers used a special cap with 256 sensors. This cap was worn by the students, and their brain activity was recorded for five seconds each time they were asked to write or type.

“We show that when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns are far more complex than when typewriting on a keyboard,” says Professor Audrey van der Meer, the team leader. “Such widespread brain connectivity is known to be important for memory formation and for encoding (编码) new information and, therefore, is beneficial for learning.” The researchers also note that even though the participants used digital pens for writing in the study, they believe the findings would be similar if the participants used an ink pen and paper.

“We’ve shown that the differences in brain activity are related to the careful forming of the letters when writing by hand while making more use of the senses. Since it’s the movement of the fingers carried out when forming letters that promotes brain connectivity, writing in print also has similar benefits for learning as cursive writing,” Audrey adds. “This also explains why children who have learned to write and read on a tablet can have difficulty differentiating between letters that are mirror images of each other, such as ‘b’ and ‘d’. They haven’t felt with their bodies what it feels like to produce those letters.”

Considering handwritten note-taking is becoming less common in educational settings, the researchers advocate for more opportunities for students to write by hand. “There’s some evidence that students learn more and remember better when taking handwritten lecture notes, while using a computer with a keyboard may be more pragmatic when writing a long text or essay,” Audrey concludes.

8 . Here’re the best music festivals of 2024 you need tickets to.

Where: Great Stage Park in Manchester, Tenn. Bonnaroo has been a king in the festival world since 2002. This year’s headliners include Pretty Lights, Fisher and so on. The main venue（场地）, “Centeroo,” stays open 24/7, so you can jamout until the sun comes up if that’s your style. When taking a break from the music, there’re tons of activities to keep you occupied, cool off, or relax.

The first Coachella was actually held on October 9-10, 1999. Like most festivals, fashion is a big part of the event. Headliners for Coachella 2024 include Lana Del Ray and Doja Cat. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Where: Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida. It was first held in Miami in March, 1999. Unlike many festivals, you don’t camp on Ultra grounds and instead can book a stay at one of the nearby hotels. Who are the talented artists making an appearance? Headliners include Calvin Harris, and Afrojack, to name a few.

This three-day party came to be in 2010 and has been popular since. What’s better than your feet in the sand and live music? This year’s top performers to look out for are Odesza, and Zach Bryan. But that’s just a few names out of the long list of acts to see.

The awards ceremony for the Fifth Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)Short Video Competition took place in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. With     1    theme of “Open up a New Chapter Together through Connectivity”,the competition centered on the global practices of China’s modernization drive     2    highlighted the universal understanding of the BRI’s spirit and China’s strong desire to build a community with a     3    (share)future for mankind.

2023 marked the 10th anniversary of the BRI’s launch.By collecting short video stories from both builders and beneficiaries(受益者),the competition     4    (allow)audiences to grasp the key part of     5    (develop),social progress,cultural integration(融合),and people’s dreams in countries economic along the route.It also recreated     6    (memory) moments of genuine exchanges among people.

Among the over 1,000 entries from nearly 100 countries, 99 final winners were announced.“    7    one of the leading corporations engaged in the BRI, Dongfang Electric Corporation    8    (commit) to sustainable, high-standard development and people’s well-being since 2012,” noted Song Zhiyuan, a director of the company.“We’ve offered green energy equipment and services to over 100 countries and regions,    9    (project)a responsible image of China. Moving forward, we’ll grasp the opportunities to remain at the forefront of BRI’s joint construction and provide more top-level green energy     10    (global).”