1 . Do you remember reading an article called Kouji in middle school? In it, a kouji performer, specializing in vocal mimicry, creates lifelike performances of various sounds using just his mouth, with the stage having only a table, a block of wood on it, a chair and a fan.

Originating from ancient China, the art of kouji involves skillfully using movements of the lips, teeth, throat, and tongue to produce sounds that mimic birds, animals, and various other noises in the world. It is often combined with story-telling during performances. In 2011, kouji was recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage.

According to the IHChina website, traditional kouji is becoming endangered due to the rapid development of electronic audio. However, Cao Quyang, a 28-year-old inheritor, has found a solution by combining kouji with beatboxing, achieving a perfect combination of traditional and modern performance art.

Cao started learning kouji in 2016 when she wanted to bring something original to her B -box performance."As a former percussionis（打击乐器演奏者） ,I'm sensitive to rhythm, so I integrated the kouji techniques I learned into beatboxing and created my own unique style in my area of expertise." she added. For example, when mimicking environmental sounds like wind, Cao can use her mouth to weave beatboxing into it, making the sound of the wind stronger and more rhythmic. "The addition of beatboxing brings more musical expression to kouji performances, making the stories more vivid and appealing to today's young audiences." said Cao.

In addition to kouji and beatboxing, Cao can also play the Chinese drums, drum set, and piano, as well as DJ. " Innovation is not difficult for me. To me, innovation is simply expressing something that people don't understand in a way they do," said Cao, "As long as it combines tradition and modernity and allows the public to appreciate the beauty of tradition through innovation, I'm willing to do it."

2 . The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) facilities have the primary purpose of supporting MIT’s educational and research programs as well as serving the local community, the nation, and the world. Access to and use of the MIT Libraries is a privilege extended to the members of the MIT community of faculty, students, staff and their families. Visitors can access Libraries’ resources for scholarly, research, and educational purposes.

MIT Libraries use policies are consistent with current MIT campus policies.

Principles for Library Use

Library users and staff will interact with mutual respect and consideration. Library users will:

Respect private and Institute property.

Obey all Institute and Libraries’ policies, licensing and contractual agreements.

Show valid identification upon request.

Use MIT Libraries’ resources (content, equipment, or facilities) safely and appropriately.

Prohibited Behaviors

Behaviors that threaten personal safety or the security of personal or Institute property.

Behaviors that disturb the activities of other library users or staff, including excessive (过度的) noise, cell phones, music and rudeness.

Alcohol, drug use and smoking — as detailed in MIT’s Policy on Substance Use.

The MIT Libraries may limit or refuse access to individuals or groups who fail to follow these guidelines. Interpretation of policies or guidelines is at the decision of the MIT Libraries’ staff.

The General Hour Rules

Weekdays: Libraries typically operate from early morning to late evening, with extended hours during examinations.

Weekends: Reduced hours are offered, with generally later opening and earlier closing times.

Special hours may apply during holidays, breaks, and summer. Some libraries may close entirely, while others operate on limited schedules.

Users are advised to consult the library website for the most current information on specific hours, closures, and exceptions.

3 . Be a Beekeeper for a Day!

Learn about the fascinating world of honey bees in a way that few get to experience:

Your tour, led by a professional beekeeper, will include suiting up in protective gear, lighting a bee smoker, and getting up close with more than 100,000 bees.

Each tour is capped at 12 people, providing you an intimate experience of this fascinating species.

Guided tours include protective gear and select drinks.

At least one paid adult must accompany any children under the age of 18.

Things to know:

Ensure you arrive a few minutes before your start time to sign waivers (豁免协议) and get signed in. Particularly for evening tours, it is important that we start on time so that we finish the tour before sunset.

Tours are weather dependent, so if the forecast calls for rain, please watch your email 24-48 hours before in case we need to cancel/reschedule.

What to bring:

We will have a variety of protective gear (beekeeping masks, gloves) for all of you. You will see that the bees are incredibly gentle and tame, but it’s better for everyone to enjoy their time and not feel worried about getting stung! Additionally, please adhere (遵守) to the below guidelines:

Closed-toe shoes that cover the ankle are required.

Wear long pants and a long sleeve top. Blue jeans are fine. Try to stick to lighter colors on top — button downs work great!

Choose clothing that is loose fitting — nothing especially tight! (Black yoga pants are NOT a good clothing choice.)

Avoid using materials that are hairy or made from sweater type materials.

Please avoid using any perfumes or heavily fragrant creams — the bees are not fans of our smells.

Finally, your tour guide may make his/her job look easy, but they work hard to ensure your bee experience is informative, fun, and most importantly, safe. If you enjoyed your time and the experience, a tip to show your appreciation for their work is not required but always appreciated.

4 . I grew up on a dairy farm. The particular life location to which I got assigned—“stuck” is a better word if you’ve ever been there — was a small family-owned-and-operated outfit.

I remember the Christmas when our main hired hand dropped out of the work rotation. Sixteen and the oldest of the kids left at home, I was called on to fill in. Halfway through the first day, I realized I had never noticed exactly how much that worker did. For five days I either milked or slept, fed calves (牛犊) or slept. I have to admit this gave me a deep appreciation of how hard my parents worked day in and day out for 30 years, and that understanding solidified my determination to do whatever it took to not stay on that dairy farm my whole life.

Eventually, my determination paid off. I got into college. Now, I no longer have to worry about my father’s voice yelling, “Stace, come out here! We need help!” To be honest, I’m grateful. But at the same time, I also don’t have a compelling reason to be up in time to see the beauty of a sunrise. Nor do I have the opportunity to dance with my sister in the dairy barn, work side-by-side with my dad and hear the old stories.

Now, there are whole stretches of days when I don’t feel any pressing need to even go outside. And I can go months without petting an animal or watching in amazement at their keen sense of the environment around them. Instead, I have neighbors within shouting distance but who feel like they live a planet away.

Eighteen years I lived my life on that dairy, not really knowing there were people who didn’t get up and go out and work together to get the same overwhelming tasks done day after day. Sometimes I wish I had never found out there were.

5 . How can travel strengthen the human brain? It’s child’s play. By the age of three, a child’s brain has twice as many synapses (突触) per neuron (神经元) than in  adults. That’s because as humans age, the brain  removes unused connections to make  stronger ones; but doing new activities and  having new experiences can help enhance those connections at any age.

A 2009 study gave participants a unique creativity puzzle to solve involving a candle, a box of tacks and matches. The goal was to fix a lighted candle to a cork board with nothing but those items. Most of the participants who had traveled and lived abroad demonstrated a measurable increase in creativity. One of the reasons for this obviously is that living in another culture exposes you to new ideas, to new people, to new stimuli (刺激); and that increases the amount of elements or bits of information that you can combine or recombine in novel and original ways to come up with new ideas.

Scientists used to believe that the brain was unchangeable and only degraded with age. It wasn’t until the 1960s that neuroscientist, Dr. Marian Diamond, proved the complete opposite. She found that if the body was in an enriched environment, the brain could be shaped by that environment and grow. She did this by placing some lab rats in a multi-sensory environment and others in a bare environment. The rats that had spent more time in the enriched environment had more synaptic connections. So an enriched environment allows you to develop more pathways; so that they’ll be there and available for you and they won’t be pruned away as you grow older. By accessing these environments and travel, the mind can enter a complex emotional state known as awe. Awe is one of the most powerful perceptions we have, and awe gives you the excitement and the ability to step to the very place we evolve to avoid which is not knowing. So it gives you the curiosity and the courage to step forward.

If you want to be changeable, adaptable, travel with openness and courage and embrace the unknown. It may just transform your brain for the better.

6 . Are you an early bird or a night owl? Our activity patterns and sleep cycles could influence our risk of heart disease. New research published in Experimental Physiology found wake/sleep cycles cause metabolic (新陈代谢) differences and change our body’s preference for energy sources.

Researchers from Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA classified participants into two groups(early and late) based on their natural tendency to seek activity and sleep at different times. The participants were monitored for a week to assess their activity patterns across the day. They ate a calorie and nutrition-controlled diet and had to fast overnight to minimize dietary impact on the results. To study fuel preference, they were tested while at rest before completing two 15-minute period of exercise: one moderate and one high intensity session on a running machine. Aerobic fitness levels were tested through an incline challenge where the incline was raised 2.5% every two minutes until the participant reached a point of exhaustion.

The researchers found that those who stay up later have a reduced ability to use fat for energy, meaning fats may build up in the body and increase the risk of heart disease. People who are ‘early birds’ rely more on fat as an energy source and are more active during the day with, higher levels of aerobic fitness than ‘night owls’. On the other hand, ‘night owls’ use less fat for energy at rest and during exercise.

Researchers also found that early birds use more fat for energy at both rest and during exercise than night owls. Professor Steven Malin from Rutgers University said, “We found that early birds are more physically active and have higher fitness levels than night owls. Farther research is needed to examine the link between exercise and metabolic adaptation to identify whether exercising earlier in the day has greater health benefits.”

7 . Four YouTube Channels for Learning English

Bob is a high school teacher from Toronto, Canada, who lives on a flower farm with his wife and five kids. Bob’s videos mostly deal with everyday situations. Bob describes common places, scenes and conversations using simple English. He has taken his viewers to a great mix of places, from hardware stores to hotels. Bob’s ac cent is very clear and he subtitles his videos.

JenniferESL has been making YouTube videos teaching US English with her family since 2007, so there’s a huge collection to discover. Like Bob the Canadian, one of the enjoyable things about Jennifer’s videos is that you get a brief look at someone’s life in an English-speaking country. She also uses her channel to advertise other teachers’ videos that she finds useful.

Mr. Duncan has been running a successful English-language YouTube channel for over ten years. He lives in a pretty town in the UK and has an upper-class British ac cent to match. Mr. Duncan’s huge video catalog covers nearly every topic in the world of British English. For the past few months, he has stopped creating short video lessons, and started running free livestream lessons three times per week instead. Unlike Bob the Canadian, Mr. Duncan’s videos are quite funny and most viewers find them fun and memorable.

This is a channel designed to sell an interactive online English course. However, if you don’t mind a sales pitch(推销行话), the videos themselves are a great learning resource. They are all completely free, whether or not you buy the course. This channel is particularly good at explaining grammatical rules and common expressions. If you’ve ever become so bored trying to understand the use cases for a tense, there’s almost certainly an EnglishClass101 video that can help you!

8 . Where to Find the Perfect Christmas Tree Around Baltimore This Year

A handful of the area’s best choose-and-cut Christmas tree farms are only a quick road trip away.

A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE TREE FARM

This choose-and-cut Christmas tree farm of 16 acres has been run by a couple since 2005. Open for one weekend only, Dec. 3-4, this year, the new location in Woodstock will offer eight and nine-inch pre-cut Fraser Firs or cut-your-own White Pines & Blue Spruces.

10231 Harvest Fields Drive, Woodstock

DAVIDSON CHRISTMAS TREE FARM

Although it’s been active for more than two centuries, this family-owned Upperco Farm didn’t start to plant Christmas tree seedlings until the late 1960s. The fields are open seven days per week from Nov. 18 to Dec. 17. Wander through its 60-plus acres for eight tree varieties, such as the silver-blue Concolor Fir.

1101 Emory Church Rd., Upperco

FROSTEE TREE FARM

The appropriately named Helen and George Winter began planting and selling trees at their Perry Hall farm in 1974. The two have since passed away, but the farm, now operated by Paul Stiffler, has 15 acres of ready-to-cut trees ranging from Scotch Pine to White Pine, Douglas Pine, and Norway Spruce. The farm re-opens on the last weekend of November, after Thanksgiving.

8926 Cowenton Ave., Perry Hall

GAVER FARM

Owner Michael Gaver was just 17 when he established this Mt. Airy farm in 1978. Today, it holds 70 acres of cut-your-own trees, with varieties such as the Colorado Blue Spruce and the whisper-soft White Pine. Christmas tree shopping starts on Nov. 24. What distinguishes this farm from others is that you can step into the family farm’s cafe for apple cider doughnuts, beef sandwiches, and hot cocoa before you leave.

5501 Detrick Rd., Mt. Airy

9 . Ten million Americans are considering freelancing (从事自由职业), according to Upwork’s Great Resignation survey. Among those planning to quit their jobs, 52% are giving freelancing serious consideration. What’s more, many are choosing freelancing over full-time work; it’s no longer just a fallback or a side job.

One of the key benefits of freelancing is that you get to choose your own workload. Unrealistic expectations at work and the lack of boundaries have seen many a full-time worker burn out. However, freelancers have much more control over their workloads. This is not to say that freelancers don’t burn out. They manage their workload better and prioritize other aspects of their life. They don’t usually get to choose their boss or their teammates at a traditional job. They get to choose who they work with. Unlike full-time workers, freelancers have greater freedom to do the work they enjoy — and say no to the work they don’t. This results in greater job satisfaction.

Of course, there are disadvantages of pursuing freelancing. Employees in many countries receive benefits that are part of their employment contracts. When you’re a freelancer, you work for yourself so you let go of these benefits. Your workload may be inconsistent. Sometimes when it rains, it pours and you may have multiple projects on your plate. At other times, you may not have much work. This fluctuation in cash flow can feel like a huge negative for new freelancers. As a business owner, your business’s success or failure is entirely dependent on you, which can feel overwhelming. You will also have to learn to become your own best advocate, promoting your products to find new projects and clients and expand your business.

Of course, to freelance or not to freelance depends on yourself. Anyway, businesses are increasingly adding skills. Independent professionals are powering the rebuild. Therefore, more businesses are open to remote work, hiring talent irrespective of their distance from a corporate office. This changing attitude has increased the number of opportunities for freelancers to find high-paying and meaningful work.