1 . Did you grow up in one culture, your parents came from another, and you are now living in a totally different country?     1    

The term “third-culture kids” was invented in the 1960s by U.S. sociologist Dr. Ruth Hill Useem. She first encountered this phenomenon when she researched North American children living in India.     2     Caught between two cultures, they form their own. While growing up as third-culture kids may sound challenging, these children often benefit from their multicultural background. In general, they often reach excellent academic results.     3    

Ginny, aged 20, was born in the U.K. Since her early childhood, she had lived abroad moving around with her parents every few years, before she returned to the U.K. to study. When returning to the U.K. to go to university, she realized she had benefited a lot from her years overseas.     4     While many other undergrads seemed unable to cope on their college life, she was easy to adjust to it.

Yet being a third-culture kid is not always easy. In fact, many hardships may arise from this phenomenon. A third-culture kid may not be able to adapt themselves completely to their new surroundings as expected.     5     Besides, when they return home, the home country can prove to be more foreign than anything they came across before. The peer group they face does not match the idealized image children have of “home”. This often makes it hard for them to form their own identity.

As a part of the growing “culture”, TCKs may find it a great challenge for them to feel at home in many places.

3 . How to Build a Habit

Building good habits takes tremendous effort and insight.     1     Here are some research-backed steps that can set you on the path from where you are to where you want to be.

Set a specific goal

The way you define the goal you hope to turn into a habit does matter. Goals such as “meditate regularly” are too abstract, research has shown.    2     Don’t say “I’ll meditate regularly.” Say, “I’ll mediate for 15 minutes each day.” Having a bite-size objective makes it easier to get started and easier to see your progress.

Create a detailed, cue-based plan

Scientists have proven that you’ll make more progress toward your goal if you decide not just what you’ll do, but when you’ll be cued to do it, as well as where you’ll do it and how you’ll get there. A plan like “I’ll study Spanish for 30 minutes, five days a week” is OK. But a detailed, cue-based plan like “Every workday after my last meeting, I’ll spend 30 minutes studying Spanish in my office” is much more likely to stick as a habit.    3     Because the when and where in your plan will serve as cues to action that jog your memory.

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When we set out to build a new habit, most of us overestimate our willpower and set a course for the most efficient path to achieving our end goal. But research has shown you’ll persist longer and ultimately achieve more if you instead focus on finding ways to make goal pursuit fun.

Foster flexibility

    5     But when you’re in the start-up phase of habit building, it’s important to insert some variability deliberately into your routine. A flexible habit means you can still do what you need to even when a wrench is thrown in your first best plans— say, a traffic jam on the way to dropping the kids off at school that gets in the way of your morning meditation.

4 . Some people say that A. I. large language models can be unpredictable and unreliable — giving false information and acting strangely toward users. I’ve been using A.I. tools like ChatGPT almost daily for several months now, and I’ve seen them spit out plenty of wrong answers.     1     Here are three things that A.I. is especially good at.

Getting creatively unstuck

A. I. can also be a good tool for getting your creative juices flowing. Recently, I was trying to come up with questions to ask a podcast guest. I pasted the guest’s bio into ChatGPT and asked it to give me “10 thoughtful, incisive interview questions” for this person.     2    

Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, recommends using A.I. to overcome writer’s block, or get a running start on hard projects.

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I’ve also been using ChatGPT and other A.I. apps as a kind of rehearsal for offline tasks I find unpleasant or hard.

When I had to have a difficult conversation with a friend, I asked ChatGPT to take part in a role-playing exercise. “Pretend you’re my friend, and react the way you think my friend might react,” I told it.     4     It didn’t make the real one painless, but I felt more confident knowing I’d already practised with a chatbot.

Of course, A.I. chatbots can’t replace human friendships. But they can be a kind of on-demand sounding board, offering us basic feedback and advice without judgement.

Sparking Notes for everything

    5     I’ve used A.I. programs to “read” long articles for me, and summarize dense academic papers. Usually they get the key points right, even if some of the details are missing. If you’re bored of reading this article, you could ask ChatGPT to summarize it for you. I promise I won’t be offended.

5 . Very often, we take a picture on our smartphones and then immediately check the screen to see how it came out.     1    We’ve gathered our best tips to ensure you know how to look good in pictures.

Know your angles.

Knowing your angles is the first step to taking a great picture. Maybe you like one side of your face better than the other. Maybe you’re completely symmetrical and can take a photo from the front.     2     So snap some selfies and start to get acquainted with your best angle.

Doing so will have you feeling confident and looking your best in your next shot.

Make sure the light is behind the camera.

Great lighting makes a great photo. The key is to make sure you’re in front of the light, and that the light is behind the camera. So, if you’re outside, make sure the sun is behind the camera.       3    

Take multiples.

    4     Take different photos of the same shot, so you have options when choosing which photo to keep. You’ll be surprised how often your facial expression changes in the same shot.

Invest in a good quality camera.

While smartphone cameras keep getting better and better, nothing beats the clear and crisp image quality of a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. The bad news? A good DSLR can cost anywhere from $400 on up.     5    

With these photo tips in mind, next time you snap a photo, you’ll look at it with a smile.

6 . Dear Fresher, joining a university can be a pleasant but challenging experience: horrific and yet beautiful, scary but exciting.     1    

Do not panic if, like me, you do not make friends on the first day or week. Before I met Sanaa, I had tried to force myself to make friends with classmates in my other majors. Then I was starting to get convinced that there was something wrong with me.     2     Eventually, when I started making more friends, it made sense why the friendships I had forced did not work out. It was my first lesson in understanding my uniqueness, and reminding me that my “friends” are somewhere, out there.     3    

So, dear Fresher, as I say welcome to university life, I am also saying, give yourself time-to understand your school, your course, and your new rhythm of life. Do not fall into the trap of people-pleasing to fit in.

    4     Of course, you must leave room to grow and breathe- to discover amazing cultures, new accents, and new ways of matching your clothes-but do not do anything that needs you to abandon your genuine self in order to become.

Finally, it might not look like it, but the four, five, or six years you will be in university will pass by really quickly.     5    Perhaps that is DIYs, writing blog posts, participating in club activities in your department, or joining the dance troupe.

So, dear Fresher, go forward, and leave your mark! You will be surprised at how much experience that will contribute to your CV.

8 . Body language, important language

Have you ever noticed the big difference between someone’s behavior and his words? Or have you ever failed to control your body on certain occasions as a result of nervousness? Today let’s discuss how essential body language can be in our daily communication.

Studies have revealed that in the process of communication, non-verbal expression has 65% to 93% more influence than actual text.     1    

Emilie Suter, a senior student of EHL, believes that the significance of body language is reflected in the ability to help people in the process of communication.     2     Body language is the best explanation of the behavior psychology of individuals and groups.

    3     Without proper body language, you may find yourself trapped in a circle where you cannot integrate with the external environment. Therefore, you should always pay attention to how people around you use body language to express their opinions—this allows you to accurately determine your next move.

Fidgeting (坐立不安) may mean that there is a lack of interaction between the two sides of the conversation.     4     Loich Batumba, vice president of the student council of EHL, says that he clearly remembers similar experiences: “At the time of my first interview, my interviewer and I barely communicated eye-to-eye, so I could clearly feel that there was a lack of interest between our conversations.”

How to establish a good personal impression is a topic that people have repeatedly discussed.     5     This has increased the importance of physical actions for us.

10 . Body language provides an amazing amount of information on what other people are thinking. Research has shown that 55% of communication comes from body language.     1    

Crossed arms and legs signal resistance to your ideas. Crossed arms and legs are physical barriers that suggest the other person is not open to what you’re saying. Even if they’re engaged in a pleasant conversation, their body tells the story. Crossed legs or arms signal that a person is emotionally, and physically blocked off from what’s in front of them.

Real smiles crinkle the eyes.     2     Genuine smiles reach the eyes, crinkling (变皱) the skin to create crow’s feet around them. People often smile to hide what they’re really thinking and feeling, so the next time you want to know if someone’s smile is genuine, look for crinkles at the corners of their eyes. If they aren’t there, that smile is hiding something.

    3     Have you ever seen a person walk into a room, and immediately, you’ve known that they were the one in charge? That effect is largely about body language, and often includes gestures made with the palms facing down. The brain is hardwired to equate power with the amount of space people take up.     4     Slouching (没精打采), on the other hand, is the result of collapsing your form. Maintaining good posture commands respect and promotes engagement, whether you’re a leader or not.

Copying your body language is a good thing. Have you ever been in a meeting with someone and noticed that they lean their head the same way as yours when you’re talking? That’s actually a good sign. Mirroring body language is something we do unconsciously when we feel a bond with the other person.     5    

The bottom line is that even if you can’t read a person’s exact thoughts, you can learn a lot from their body language, and that’s especially true when words and body language don’t match.