2 . UPS deliveryman Ryan Arens was making his rounds near a pond, when he heard a strange sound. It was December, and about 15 feet from the frozen bank was the _________ of that sound — a brown-and-white wire-haired hound（猎犬）had fallen through the thin layer of ice. An elderly man was already on the _________, determined to save her. He was trying to _________ the pond and was striking the ice with a rock to create a(n) _________ to the dog, but seemed to be struggling.

Arens, 44, thought he _________ a better chance. “Animals are my weakness,” he said, explaining _________ he chose to take off his overcoat, even though the temperature was minus 15 and _________ the rescue task.

After breaking the ice using the man’s rock, Arens jumped into the icy water. He surfaced in time to see the dog going under. Arens swam about five feet toward the dog, grabbed hold of her collar, and _________ her out of the water and onto the ice. He then put the dog into the boat and slid it back to the bank, where _________ bystanders carried the dog to the home of the rowboat’s owner, a retired vet. __________ in the house himself, Arens jumped into a warm shower with the dog. A few more minutes in the pond, the vet told Arens, and the dog would have likely __________.

The next day, Arens was again making his __________ in the neighborhood when the dog’s owner came __________ to thank him for saving Sadie. “Would you like to meet her?” he asked. Then he opened the door of his pickup, and Sadie jumped out. She went __________ toward Arens, leaping around him and kissing him. Arens said that special delivery was the __________ of his UPS career.

3 . Since 2017, AR Together has presented over 200 workshops, camps, events, and gathering spaces for immigrants to meet, connect, and build lasting connections in the community. Below are some of ARTogether’s past and present community workshops and events.

Water-coloring Workshop

Organized in cooperation with Story Center, Water-coloring Workshop is a free online channel accessible to immigrants. These Zoom workshops are a creative space for partcipants to paint, chat, listen to music, and share stories.

Y(our) Legacy: A Printmaking Workshop

This is designed to give high school partcipants a creative practice towards their personal journey of self-acceptance and healing. Led by artist Sen Mendez, participants gather at Oakland International High School and are given ten small blocks to create a visual story about themselves.

Women’s Craft Circle

ARTogether’s longest-running workshop series, the Women’s Craft Circle seeks to bring women together through the healing power of craft-making. In the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, participants are able to relax in a welcoming space, connecting through a love for art and shared experiences.

Expressive Art Class for Kids

At West Oakland Branch Library, kids aged 6-11 from immigrant backgrounds explore fun interactive activities such as free drawing. Painting, and free dance that will let youth appreciate art without pressure or strict rules. In each class, activity leaders follow the principle of guiding, not telling, which creates a stress-free environment that encourages creativity.

4 . As globalization continues to make the world a smaller place, and goods become more accessible across borders, concerns about food safety in the Asia­Pacific region have steadily risen over the years. An APEC forum is being held in Beijing, to find ways to better address the problem.

156 participants from 19 APEC economies and 4 non­APEC members attended the APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum, which has been actively looking for ways to strengthen food safety standard in the region, without affecting trade.

“As consumers are faced with more varieties of food, the potential food safety risk also becomes bigger.This forum has helped APEC economies to cooperate in supervision(监督), exchange information, and improve the overall food safety standard in the Asia­Pacific region,” said director of China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision Wu Qinghai.

For the first time the forum has brought together high­level regulators, academics, and industry stakeholders to talk about their respective roles in safety supervision.They say governments alone cannot shoulder this heavy duty.

In China, the continuous food safety problems have greatly hurt consumers’ confidence in domestic products; therefore more turned to imports. However, problems related to quality of those imported goods also began to show. In July this year, more than 400 batches (批) of food imported from 35 countries and regions were found substandard by the country’s top quality supervisor.

Governments and industries have been brought closer by this forum.As food moves more freely beyond borders, this forum is hoped to promote safety control cooperation, so APEC members can better benefit from the economic integration(经济一体化).

5 . Digital hoarding (also known as e-hoarding or data hoarding) means accumulating a large amount of electronic materials, even though they are no longer valuable to the user.

Antoinette, 25, said, “Though not well-organized, the WhatsApp chat with my best friends in high school will never be deleted. It’s interesting looking back so many years ago and who I was then, and I can see how the friendship and relationship have changed since then.”

Besides the “friends” we keep on social media, digital files, folders, music, movies, computer programs are also forms of digital hoarding. Both undergraduates and graduates expressed feeling overwhelmed with the sheer volume of technological leftover data: lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, PDFs of research, snapshots of classroom whiteboards-not to mention their own ever-swelling Facebook friends they didn’t know but were afraid of unfriending.

I am also a digital hoarder. My first home screen is filled with apps I use every day-Facebook, Spotify, Twitter, Outlook, Weather, etc. My second home screen has apps that I don’t use quite as much, but still want within easy reach-billing apps, shopping, and smart home apps. My third home screen is where things get complex and out of control, just a mess of games, work and business - related apps, and a ton of diverse data that I keep telling myself I’ll need for that one thing on that one day that has never come and probably never will.

Hoarders fall into different categories. “Collectors” are organized, systematic and in control of their data. “Accidental hoarders” are disorganized, don’t know what they have, and don’t have control over it. The “compliant hoarders” keeps data on behalf of their companies. Finally, “anxious hoarders” have strong emotional ties to their data and are worried about deleting it.

People are more resistant when it comes to actually getting rid of their precious possessions perhaps because they anthropomorphize them, treating lifeless objects as if they had thoughts and feelings.

6 . Keeping fit often means sharing a busy pathway with cyclists,runners and walkers,but imagine facing the task of doing it all without being able to see or hear.It is a challenge many disabled athletes face,unless someone agrees to be their eyes and ears.

Newly formed group Achilles Brisbane pairs visually and audibly impaired (视觉和听觉受损的) athletes with people who would like to guide them.

Jane Britt,president of Achilles Brisbane,who is—vision and hearing—impaired,said,“When we go out,it’s much less frightening to have someone beside us that has full hearing to listen for us and tell us what’s there.”

Ms.Cullen and Ms.Britt meet up most Saturday mornings to take part in the five-kilometer park run.Their partnership is built on trust,but Ms.Britt said that it took time to develop.

Ms.Britt said it took an unexpected storm for her to trust Ms.Cullen completely.“There was violent rain,my glasses were broken and we were walking together.I suddenly had to tell her I couldn’t see anything,and I was going to have to completely trust her.From that time I knew it was going to work because she was so good about dealing with the special situation we both found ourselves in,” she said.

Isabella Allen and her seeing eye dog Tatum are two new additions to the Achilles Brisbane.Ms.Allen kept active by rowing,running and cycling but found it difficult to keep going as her vision became worse.After nearly giving up completely,she worked up the courage to ask Achilles Brisbane to find someone to share a boat with her.

Ms.Allen said the fear of not finding anyone to row with almost stopped her from reaching out to Achilles Brisbane.“But,they found people and matched me to them,” she said.“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

10 . Leia was fresh out of college when she began working as a member of a business-development team at a company. Though her skills had earned her the job, she was the youngest person in the team. “Everybody else was pretty much twice my age,” she says. “I exhibited” too much ambition’ in the eyes of my superiors. I heard about comments being made behind my back. There were even a couple of times when my superiors referred to my age right in front of me, saying I was too young: “What does a 23-year-old know about these things?”

Leia tried to change her appearance at work. “I changed the way I dressed. I tried to dress older, more ‘ladylike’. I changed my mannerisms and tried to act older,” she says. “It worked, to an extent.” The comments about her age and inexperience lessened, but Leia says she still felt like her growth potential was limited. She left the company soon after.

What Leia experienced was ageism, traditionally seen as something only older people face. For instance, older workers might be judged based on assumptions that they won’t fit into a progressive office or learn technology quickly. A US study showed that nearly two-thirds of workers aged 45 and older had seen or experienced age discrimination. But younger workers face age discrimination, too. In fact, new research shows it may actually be the youngest team members who are bearing the brunt of workplace ageism right now, potentially impacting their careers.

Leia says removing ageism entirely will ultimately require a fundamental change to corporate culture, which has long tied seniority to skill. “We prize years of experience a little too much, and I don’t think years of experience and skill are necessarily correlated,” she says. “Steve Jobs was 21 when he founded Apple. We don’t know how much younger people actually have to contribute. Hopefully, more employers are realizing it.”