2 . Once upon a time, sewing and mending clothes was common.     1     Why have people stopped mending their clothing? Schools stopped offering home economics classes, technology boomed and fast fashion became increasingly popular. All of a sudden, it’s more inconvenient to fix something than it is to buy something new.

But all hope is not lost.     2     On one of the most pleasant corners of the Internet, you’ll find lots of videos showcasing everything from visible mending to beginner sewing journeys.

    3     It is a great way to reject consumerism. As anyone will tell you, the best thing you can do is buy less to begin with. That means shopping for quality items that will stand the test of time, but also learning a few key skills so you can repair those items as needed rather than sentencing them to life in an already-overflowing landfill. It’s also helpful to customize (改制) secondhand items which might not be exactly the right size or a little out of date.     4    

Beyond the functional benefits, mending is about using what you have, embracing imperfections, fixing what’s broken, and rejecting the idea that newer is better. The other aspect of mending is mindfulness.     5     It’s meditative (冥想的), slow work. It’s productive, and deeply satisfying. And an added bonus: It’s sustainable.

If you are interested in sewing and mending, it is the perfect time to learn the new skill, which can especially have a positive impact on the world.

SOCIAL MEDIA DETOX

Today marks the last day of the Social Media Detox,     1    fundraising campaign for new sports equipment. At first, over 100 students had been persuaded    2     (stop) using social media in ANY form for seven days. Now, with the detox    3     ( finish), they’ve switched     4    their devices and they’re back online. In the campaign , some students,     5    found the detox was difficult to tolerate threw in the towel halfway while others managed the whole week.

5 . As one of the biggest topics of the last decade, sustainability has become the beacon (灯塔) of hope to protect the planet. From supermarkets taking action on plastic packaging to the zero waste movement that can be practised from your kitchen, changes made by individuals and organizations across the globe have had an impact on the way we think, shop and live.

So what does that mean for the world of technology? You’d be forgiven for thinking that the words “sustainable” and “technology” don’t usually go hand in hand. E-waste is, after all, one of the planet’s biggest contributing waste streams. Not only that, but the materials that go into technology products are also part of the problem.

But with a challenge comes an opportunity, and there’s already some brilliant progress happening — great news for those of us wanting to be more sustainable with our technology. Firstly renewed products are having its moment. While consumers would previously turn their noses up at the idea of a second-hand device, there’s been a huge surge in demand for renewed technology products. The second major step in tackling the problem of e-waste is a change in attitudes from owning a product to subscribing for one. A subscription for a smartphone might sound like a foreign concept, but it’s already gaining momentum. At the forefront of this movement is a London-based technology startup, which offers a subscription service for the latest smartphones. As customers aren’t paying to own the phone at the end of their contract, the monthly price is significantly lower than average.

Studies show that extending a phone’s lifespan from one to four years can decrease its environmental impact by about 40%. So the next time it comes to refreshing your device — whether a smartphone, a laptop, a tablet or something else — consider the more environmentally friendly options that are at your fingertips.

8 . There is a popular saying in the English language: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is not true. Unkind words, name-calling or even the so-called “the silent treatment” can hurt children as much as being physically hit, sometimes even more so. A recent study of middle school children showed that verbal (言语的) abuse by other children can harm, the development in the brain. The study was a project of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Researcher Martin Teicher and his team studied young adults, aged 18 to 25. These young men and women had not ever been treated in a cruel or violent way by their parents. The researchers asked the young people to rate their childhood exposure to verbal abuse from both parents and other children. Then the researchers performed imaging tests on the brains of the subjects.

The images showed that the people who reported suffering verbal abuse from peers in middle school had underdeveloped connections between the left and right side of the brain. The two sides of the brain are connected by a large bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. This was the area that was underdeveloped.

The middle school years are a time when these brain connections are developing. So, unkind, hurtful comments from children or adults during this period have the greatest effect. The researchers tested the mental and emotional condition of all the young people in the study. The tests showed that this same group of people had higher levels of fear, depression, anger and drug abuse than others in the study.

The researchers published their findings online on the American Journal of Psychiatry's website.

Parents cannot control what other people say to their children, but they can prepare their children.

9 . Every year, billions of kilograms of fresh produce are wasted in the United States. The food ends up in landfills, producing harmful greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, millions of poor Americans go hungry, without access to healthy, affordable meals.

Evan Lutz is passionate about correcting that social injustice. And he combines that goal with a passion for business. “I’ve wanted to become a social entrepreneur, not just starting a business that made money but also starting one that gave back. I’m just an average guy with a passion towards making sure no food goes to waste and making sure no person is hungry in America and I want to do that through business.”

Lutz is CEO and founder of Hungry Harvest, a business which collects and sells “ugly” produce. These are fruit and vegetables that most food companies would throw away. “If you go to a grocery store, everything is growing the same exact way. All the stuff that doesn’t grow the same way gets wasted and gets thrown out. So, we take all that stuff that normally gets thrown out because of its odd size or shape. We box it up into a variety of boxes. And then we deliver them to our customers once a week. We hire people that were living in homeless shelters. They were really looking to get a chance in life.”

In January 2016, Lutz appeared on the American business competition television show “Shark Tank”. It connects investors with entrepreneurs. Lutz sought a $50,000 investment in Hungry Harvest, in exchange for a five percent stake in his company. Finally, he got even more than what he expected-$100,000 for 10 percent ownership.

10 . A culture’s values can be mirrored by its humor. Humor has been evaluated by many great minds such as Thomas Hobbes, who, in “On Nature”, disliked humor, “Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from sudden thought of feeling far better than others.” He thought humor to be a negative quality of human narrow-mindedness.

However, Mordechai Gordon, Ph. D of Education, insists, “Humor allows us to view the world from an angle that is amusing rather than serious.” I agree with Gordon. Learning to look at the world through humor is important.

In the United States, every four years an election occurs. Without humor as a way to express their feelings, how else would Americans keep from clawing their eyes out (伤心欲绝) and going the way of lemming (盲目跟从) ? Television shows a joke “The Daily Show” have become important parts of American culture. They are mothering the masses by metaphorically (隐喻地) airplane-ing (用鼻子吸食大麻) politics into our mouths. They make politics fun.

Of course, politics is only one type of humor. Social humor helps people through the twists and turns of the human condition. American pop culture promotes an unhealthy self-image. On the topic of self-image, Hari Kondabolu stands out. He has a joke about the popular musical group “The Pussycat Dolls”, describing their hit song “Don’t Cha” as a negative representation of women. He points out an obvious offence in American culture.

A study from Loyola University of Maryland has shown that humor is one determining factor for selecting a mating partner. Amongst other things, mates look for an outstanding funny bone in a potential partner.

Of course, humor is not always used for good purposes. Humor can be linked to vulgarity (粗俗) and racism, but, like everything else, it has potential to unite human beings by allowing us to laugh at ourselves, our failures and our connection with one another.

Though life may seem tough and depressing at times, all I have to do is look in the mirror at my increased wrinkles to know that there is a comedy out there that even Chaplin wasn’t aware of.

With that in mind, remember to laugh with humanity and sometimes at humanity.