When I was only 3 years old, my mother taught me to memorize and recite poems. She was my first teacher of the arts, and my father was the first to appreciate my performance. Even at that young age, I had a simple understanding of how art and culture affect us as human beings and how we can connect to each other through the arts, which shapes my life to this day.

    When I was growing up, my parents supported my interest in taking acting classes and doing community theater. Their faith in me and the professional（专业的）training I was getting from my theater teachers gave me a sense of purpose and a sense of self-confidence. I learned what artistic achievement actually was and what hard work the business was. While many people see the rosy picture to our business, I was really learning what it would require for me to become a professional.

    I became an actress, but arts education isn't just about preparing our young people for a job in the arts. I recently talked to some of the kids attending theater education. Some of them want to work in theater, and some don't. They are learning not only theater skills, but also about the world around them. They learn about discipline（纪律）and hard work and what's required and what they have to do to bring themselves to the work. They learn how they can be of service in the world through the arts. They learn how to work with a team. By studying the arts, these students are open to worlds and lives that they might not have any other way of knowing about or any other way to connect with in their lives the way they are right now.

    These young people are our future. We are passing the torch to them. And I think that's one of the most important reasons why we need to foster（培养）the arts.

    “Helicopter parent” may not sound pleasant, but given the chance, most parents would probably prefer a vehicle to zoom (快速移动)little ones between school, football practice and piano lessons. Getting children where they need to go is a huge task and expense, especially in homes where both parents work. Hailing rides (专车服务)through firms like Uber and Lyft has made life more convenient for adults. But drivers are not supposed to pick up kids who travels without an adult aside (although some are known to bend the rules).

    Children represent a fresh-faced opportunity. Ride-hailing for kids could be a market worth at least $50bn in America, hopes Ritu Narayan, the founder of Zum, one of the startups in want of the prize. These services are similar to Uber's, except they allow parents to schedule rides for their children in advance. Children are given a code word to ensure they find the right driver, and parent sreceive warnings about the pick-up and ride, including the car's speed. These services promise more careful background checks finger printing and training than typical ride-hailing companies.

    Annette Yolas, who works in sales at AT&T, says that she spends around $200 a month on Hop Skip Drive, a service that operates in several markets in California, for her three kids to get to the school bus on time and to ballet practice. She says it has been a “life-saver” by allowing her to work longer hours. Meanwhile, kids avoid the embarrassment of a relative pulling up at school. But ride-hailing firms for kids may end up like the children in Neverland, and never fully grown. They face several challenges. One is finding enough drivers. All users need rides during the same limited set of hours: before and after school, which makes it hard to offer drivers enough work. It can also be challenging to persuade parents, who have drilled it into children never to get in a stranger's car.

    And while ride-sharing companies can annoy adult passengers by cancelling or being late, such behavior can be a disaster when children are involved. Shuddle, an early entrant in the taxis-for-kids business, which shut down in 2016, had only two out of five stars on Yelp (点网站)for that reason， and lots of negative reviews from parents. It had made money on rides mainly by raising prices ever higher.

    Shuddle's failure has not discouraged Uber itself, which is expected soon to launch a pilot programme for teenagers under 18. Parents may be happier to use services they are familiar with. But Uber's entrance is likely to add to the struggle of child-focused ride-hailing businesses as they compete for customers and new funds.

    In a big room on the second floor of the New York City Department of Sanitation's East 99th Street garage, 63-year-old Manhattan native Nelson Molina was listening to a Frank Sinatra CD he found in the trash. "The Way You Look Tonight" was playing through a music player. In fact, the entire space was filled with items strangers threw away. "My family kept everything," said Molina. "Nowadays, people throw it all away." Molina, during his 34 years as a sanitation worker （环卫工人）, gave these items a second life.

    Molina grew up in a housing project with his parents and five other kids in the family and had a habit of picking up unused items at a young age. "My family was poor, so we didn't get much for Christmas," he said. "I'd go out to look for a toy for my sisters, maybe a truck for my brothers." He kept his early morning habit secret from his friends, but not out of embarrassment: "I didn't want the competition."

    On the job, Molina had his sixth sense for finding items. "I could tell, sometimes just by the sound, whether a bag was filled with bottles or a different kind of glass," he said. He kept special finds on the truck, and then put them in out-of-the-way places in the sanitation garage. After almost 10 years, he began showing his discoveries. "It's not a normal practice." said NYC Department of Sanitation assistant chief Keith Mellis. Recently, a team of New York University students has taken on the task of cataloging （分类） the tens of thousands of objects, in hopes that the collection, which has hardly been open to the public, might one day be shown in an official sanitation museum.

    The world is a truly strange place waiting to be explored. In addition to offering a lot of extraordinary locations and people, it also offers interesting festivals celebrated by people in various parts of the world. Here is a list of the oddest festivals that can be found around the world.

    Cheese Rolling Festival: A festival that is surely going to leave you with a sore neck if not a broken one! Celebrated in England, the Cheese Rolling Festival is something that you would rather watch than take part in.

    Okay! Here's how it goes. Officials set a big cheese wheel to roll down a steep hill and participants run after it. The first one to catch it wins the competition and the cheese. Simple? Well, try it out and you will know!

    The Monkey Buffet: Now here's a country that actually feeds monkeys to their hearts' content instead of chasing them away. Celebrated in Thailand, the Monkey Buffet is an annual event that brings together a lot of locals who offer fruit and vegetables to over 600 monkeys. It's a great feast as the monkeys dig into almost 3, 000 kilograms of fruit and vegetables. The people of Thailand believe this is a way to honor the Monkey King called Hanuman.

    La Tomatina: Here's your golden chance to get even with your friends who sprayed(喷洒)paint on you on your birthday. Celebrated in Spain, the month of August has nearly 250 pounds of tomatoes go down the drain(被浪费掉)in what is perhaps the largest tomato fight in the world. The event is conducted in the town of Bunyol and attracts nearly 30, 000 tourists around the world in addition to locals. Truckloads of tomatoes arrive and you are ready to go. The entire area is covered with slush and tomatoes within minutes. It's a good time to have fun with friends and family.

    Chinese high school students who want to enter the University of Cambridge may find that their scores on the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, will help their applications in the future.

    The University of Cambridge said in March that it has been using scores on gaokao as part of its admission criteria (标准) for Chinese students for several years, according to its official Weibo account. In addition to top scores on gaokao, Chinese applicants also need to meet English language requirements, participate in an interview and take a subject-specific wrillcn admission assessment (评估).

    The gaokao has been crillcized by some as a one shot exam that focuses on rote learning (死记硬背) rather than creativity. However, more and more people believe that there's no perfect predictor (侦测指标) of academic performance, and gaokao has the advantage of being what educational experts call a criterion-referenced (标准参照) exam—tests when her students are able to master a given body of knowledge , as well as their ability to work hard and consistently. Recent years have seen more and more foreign universities begin to accept gaokao scores as part of the application process.

    Despite the gaokao's growing acceptance among US universities, "There is a long way to go before the US education circle fully recognizes the gaokao, as there are still many US universities that don't accept it as part of their application process," Chu Zhaohui, a researcher from the National Institute of Education Sciences, told the Global Times.

    There is no point destroying your peace of mind and happiness by taking the wrong job. Society may pressure you into grabbing whatever you can get. If you do not have a set path that must be taken, then you have the opportunity to choose something you will not only be paid for doing, but enjoy.

    One of the best ways of finding a suitable career is to determine your personality type. It may seem obvious that the creative type does not really find much pleasure in a job as a butcher or dry cleaning assistant, and that a weak character may not find happiness in a career based on teaching or leading a team.

    To find the best job for your personality type, the first step is to know what and who you really are. If you already know your style, you can search for suitable employment; however, if you are uncertain, there are ways that will help you discover who and what you are. For example, an employment centre, a career adviser, or an online quiz can help you.

    Taking my own situation for example, I am definitely a creative type. Besides, I prefer to be my own boss or, if I cannot, at least I want to rely on a boss I truly both respect and admire. I do not like telling people what to do, or being told what to do. I do not relate well to regular 9-5 hours. I do not feel satisfied being paid a high wage for a bad job. I feel much happier at home. Combining my creativity, independence, and desire to stay at home, my ideal career would be running a home-operated business involving creativity. I actually happen to have chosen this solution; I am a writer, poet, author and publisher. I have suited my career to my personality type.