A Competitive Sport

    Cheerleading

    Over the years, cheerleading has taken two primary forms: game-time cheerleading and competitive cheerleading. Game-time cheerleaders' main goal is to entertain the crowd and lead them with team cheers, which should not be considered a sport. However, competitive cheerleading is more than a form of entertainment. It is really a competitive sport.

    Competitive cheerleading includes lots of physical activity. The majority of the teams require a certain level of tumbling (翻腾运动) ability. It's a very common thing for gymnasts, so it's easy for them to go into competitive cheerleading. Usually these cheerleaders integrate lots of their gymnastics experience including their jumps, tumbling, and overall energy. They also perform lifts and throws. This is where the “fliers” are thrown in the air, held by “bases” in different positions that require strength and working with other teammates.

    Competitive cheerleading is also an activity that is governed by rules under which a winner can be declared. It is awarded points for technique, creativity and sharpness. Usually the more difficult the action is, the better the score is. That's why cheerleaders are trying to experience great difficulty in their performance.

    Besides, there is also a strict rule of time. The whole performance has to be completed in less than three minutes and fifteen seconds, during which the cheerleaders are required to stay within a certain area. Any performance beyond the limit of time is invalid.

    Another reason for the fact that competitive cheerleading is one of the hardest sports is that it has more reported injuries. According to some research, competitive cheerleading is the number one cause of serious sports injuries to women. Emergency room visits for it are five times the number than for any other sport, partially because cheerleaders don't use protective equipment. Smiling cheerleaders are thrown into the air and move down into the arms of the teammates, which may easily cause injuries. Generally, these injuries affect all areas of the body, including wrists, shoulders, ankles, head, and neck.

    There can be no doubt that competitive cheerleading is a sport with professional skills. Hopefully, it will appear in the Olympics since cheerleaders are just as athletic and physically fit as those involved in the more accepted sports. It should be noted that it is a team sport and even the smallest mistake made by one teammate can bring the score of the entire team down. So without working together to achieve the goal, first place is out of reach.

Evening Workshops

    Optional evening workshops will be held at small restaurants or other meeting places near the conference hotel. Meals and other costs are not included but are also optional. Locations will be announced at the conference site. Workshops are very loosely organized and most represent discussions that have been held at Society for Economic Botany (SEB) meetings over a series of years.

    Workshop 1: Student Network

    Date: Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th

    Chairs: Hugo de Boer and Arika Virapongse Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: Student members of the SEB hold a networking mixer each year in order to meet each other and to become familiar with a variety of educational programs and faculty advisors(大学指导老师). Faculty members who are part of training programs are encouraged to join the mixer to meet and talk with students.
     Workshop 2: Botanical Film Making
    Date : Wednesday evening, Feb. 5^th Chair : David Strauch

    Sponsor : University of Hawaii

    Description : Digit al film making is a particularly useful tool of linking cultural information to recognizable plants. This workshop is aimed towards increasing the quality of material recorded by giving participants greater control over the medium. We will cover technical aspects (e.g. camera settings, audio), technical aspects (framing, lighting, focus), and some ways of presenting the material. Experienced filmmakers are encouraged to attend, and participants are welcome to bring their own camera equipment.

    Workshop 3: Collections for Botany

    — Collections Development and Management Date: Friday evening, Feb. 7^th

    Chair: Jan Salick

    Sponsor: Society for Economic Botany

    Description: SEB is a network of researchers who have been developing standards for the development of collections of artifacts, plant samples and related materials. Participants discuss successes, problems, and funding sources for solving management issues.

    China officially informed the World Trade Organization on Tuesday that it will ban the import of 24 different types of solid waste by the end of this year as part of a campaign to deal with environmental pollution and protect people's health.

    In response to growing public concerns over the potential environmental and health danger caused by the increasing amounts of solid waste imported into the country for recycling and treatment, China passed a special law in 1995 to control imports of waste materials, such as plastics, slag from steelmaking, unsorted scrap paper and discarded textile materials.

    A year later, the country published a list for solid waste imports and began implementing a permit system to control the import volumes and types of waste imported.

    However, due to the lack of effective supervision(监管) and the failure of relevant departments to fulfill their duties, solid waste imports have not been effectively controlled.

    So far, China is the world's largest importer of solid waste. According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, China imported 7.3 million metric tons of plastic waste worth $3.7 billion in 2016, accounting for 56 percent of global imports of solid waste.

    Correct recycling of solid waste materials is an important part of the global economy, and moderate imports of scrap plastic, scrap paper and scrap rubber products, such as vehicle tires, can to some extent, make up for China's shortage of various raw materials.

    However, the lack of supervision has resulted in the country's severe soil and environmental worsening.

    Given that China's continuing efforts to push for industrial transformation and upgrading have resulted in a noticeable decline in the demand for the materials recycled from solid waste imports. It is right for the country to restrict such imports for the sake of the environment and public health, and to better adapt to the changed industrial structure.

    Dutch masters exhibition in Beijing

    The 17th century Dutch Golden Age had several significant artists and a range of great pieces produced during the period—including Jan Vermeer's Young Woman at Virginal, Jan Lievens' Boy in a Cape, and Turban and Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes.

    Some of the most refined examples of the time, including the three pieces mentioned above, will make their debut（首次亮相）in China as part of a world tour of The Leiden Collection.

    If you go:

9 a.m.-5 p.m., June 17-Sept 3 (closed on Mondays).National Museum of China, I Wusi Avenue, Dongcheng district. 010-6400-1476.

Ticket: 50 yuan ($7)

    The Age of Mechanical Reproduction

    The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the latest exhibition at the Riverside Art Museum, features 41 artworks of US pop icon Andy Warhol, covering art installations, paintings and photographs. Warhol's well-known installation Electric Chair is a highlight of the show, which is also its debut in Asia.

    If you go:

10 a.m.-5 p.m., through August 28 (closed on Mondays).The Riverside Art Museum, Hongyan Road, Chaoyang district. 010-5309-2062.

Ticket: 60 yuan

Back with a bang

    Beijing-based hand Escape Plan will hold a concert in Beijing this weekend. The band is most famous for the song The Brightest Star in the Night Sky.

    If you go:

7:30 p.m., June 17.Beijing Worker's Gymnasium, Gongti Beilu, Chaoyang district. 400-610-3721.

Ticket: 280-980 yuan

Purple clay teapots

    Yixing purple clay potteries are a vital part of Chinese pottery culture and have been included in China's list of national intangible cultural heritage（国家非物质文化遗产）.A selection of more than 80 purple clay teapots will go on display at the Poly Art Museum starting Friday. The exhibit will include a range of delicate teapot works of Ji Yishun, Wang Xiaolong and Gao Lijun, who are all inheritors（继承人）the time-honored（历史悠久的）pottery handicraft.

If you go:

    9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.(closed on Sundays),through June 30.Poly Art Museum, New Poly Plaza,1 Chaoyangmen North Street 9.010-6500-8117.

Ticket: 20 yuan

    Louise Blanchard Bethune showed early promise in math. But Louise did not go to school. Instead, her father taught her at home until she was 11 years old. She also discovered a skill for planning houses. It developed into a lifelong interest in architecture and a place in history as the first professional female architect in the United States.

    After graduating from high school in 1874, Louise traveled and studied. She hoped to prepare herself to attend the new architecture school at Cornell University. But then Buffalo's leading architectural firm of Richard A. Waite and F.W. Caulkins offered her a job. She knew that architects gained their training from practical experience, not from school. She took the job.

Louise worked there as an assistant, 10 hours a day for five years. She learned —-and mastered—-drawing and architectural design. She also met her husband, Robert A. Bethune. Their new firm, R.A. and LBethune, opened in October 1881.

    Bethune appeared to be the strength of the business. At the turn of the 20th century, the city of Buffalo was rapidly expanding to meet the demands of growing industry. The firm received tasks to build hundreds of structures throughout western New York. The firm designed lots of schools, apartment buildings, department stores, churches and factories.

    Bethune believed that being an architect meant being an artist, a scientist and a business person. She made a point of advocating for women in the profession. She became a member of the Western Association of Architects(WAA) in 1885. In 1888, she was the first woman to join the American Institute of Architects(AIA). Besides, Bethune took a firm stand on equal treatment for women architects. She insisted on equal pay for equal work.

    Bethune left almost no papers or letters, and few people recognize her name today. But her legacy remains in the foothold she established for women in the field of architecture. She started her own firm and enjoyed a successful career.

    When my father married my mother in 1943, he gave my mother a 1937 crown coin and told her to keep it in the back of her purse and not to spend it. This would mean that she always felt that she was protected and would always have money if she really needed it.

    When I was married in 1970 my husband who had heard this story, obtained a 1937 crown coin for me and I have always kept it in my wallet, and I have always had enough for my needs.

    A friend recently fell on hard times, partly through external (外部的) circumstances and partly through poor planning. Friends and I have loaned her money, paid her bills, given her food, and even tried to teach her budget techniques, but none of them has been a solution. She has just slipped deeper and deeper into financial trouble and depression.

    Last week she looked pale and unwell, very depressed and hopeless, very sad for a friend to see and I then thought about how the crown coin, a physical reminder of another's care and love had protected me, so I went to the bank for a $ 100 dollar-bill.

    I told my friend the story and asked her to keep the $ 100 in the back of her wallet. It turned out that she didn't have a wallet, so she put the money in a little pencil case where she kept her coins. She immediately felt better—"I feel rich, and thank you for being a good friend," she said, and we were both a bit teary.

    I went home and remembered a little wallet I had that I'd never used, and thought, "I'll give that to my friend." I opened it, and inside, found $ 100.