Want to figure out if someone is a psychopath (精神变态者)? Ask them what their favourite song is. A New York University study last year found that people who loved Eminem's Lose Yourself and Justin Bieber's What Do You Mean? were more likely to {#blank#}1{#/blank#} highly on the psychopathy scale than people who were into Dire Straits.

    Over the past few years, Spotify has been enhancing its data analytic {#blank#}2{#/blank#} in an attempt to help marketers {#blank#}3{#/blank#} consumers with adverts tailored to the mood they're in. They infer this from the sort of music you're listening to, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} with where and when you're listening to it, along with third-party data that might be available.

    Now, to be clear, there's nothing particularly {#blank#}5{#/blank#} about what Spotify is doing with your data. I certainly don't think that they are working with shadowy consulting firms to serve you ads promoting a culture war while you're listening to the songs that {#blank#}6{#/blank#} you might be in a casually racist mood. Nevertheless, I find it {#blank#}7{#/blank#}that our personal private moments with music are increasingly being turned into data points and sold to advertisers.

    You can see where this could go, can't you? As ad targeting gets ever more complicated, marketers will have the ability to target our emotions in {#blank#}8{#/blank#} exploitative ways. According to one study, titled Misery Is Not Miserly, you are more likely to spend more on a {#blank#}9{#/blank#} if you're feeling sad. You can imagine some companies might take advantage of that. And on that note, I'm feeling a little down about all this. I'll {#blank#}10{#/blank#} off to treat myself to something expensive.

Touring Cenotes

    My parents and I traveled to Mexico to visit my grandparents last summer, and we visited the cenotes (say-NO-tays), the natural swimming holes located on the Yucatán Peninsula. The term "swimming hole" might make you think that cenotes are just average, but cenotes are truly {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. I had the most exciting experience of my life exploring these wonders of nature.

    Thousands of years old, the cenotes formed and created sinkholes underneath. Though the ancient Mayans (玛雅人) used the cenotes as water {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, people can now swim, dive, take photographs, and admire local trees and {#blank#}3{#/blank#} life, all through water as clear as liquid diamond.

    In Cenote Azul, my parents, my grandparents, and I swam through water that seemed too blue to be real. I {#blank#}4{#/blank#} countless younger kids diving into the water from a small cliff, but I dared not to jump at first. I finally worked up the courage, and my {#blank#}5{#/blank#} try instantly put all my worries to rest.

    A few days later, we went to Cenote Ponderosa. We stayed in the sun-covered pond, where we {#blank#}6{#/blank#} floated while others did diving and took underwater photographs. Being surrounded by a valley of trees made everything else in the world seem to disappear.

    Grutas de Loltún were definitely the most magnificent of all the cenotes, even though there was no swimming involved. Grutas are caves, and the Grutas de Loltún are among the biggest caves on the entire Peninsula. Our guide, Carolina, walked us through several caves, where we saw many drawings thousands of years old on the cave walls! Just one brief look at those drawings made me feel like I had stepped back in time to a(n) {#blank#}7{#/blank#} era of history. Our group thought Carolina was joking when she claimed she could make the stalagmites(石笋) sing for us, but when she {#blank#}8{#/blank#} them, we heard what sounded like the words "Lol" and "Tun"—the name of the caves! I cannot imagine that a(n) {#blank#}9{#/blank#} played at a concert at Carnegie Hall would have been any better.

    Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula is filled with beauty, but the cenotes are a one-of-a-kind opportunity to commune with nature in a way that is impossible anywhere else on Earth, and I would not {#blank#}10{#/blank#} to do it all again.