Primary Source Holiday Shopping Night at Ten Thousand Villages

● Shop for your holiday gifts and give back to Primary Source at Ten Thousand Villages on Friday, December 4! 15% of all sales from 3:00 p. m．—7:00 p. m. that day will be donated to Primary Source. Join us for light refreshments and enjoy beautiful handmade gifts from artisans around the world. All are welcome!

Primary Source's Holiday Shopping Night

Friday, December 4, 2014

3:00 p. m．—7:00 p. m.

Ten Thousand Villages

226 Harvard Street, Brookline, Massachusetts (Coolidge Corner)

Download our flyer and tell your friends!

    Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income for the people from developing countries by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America. Learn more and preview toys, home decor, jewelry, and other gifts online.

● Can't join us on Dec. 4? At GoodShop, 30% of your spending will be given to Primary Source. The next time you're ready to make an online purchase(购物), visit www. goodshop. com and enter “Primary Source” in the space provided. Click “verify” and choose from more than seven hundred popular stores and sites, from Apple to Zappos. GoodShop is free and easy to use, and each purchase you make will help Primary Source provide global education materials for schools all over New England.

    Obama, Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs—what do they have in common? They are, of course, all Americans. And according to a survey by social networking site baidu. com, they all best illustrate(举例说明) the word “cool”.

    But just what does it mean to say someone is “cool”? Most would answer that it is something to do with being independent-minded and not following the crowd.

    Yale University art professor Robert Farris Thompson says that the term “cool” goes back to 15th century West African philosophy. “Cool” relates to ideas of grace under pressure.

    “In Africa,” he writes, “coolness is a positive quality which combines calmness, silence, and life.”

    The modern idea of “cool” developed largely in the US in the period after World War II. “Post-war 'cool' was in part an expression of war-weariness (厌战情绪), . . . it went against the strict social rules of the time,” write sociologists Dick Pountain and David Robins in Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude.

    But it was the American actor James Dean who became the symbol for “cool” in the hugely successful 1955 movie Rebel without a Cause. Dean plays a tough guy who disobeys his parents and the authorities. He always gets the girl, smokes cigarettes, wears a leather jacket and beats up bullies. In the movie, Dean showed what “cool” would mean to American young people for the next 60 years.

    Today the focus of “cool” has changed to athletics (体育运动) stars. Often in movies about schools, students gain popularity on the athletics field more than in the classroom. This can be seen quite clearly in movies like Varsity Blues and John Tucker Must Die.

    But many teenagers also think being smart is cool. Chess and other thinking games have been becoming more popular in schools.

    “Call it the Harry Potterization of America—a time when being smart is the new cool,” writes journalist Joe Sunnen.

    Online shopping has become more and more popular these years. Women have jumped ahead of men for the first time in using the Internet to do their holiday shopping, according to a study published last week in the US.

    For years men have been more likely to shop on the Internet than women, but during the 2013 holiday season 58 percent of those shopping online were women.

    “It shows how popular the Internet is becoming,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project group, which carried out the study. Rainie said it was only a matter of time before women shoppers caught up with men. This is because women traditionally make decisions about spending.

    Users were more likely to shop online to save time. Internet users between the ages 18 and 29 were responsible for some of the surprising increase in the online gift-buying population this time around.

    However, three-quarters of the US Internet users did not buy holiday gifts online in 2013. They worried about credit card security(信用卡安全), or just compared online prices with off-line prices, then dashed off to the shops to get the best deals.

    “But even if shoppers don't buy online, websites are becoming promotion(促销) tools for stores,” said Dan Hess' vice president of Com Score Network Inc. Hess said that actually most stores, websites can make customers fully believe the security of their credit card numbers. And most are able to ensure that gifts arrive on time.

    “It's all about making the shopping experience more efficient(效率高的), more reliable and more comfortable.” Hess said.

    One of America's best-known artist colonies, the MacDowell Colony, will turn 110 next year. It is a place where artists of all types can sweep away distractions (令人分心的事物) and just create.

    MacDowell's operations are funded by foundations, corporations and individuals. Writers, composers, photographers, filmmakers and sculptors — both famous and unknown —compete for the 32 free studios at the place. Once accepted, an artist can stay for as little as a couple of weeks, or as long as a couple of months.

    When they arrive, artists find a kind of isolation (隔绝) hard to find in our world. There's no phone. No fax. No friends. No family. It's just a cabin in the snowy woods.

    Writer Emily Raboteau lives in New York City. She came to MacDowell to work on a novel. She received a desk, chairs, pencil and paper — and ice grippers. The walk from one isolated, one-room studio to another is icy, so colony residents (居住的人) fasten the ice grippers to the bottom of their shoes.

    Another colony resident, Belfast composer Elaine Agnew, plays a piece called “To a Wild Rose,” written by Edward MacDowell. She says it's so famous that every pianist in the world has played the tune. A hundred years ago, Macdowell owned the land where the colony now sits. He liked its isolation and his ability to get work done there. After his death, his wife, Marion, encouraged other artists to come.

    And for the last century, artists have accepted the invitation, coming to step outside of their daily lives for a short time. Privacy is respected, but cooperation and discussion is common.

    Screenwriter Kit Carson — who wrote Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the film adaptation of Sam Shepherd's play Paris, Texas — has visited MacDowell twice. He says that the interdisciplinary (学科间的) discussion there is valuable.

    “You sit around at dinner, talking, and then somebody runs off and brings you back some stuff and shows it to you,” he says. “That, I didn't realize, was part of the magic here, because people are really open to showing their opinions here.”

    Shyness is the cause of much unhappiness for a great many people. Shy people are anxious and self-conscious; that is, they are excessively concerned with their own appearance and actions.

    Worrisome thoughts are constantly occurring in their minds: what kind of impression am I making? Do they like me? Do I sound stupid? Am I wearing unattractive clothes? It is obvious that such uncomfortable feelings must negatively affect people. A person's conception of himself or herself is reflected in the way he or she behaves, and the way a person behaves affects other people's reactions. In general, the way people think about themselves has a profound effect on all areas of their lives.

    Shy people, having low self-esteem, are likely to be passive and easily influenced by others. They need reassurance that they are doing "the right thing." Shy people are very sensitive to criticism; they feel it confirms their feelings of inferiority. They also find it difficult to be pleased by compliment with a statement like this one, "You're just saying that to make me feel good. I know it's not true." It is clear that while self-awareness is a healthy quality, overdoing it is harmful.

    Can shyness be completely eliminated, or at least reduced? Fortunately, people can overcome shyness with determined and patient efforts in building self-confidence. Since shyness goes hand in hand with a lack of self-esteem, it is important for people to accept their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Each one of us is a unique, worthwhile individual, interested in our own personal ways. The better we understand ourselves, the easier it becomes to live up to our full potential. Let's not allow shyness to block our chances for a rich and fulfilling life.

    School days are supposed to be the best days of your life and part of that experience usually involves some unforgettable physical activities. I asked some people to give me their memories of what happened to them on the sports field and beyond, and this is what they told me.

    Cup winners

    When I was about ten, the football team from our year unexplainably made it to the cup final of the local schools' league. I say unexplainably because I only remember us losing nearly every match we played. Anyway, in the final I set up the winning goal, a brilliant cross to my mate David who headed the ball in just before the final whistle. I still have a photograph of the team holding the cup.

    Forest hike

    I remember having to lead a group of eight boys on a school expedition for the best part of two days when I was a teenager. Even though we got lost at one point, I managed to keep them all together and get them from one end of a large forest to the other and back by sheer(纯粹的)force of will. I was chosen to be the leader, I think, because I was the only one who knew how to read a map!

    When we arrived back at the campsite, we found out that all the other groups had cheated and hitched(搭便车)most of the way instead… I felt a bit stupid, but also rather proud of myself at the same time for having done it properly.

    Learning to swim, learning to drown

    I learned to swim comparatively late, I suppose. I was maybe nine years old but my brother had a painful experience which nearly put him off for life. We lived in the USA for a while and had access to a university pool where the coaches had trained the American Olympic team. In those days, though, their idea of teaching kids how to swim was to tie a can to their ankles with a bit of string, throw them in the deep end and shout "Swim!". I am surprised my brother survived at all. He could only have been about six at the time.