Xinhua News—The Beijing government has set out to recruit thousands of university graduates to work as junior officials in rural areas to both improve rural administration and ease the city's employment problems.

    The government plans to recruit 3,000 university graduates this year, 1,000 more than last year, to work as assistants to village heads or party secretaries in suburban areas.

    People interested in jobs in Beijing's rural villages and towns can send applications to Beijing Municipal Bureau of Personnel or log on to www.bjbys.com from February 1 through March 15.

    “We hope university graduates will seize this opportunity to use their knowledge in rural villages and to start their careers,” Sun Zhenyu, the Deputy Director of Beijing Personnel Bureau, told Xinhua News Agency.

    The government has promised successful candidates a monthly salary of 2,000 Yuan in the first year, 2,500 Yuan the second year and 3,000 the third year, provided their performance is up to the required standards, Sun said.

    Wang Lina, who graduated from Beijing Union University last year, was one of the first graduates to find work in the city's countryside. After majoring in Industrial and Commercial Administration, Wang served as the assistant to the village head of Ertiaojie Village in suburban Beijing's Pinggu District. For one project, Wang contacted people at Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences and arranged for the local farmers to receive training in strawberry planting. Her efforts paid off. The village had a plentiful harvest of organic strawberries earlier this year.

    Nationwide, about 150,000 university graduates found employment in rural areas last year, according to the figures provided by the Ministry of Education.

    The ministry predicts that 4.95 million students will graduate from universities across the country this year, 820,000 more than last year. About 1.4 million of them are unlikely to find jobs when they graduate. In Beijing, a record of 200,000 people are expected to graduate from university this year. Less than half of them are expected to be offered jobs, according to Beijing Personnel Bureau.

    It's OK to say you've never heard of grime (伦敦地下音乐) - unless you're from the UK. That's because this music type was invented in the UK in the early 2000s.

    To someone who's not familiar with underground music culture, it's easy to get confused between hip-hop and grime since they are both noisy. And many people didn't bother to tell them apart，until earlier this month when grime stars like Stormzy and J Hus led this year's Mobo – “music of black origin”, an award in the UK. Just like UK electronic music and hip-hop, from which grime drew influence, it mostly reflects the thoughts of young people. But different from hip-hop, grime singers sing in dialects with strong accents, giving a special flavor to their songs.

    Lady Leshurr，known as the “Grime Queen”, said that she once tried to hide her accent, as she didn't want people to judge her. But one day, she realized that she didn't need to change herself just to please others. And there's no doubt that this is the soul of grime music: be yourself.

    Grime has challenged modem music in its production beauty and its expressions. Also different from the hip-hop culture, which usually focuses on being rich, grime singers pay more attention to social phenomena like those who suffer from disasters and the gap between the rich and poor.

    Although still quite a young music type, grime seems to be getting loved by more and more people. In 2016, the English grime artist Skepta won the Mercury Prize with his album Konnichiwa, beating big names like David Bowie and Radiohead.

    However, no matter whether grime is one day accepted widely or not, one thing is for sure: in grime, singers always stay true to themselves.

    Imagine yourself on the other side of the college admissions desk. It's not so glorious, apparently. At the very least, you need to be good-natured. Joseph Connolly, a guidance counselor at New Oxford High School in the United States, wanted to know the things that annoy admissions officers the most. He sent out a request to members of the National Association for College Admissions Counselors and received hundreds of responses. Apparently, college admissions officers were waiting for an opportunity to unload their frustrations. The responses fall into several areas:

    Communication

    Silly or stupid email addresses; sending emails that use texting shorthand, such as "im w8ing 4 some1 2 call me."

    Leaving a message with just a first name and no telephone number. For example, "Hi, this is Suzie. Please call me back."

    Acting distracted during a one-on-one interview; nervous habits like foot-tapping or "um", "like" and "you know", which make a bad situation worse.

    Not responding to emails from the admissions office.

    Over-involved parents

    The very common comment from parents, "We are in the process of completing applications."

    Parents attending interviews, and worse yet, speaking for their children.

    Essays

    Not identifying which question they are responding to.

    Writing about something they were great at in the seventh grade but haven't pursued since then.

    I've worked part time since taking early retirement ten years ago. I was inspired by an older friend. We worked for the same company, and he retired two years before I was also considered “spare”, as some companies call it.

    Soon after I left work, we had lunch together. First, he assured me that there was life after work. Then he related his own experience. He didn't want to take another full-time job, so he turned his daughter's old bedroom into a home office. He arranged for some consulting work from our old company, and he picked up more projects from other contacts. Soon he was working 20 to 30 hours a week. He wasn't making as much money. His kids were grown-up, so he didn't need as much income. “As soon as I left that job,” he told me, “my back problems went away. I started to eat better and get more exercise, I make half as much money, but I feel twice as good, and I'm twice as happy.”

    I decided to follow a similar track. At the time, my younger child almost finished college, so my parental responsibilities were winding down. We sold our old house and moved into a townhouse. I went to work for myself. And the result? Today I, too, make less money. But we make ends meet. And I feel twice as good and twice as happy.

    Our experience isn't for everybody. But a lot of people have retired early and lived to tell the tale, which proves it possible. Jack, another friend, was a salesman for a communication firm. He had a long distance to work and did a lot of traveling. He decided to leave the corporate world, in part because he had health problems and he wanted to spend more time with his family. Later, he quit his job with flexible hours and was restored to his health. And now he has found a part-time job, and he, together with his family, is leading a more relaxing life.

    I first began experiencing anxiety and depression at the age of 14, after being bullied (欺凌) at school for years. While at first anxiety and depression would come and go, it eventually became a constant part of my life.

    I was so eager to find the solution to overcoming my anxiety and depression that I tried everything from when I was in college to graduate school: mood-changing medication, special teas, yoga, anything I read about in books, and advice given by doctors. Despite this, I still felt I hadn't even come close to managing the problem.

    But one afternoon, my eyes fell upon an article in a magazine I was reading that talked about how dogs were able to help people with anxiety and depression. The very next day, I decided to get a dog—a corgi. When I brought my little corgi, Buddy, home. I didn't realize how much he would change my life. It didn't happen right away, however.

    Once the “puppy excitement” went away, my anxiety and depression came back as usual. One morning, I woke up with those familiar feeling again. I didn't want to get out of bed. I turned to pull the covers back over my head and give up. That's when I saw Buddy.

    Buddy started jumping all over me, licking my face, letting me know that it was time to go outside. It was as if he were saying, “There's no time to be sad; the world is amazing!” And for the first time in my life, my life was changing. I really was a new person. This was my new beginning.

    It's been more than a year since that day, and I've never spent another morning unable to get out of bed. I've not cried myself to sleep or spent my days stuck with fear and regret. Sure, I still have days when I feel sad or anxious. But with Buddy, my best friend, by my side, I've finally learned how to manage these feelings and emotions.

    Some kinds of mental skills naturally decrease as people get older. Yet research seems to show that some training can improve such skills. A recently published study also appears to attest that the good effects of training can last for many years after that training has ended.

    Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland wanted to learn how long memory and thinking skills would last in older people who were trained to keep them. The people were part of the ten-year research project. They were taught methods meant to improve their memory, thinking and ability to perform everyday tasks.

    More than 2,800 volunteered for the study called ACTIVE ­ short for Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly. Most were studied when they were more than 70 years old.

    The volunteers took one of several short training classes meant to help them keep their mental abilities. One class trained participants in skills including how to remember word lists. Another group trained in reasoning. A third group received help with speed-of-processing ­ speed of receiving and understanding information. A fourth group ­ the control group did not get any training.

    Earlier results had established that the training helped the participants for up to five years. Now, leading study writer George Rebok says, the research showed most of the training remained effective a full ten years later.

    Professor Rebok and his team found that the people trained in reasoning and speed-of- processing did better on tests than the control group.

    "We are wondering whether those effects which endured over time would still be there ten years following the training, and in fact, that's exactly what we found.

    The effect on memory, however, seemed not to last as long. Still, the old people in any of the three classes generally reported less difficulty in performing daily activities than the control group. The total training time for the older people was between 10 and 15 hours.