Last Thursday, Michael and Linda stood behind large food trucks distributing meals to 4,000 homeless people for their wedding reception on the border town of Kilis. The couple had decided that instead of hosting their friends and family for a traditional feast reception,they would feed the victims from an earthquake-stricken area.

    The idea came from the bridegroom's father, Ted, who volunteers for a Turkish relief organization. For the past few years, the organization has distributed daily meals to thousands of people who've suffered from natural disasters. He approached a representative of the organization and suggested that the family cover part of the costs of feeding them for the day.

    Then he told his son, who was surprised by the suggestion, but soon won over. When he told that to the bride, she was really shocked but finally accepted because in southeastern Turkey there is areal culture of sharing with people in need. They love to share their food, their table and everything they have. And afterwards she was quite amazed about it. So, they arrived at the distribution center on Thursday to spend the day serving food and taking photographs with their grateful recipients（接受者）.

    On Tuesday evening, the newly married couple were still pleased with their decision to quit a personal celebrationfor one with a greater good. "It's like sharing a dinner with your friends and family who have this kind of thing on a daily basis or sharing something with people who don't even have the most basic things," Michael said."Hopefully, this will also give the start for other wedding dinners to be held here with our brothers and sisters in need."

    In choosing a friend, one should be very careful. A good friend can help you study. You can have fun together and make each other happy. Sometimes you will meet fair­weather friends. They will be with you as long as you have money or luck，but when you are down, they will run away. How do I know when I have found a good friend? I look for certain qualities of character，especially understanding, honesty and reliability(信任)．

    Above all else, I look for understanding in a friend. A good friend tries to understand how another person is feeling. He is not quick to judge. Instead, he tries to learn from others. He puts himself in the other person's place, and he tries to think of ways to be helpful. He is also a good listener.

    At the same time, however, a good friend is honest. He does not look for faults in others. He notices their good points. In short, a friend will try to understand me and accept me.

    Another quality of a friend is reliability. I can always depend on a good friend. If he tells me he will meet me somewhere at a certain time, I can be sure that he will be there. If I need a favor，he will do his best to help me. If I am in trouble, he will not run away from me.

    There is a fourth quality that makes a friend special. A special friend is someone with whom we can have fun. We should enjoy our lives, and we would enjoy our friendship. That is why I especially like friends who are fun to be with. A good friend likes the same things I like. We share experience and learn from each other. A good friend has a good sense of humor too. He likes to laugh with me. That is how we share in the joy of being friends. And I know that he is looking for the same quality in me.

    When I meet someone who is reliable, honest, and understanding，I know I've found a friend!

    Electric devices can seem like a “third party” in Some relationships because some partners spent more time on them than with each other.

    When Amanda Gao, a 26-year-old white collar worker in Beijing, went to a hotpot restaurant with her boyfriend on Friday night several weeks ago, she expected that they would have a good time together. To her disappointment, however, it did not turn out that later. As soon as they were led to their seats and she began to order dishes, he buried himself in his mobile phone.

    “It seemed that his phone was making its way between us. A date that should have belonged to us turned into one where my boyfriend dated a third party and I felt left out.” Gao said. Some people, like her, have found electronics have been sabotaging(破坏) their romantic relationships.

    A study, published in the journal Psych010kY of Popular Media Culture, in April, 2017, questioned nearly 200 college aged adults who were in committed(真诚的) relationships to report on their and their partner's smartphone dependency. The results showed people who were more dependent on their phones were less sure about their relationships, and people considered their partners excessively(过度地) dependent on their devices were less satisfied in their relationship.

    Lin Yuan, a relationship advisor in Beijing, noted that as more and more electronics come out and spice up people's lives, they are at the same time becoming a third party in relationships, especially for young people.

    Lin said she knew of some people who suggest that electronics should be kept out of bedrooms, which she considered challenging and hard to be put into practice for most couples. She recommended that if people are feeling neglected in their relationship, they need to respectfully let their partners know their feeling. “Communication is always the best and the most efficient way.” she said.

    Turning the lights out or wearing a blindfold while eating could be a quick way to lose weight, according to scientists. The simple trick works because it stops diners eating for pleasure rather than for calories. It also triggers (引发) a part of the brain that is worried that unseen food may go bad.

    An experiment by the University of Konstanz, in Germany, found that people who were blindfolded consumed nine percent fewer calories before they felt full, compared to those who could see. They also vastly overestimated how much they had eaten because they could not see how much was left on the plate. Blindfolded volunteers estimated(估计) they had eaten 88 percent more than they actually had.

    Scientists believe that not seeing food on the table also allows the body to know when it is full in real time rather than remembering past experiences where it might have taken a full plate to feel full.

    In the experiment, 50 people were blindfolded and 40 were allowed to see their food. All were told not to eat within two hours of the experiment. They were then given three 95g bowls of chocolate ice cream and invited to eat for 15 minutes. Their bowls were taken away and the remaining ice-cream weighed, while the participants were quizzed on how much they thought they had eaten.

    On average the group who could see ate 116g while the blindfolded groups ate 105g. However, the blindfolded group believed they had eaten 197g while compared with 159g for the non-blind volunteers. They were also asked how pleasant the ice-cream tasted and the blindfolded group rated lower than those who could see.

    “The experienced pleasure of eating was significantly lower in the blindfolded group. Not seeing the food might have decreased the appetite. Sight plays an important role in the eating experience and in the overall dining experience.”

    Previous studies have shown that the visual influence of food plays a large part in the taste. While restaurants that allow diners to eat in the dark state that it triggers other senses, in fact eating in darkness is likely to taste far milder than usual.

    Picasso Blue and Rose' at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris

    Through Jan.6.2019

    In its first major partnership with the Musée National Picasso﹣Paris, the Mus6e d'Orsay presents a show about Pablo Picasso's "Blue and Rose periods. "Some iconic（标志性的）Picasso works from this period in 1900～1906 ﹣﹣which experts consider a key point in his career—will make their first appearance in France for this exhibit. The show features over 300 works, including 80 paintings, 150 drawings, sculptures and prints, alongside photographs and letters from this time in the artist's life.

    'Hodler Parallelism' at the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland

    Through Jan. 13, 2019

    This year marks a century since the death of one of Switzerland's most famous painters: Ferdinand Hodler. To honor his great achievements, the Kunstmuseum Bem and Geneva's Museum of Art and History have joined forces for a show focused on his theory of parallelism. Hodler considered parallelism a key principle of his work and employed it through the use of repetition, patterns, symmetry（对称） and mirror images, The show features 99 of Holder' s works.

    Claude Monet' at the Albertina in Vienna

    Through Jan. 6, 2019

    For the first time in over 20 years, a large﹣scale Monet exhibit can be seen in Austria. The Alhertina has gathered 100 paintings from more than 40 international museums and private collections, including the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Gallery in London, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.  Highlights include the works: "On the Boat," "Boulevard des Capucines," "Grainstack in Sunlight," and "The Japanese Bridge."

    The new president of Harvard University is the son of an Eastern European refugee and Auschwitz (奥斯威辛) survivor—Lawrence S. Bacow. His father worked full time while attending a state college in Detroit at night to earn his degree.

    Bacow, the former president of Tufts University, has taken over Harvard at a time when higher education is under attack for being financially out of reach to many Americans. But Bacow said his family's journey had reflected the power of college education to transform generations and the opportunities that have historically been available in the United States.

    "My parents came to this country with almost nothing," Bacow said. "I wouldn't be here if this country had not been open to people like my parents at that time. Nor would I if my father hadn't had the opportunity to get the college education."

    Bacow grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. His father's family fled anti-Jewish (反犹太的) violence in Minsk, then part of the Soviet Union, before the start of World War II and went to the United States. His mother arrived in Brooklyn at age 19, having survived Auschwitz concentration camp. She was the only Jew from her town to have survived the war. Yet Bacow, who is married with two sons, said that while growing up in Michigan, he had a happy childhood, entering science fairs as a child and building radios like his dad.

    Bacow has spent most of his professional career at MIT, Harvard and Tufts. He was a professor of environmental studies at MIT, and later a principal at the university. He led Tufts from 2001 to 2011. At Tufts, Bacow earned a reputation for shaking up a sleepy university that was being overshadowed by its peers in Boston. He is also credited with leading it through both 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis.

    As the Tufts president, Bacow traveled around the country, reaching out to alumni (校友), and he urged his faculty and deans to do the same, in an effort to boost donations to finance Tufts' academic ambitions. He raised more than $20 million for faculty recruitment, attracting up-and-coming professors by offering junior faculty perks (福利), such as long academic leaves that they couldn't get elsewhere.

    Under Bacow's leadership, Tufts spent millions on labs and libraries. He also made addresses nationally about the need to make higher education more accessible and affordable to low-income students.