In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what “keeping up with the Joneses” is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.

    The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.

    It was like a race, but one could never finish his race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.

    Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series of short stories. He called it “Keeping up with the Joneses” because “Jones” is a very common name in the United States. “Keeping up with the Joneses” came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand's series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.

    People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are “Joneses” in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.

    The Exterminating Angel

    Director: Luis Bunuel

    Country/Date : Mexico/1962 （black and white)

    Introduction : A party is organized in a high class society house. Many people are

    drinking and eating．It's getting late, but nobody is leaving．Even though the door is open, people seem to be locked in the house．They can't leave either the day or on

    the following days．So a rescue began．

    The Net

    Director: Irwin Winkler

    Country/Date: U．S．A．/1995

    Introduction: Angela Bennettt is a computer programmer who has devoted her life to

    computers and the Internet．She spends hours and hours in front of the screen．She does everything over the Internet, and she has some close friends in a chat room,

    though she has never talked to her neighbors．

    Kung Fu Panda

    Director : Mark Osborne & John Stevenson

    Country/Date : U．S．A．/2008

    Introduction: The leading character is a panda whose name is Po．He is lazy first but he has a great dream—to be a kung fu master．To make his dream come true, he goes to a faraway temple to learn kung fu from a master．However, one of his brothers,

    Tai Long wants to become the kung fu master, killing many of his brothers even the

    master．So Po fights against Tai Long and defeats him, The film is good especially

    for kids．

    Life is Beautiful

    Director: Roberto Benigni

    Country/Date : Italy/1998

    Introduction: In 1939, during World WarⅡ in Italy, Guido, a hopeful man, the main character fell in love with Dora, and they got married．Five years later, their lives changed．Guido and Joshua were taken by the Nazis（纳粹）to a concentration camp and Dora also went there with her husband and son．At that place, Guido tried his best to save his son's life in a special way．

Top Music Festivals

    Festival season is just kicking off, and there is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming months.

    Pitchfork Music Festival

    Anyone who likes indie (独立的) music and up-and-coming artists will have an amazing time at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago's Union Park. This is an indie rock heaven that explores more underground and lesser known bands than the other big Chicago summer festival, Lollapalooza.

    Date: July 14-16

    Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Music Type: Indie rock

    Price: $126- $2,700

    Essence Music Festival

    No matter what time of the year it is, New Orleans is an amazing place if you love live music. The Essence Music Festival is a celebration of well-known artists like Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, and Mary J.Blige.

    Date: June 29-July 2

    Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

    Music Type: R& B, soul, rock

    Price: $75-$365

    Sziget Festival

    Budapest knows how to hold a party, and Sziget is one of the biggest celebrations of music and culture in all of Europe. You can expect to find favorite artists like Bad Religion and Mac DeMarco playing here during this three day festival.

Date: August 9-11

    Location: Budapest, Hungary

    Music Type: Eclectic, Indie rock

    Price: $70-$296

    Flow Festival

    The Flow Festival is a great excuse to explore the city of Helsinki. Artists including Lana Del Rey and The XX will be playing, among many others. Come to this festival to enjoy yourselves with an earth-friendly belief.

    Date: August 11-13, 2018

    Location Helsinki, Finland

    Music Type: Rock, soul, jazz

    Price: $106-$199

    I had reached the age of twenty-eight. Still, I doubted the letter from my past would make it to me, all these years later. It was a simple creative writing assignment from when I was eighteen. The teacher collected our letters to our future selves in self-addressed envelopes with stamps and promised to mail them ten years later. Yet so much time had passed. Would he even remember?

    Thinking back on the letter, I vaguely recalled giving my future self some advice. When you're eighteen years old, twenty-eight seems like a grown-up age but I wasn't feeling as grown up as I believed my younger self had expected me to be.

    When the letter finally reached me, I opened it eagerly. It began," How much do you bet this letter will never get to you "It continued to greet me casually as if we were having an IM (instant messaging) chat. My eighteen-year-old self was so stressed! As a senior in high school, facing the SATS and college applications, I was apparently not quite happy and hoped I wouldn't worry so much in the future, and that I wouldn't forget to be present and enjoy my life!

    Contrary to my belief, my eighteen-year-old self did not have any demands of me, or expectations I might have failed to meet. Instead, she wrote," I'll stand by whatever you do. Even if you are not who I'm imagining now, I'll support you, because maybe who I' m imagining is someone else, and you are-well you're not someone else, you're me."

    I was blown away, and tears welled up in my eyes at this self-acceptance through time. I had put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best version of myself that I could be. However, I came to realize what I would have accomplished in ten years' time would pale in comparison to how I'd feel and who I'd be.

    It was many years ago. I was a young dad sitting on the couch reading a fairy tale to my little girl. She sat next to me with her head on my arm as I told the tale. When it came to the end I finished with those famous words: "And they lived happily ever after." As I looked over to her with her wavy(鬈曲的), brown hair and big, innocent eyes I could see the smile on her face and I never wanted it to end. Then it dawned on me that the ending of the book was what I wanted for her. I wanted her to "live happily ever after".

    Still, deep in my heart I knew that this couldn't always be so. I knew that there would be times when her heart was broken. I knew there would be times when she cried in grief and I couldn't comfort her. I knew there would be times when all she felt was fear, sadness, sorrow, and despair. As I stroked her hair and smiled at her I hoped that those times would be brief and that she would have joy in her life more often than not. Living happily ever after, though, seemed out of the question.

    It takes me a lot of years to realize that it is possible to live happily ever after. You just have to do it "one day at a time". Happiness you see isn't some reward that you get at the end of your journey. Happiness isn't something that depends on what life you own. Happiness is something you create in your life choice by choice and day by day.

    The truth is happiness comes when you love. Love is a gift from God. It is love that mends broken hearts. It is love that heals grief. It is love that gives us joy. Choose to "live happily ever after, one day at a time".

A Rare Spotless Giraffe

A female giraffe was born at Brights Zoo in Tennessee recently—but unlike her mother she was born without any spots an unusual one.

Standing 14 to 19 feet tall, giraffes are the tallest land animals in the world. When mothers give birth, the young giraffes are already 6 feet tall, and other than in especially rare cases, they're born covered in brown spots. Brights Zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, announced that it welcomed the birth of a reticulated giraffe (网纹长颈鹿) without any spots on July 31st.

"Giraffe experts believe she is the only solid-colored reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet," the zoo said. The zoo's director, David Bright, said zoo staff had been reaching out to zoo professionals across the country inquiring about how unusual the giraffe could be. Zoo officials said the only record of a reticulated giraffe being born without spots was in Japan in the 1970s.

Mr. Bright said that the new giraffe might not have survived if she had been born in the wild. "Being solid-colored, she may not be able to hide quite well," said Bright. He also thought it was likely that the giraffe would be a "key target for illegal hunters" because she's so unusual.

Pictures of the young giraffe can be seen on the Brights Zoo Facebook page. In a picture, she, without her spots, stood next to her mother, a normal giraffe, in stark contrast. The zoo is asking the public to help name the newborn. People can choose one of four names available on the zoo's Facebook page. The names and their meanings are: Kipekee, meaning unique; Firyali, which means unusual or surprising; Shakiri, meaning she is most beautiful; Jamella, which means optimistic.

Bright said that the zoo looked at thousands of names and their meanings before settling on the four available. "Those four are the four the family really loves," Bright said. "So if she's named one of those four, we're very happy."

According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, there are only about 16, 000reticulated giraffes left in the wild — a more than 50% drop from approximately 36,000giraffes 35 years ago. There are about 117, 000giraffes across nine subspecies(亚种).Many of them are endangered or critically endangered.