With all of the wonderful things life brings us, it also brings us stress. It is for this reason that I am an active supporter of mental health days.

    Although it's never good to ignore(忽视) responsibilities, sometimes it is good to unplug(拔除) from the world for a day. We eat healthy and stay active to keep us from getting sick, but sometimes we forget to care for our minds. Our minds and bodies are connected, and when only one is being cared for, the other may be suffering. It is important to try to combine self care with our lives and spend time on activities we enjoy. This helps relieve stress on a daily day.

    So, what do you do on a mental health day? The answer is anything you want. Growing up, my brother and I were allowed a few mental health days a year. We would stay home from school and relax. For him, it was playing games on the computer, while my days were spent reading or watching TV. My mental health days now include picking things up around my apartment, cooking a tasty meal, and then reading for a few hours. I completely shut myself off from work or school. To me, this is relaxing. Organize the clutter(凌乱的东西) that piles up during the week, cook the meals I don't have time to cook, and read the books that I've bought but don't have time to read.

    A mental health day is great, but only if it's supplemented(增补) with self care through the week. From my experience, if self care is not regularly provided in your week, taking a mental health day is just going to stress you out even more. But when it's needed, try hard to recognize that and take care of yourself. It will help keep you happy and healthy. A mental health day is not a day to avoid life, it is a day to recoup(恢复).

    Wondering where to watch the fireworks on the fourth Friday of July? Here are some restaurants where you can sit, grab a bite to eat and watch the show.

    The Roof on Wilshire offers a view of the city, so chances are that you'll be able to catch a fireworks show while you're up there. The restaurant will also offer an all-you-can-eat menu for $20 that includes all beef hot dogs and sweet potato chips. The festivities will take place from 2 to 11 pm. Reservations are recommended. 6317 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, (323) 852-6002.

    Whiskey Red's is located in Marina Del Rey. Beginning at 5:30 pm, it will include live music from Jack of Hearts. The event is free and open to the public. Guests can make reservations from 5:30 to 10 pm. It costs $59 to reserve a seat on the patio(露台) and $49 for indoor seating. Kids aged 5 to 12 need $25 for a seat outside and $20 for an indoor seat. Kids aged four and below are free. 13813 Fiji Way, Marina Del Rey, (310) 823-4522.

    High Rooftop lounge in Venice at the top of the Hotel Erwin offers views of the Venice coastline. The fireworks show starts at 9 pm. The rooftop lounge (休息室) offers a full menu of cocktails and a selection of snacks. 1697 Pacific Avenue, Venice Beach, (800) 786-7789.

    The last one is Carbon Beach Club at the Malibu Inn. Here you can see fireworks from a seat on the restaurant's oceanfront balcony from 6 to 9:30 pm. Reservations are recommended. 22878 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, (310) 456-6444.

B

    These days, young people in some English-speaking countries are speaking a strange language, especially when communicating on social media.

    Look at these words chosen by The Washington Post: “David Bowie dying is totes tradge,” and “When Cookie hugged Jamal it made me totes emosh.” Or this sentence: “BAE, let me know if you stay in tonight.”

    What on earth do they mean? Well, “totes” is a short form of “totally”. Similarly, “tradge” means “tragic” and “emosh” means “emotional”. It seems that, for millennials（千禧一代）, typing in this form is not only time-saving but fashionable.

    As you can see, many millennial slangs（俚语）are formed by so-called “totesing”—the systematic abbreviation（缩写）of words. The trend might have started with “totally” becoming “totes”, but it now has spread to many other English words.

    The origins of other millennial slangs are more complex than “totesing”.“Bae”, for example, has been widely used by African-Americans for years. It can be an expression of closeness with one's romantic partner or, like “sweetheart”, for someone without romantic connection. After pop singer Pharrell used the word in his work, “bae” became mainstream.

    Some people might think millennial slangs lower the value of the English language, but Melbourne University linguist（语言学家）Rosey Billington doesn't agree. She says when people are able to use a language in a creative way, they show that they know the language rules well enough to use words differently. Two other linguists, Lauren Spradlin and Taylor Jones, share the same view. The two analysed hundreds of examples of totes-speak and discovered totesing has complex roots.

    It isn't simply an adult version of baby talk, nor a clever way to minimize your word count. Rather, it is a highly organized system that relies on a speaker's mastery of English pronunciation. It is about sounds, follows sound system of English and has strict rules.

    Mandara seemed to know something big was about to happen. So she let out a yell, caught hold of her 2-year-old daughter Kibibi and climbed up into a tree. She lives at the National Zoo in Washington D.C.

    And on Tuesday, August 23rd, witnesses said she seemed to sense the big earthquake that shook much of the East Coast before any humans knew what was going on. And she's not the only one. In the moments before the quake, an orangutan (猩猩) let out a loud call and then climbed to the top of her shelter.

    “It's very different from their normal call,” said Brandie Smith, the zookeeper. “The lemurs (monkey like animals of Madagascar) will sound an alarm if they see or hear something highly unusual.”

    But you can't see or hear an earthquake 15 minutes before it happens, can you? Maybe you can——if you're an animal.

    “Animals can hear above and below our range of hearing,” said Brandie Smith. “That's part of their special abilities. They're more sensitive to the environment, which is how they survive.”

    Primates weren't the only animals that seemed to sense the quake before it happened. One of the elephants made a warning sound and a huge lizard (蜥蜴) ran quickly for cover. The flamingoes (a kind of birds) gathered before the quake and stayed together until the shaking stopped.

    So what kind of vibrations (震动) were the animals picking up in the moments before the quake? Scientist Susan Hough said earthquakes produce two types of waves——a weak “P” wave and then a much stronger “S” wave. The “P” stands for “primary”. And the “S” stands for “secondary”. She thinks the “P” wave might be what sets the animals off.

    Not all the animals behaved unusually before the quake. For example, Smith said the zoo's giant pandas didn't jump up until the shaking actually began. But many of the other animals seemed to know something was coming before it happened. “I'm not surprised at all,” Smith said.

    Binge-watching is when a person watches more than one episode of a show in quick succession（一连串,连续）". With developments in the speed and connectivity of the internet, increases in technology and the rise of on-demand entertainment companies, people can now have their favorite shows streamed directly to their television at their convenience.

    This behavior is nothing new. In fact, " binge-watching" has been officially listed in dictionaries since 2015. The entertainment companies recognize this behavior and many take steps to encourage it. Often, instead of releasing each episode on a week-by-week basis, an entire series will become available concurrently. Once the episode finishes many platforms will display pop-ups with "you might like suggestions, or will automatically play the next episode".

    However, recent research suggests that out of the more than half of British adults who watch more than one episode of a show back-to-back, almost a third have admitted missing sleep or becoming tired as a result; and one quarter have neglected their household chores. Next we'll be missing work!

    Bingeing has other connections-binge eating, binge drinking and binge smoking. All of them are often associated with a lack of control and a possible route to addiction. Lindsey Fussell, consumer group director, said： "The days of waiting a week for the next episode are largely gone, with people finding it hard to resist watching multiple episodes around the house or on the move." If people find binge-watching hard to resist, coupled with the fact that it has shown to lead to negligence in many, are we witnessing the birth of a new type of addiction？

    The countless of information and entertainment that television and online media can bring us is, many would say, a good thing. However, when the activity begins to bleed into other areas, causing us to stop functioning then it becomes a problem. So, what's the answer？ Moderation! Neither a tiny amount, nor too much. After all, as the old proverb says, "A little of what you fancy does you good."

    On a recent night, while I was busy thinking about important social issues, like what to do over the week﹣end and who to do it with, I overheard my parents talking about my future. My dad was upset not the usual stuff that he and Mom and, I guess, a lot of parents worry about like which college I' m going to, how far away it is from home. Instead, he was upset about the world his generation is turning over to mine, a world he fears has a dark and difficult future if it has a future at all.

    "There will be a disease that kills millions, a disastrous energy crisis, a horrible worldwide depression and a nuclear explosion set off in anger."

    As I lay on the living room couch, listening to their conversation, starting to worry about the future my father was describing, I found myself looking at some old family photos.  There was a picture of my grandfather who was a member of the class of 1942, the war class. Next to his picture were photos of my great﹣grandparents. Seeing those pictures made me feel a lot better. I believe tomorrow will be better than today — that the world my generation grows into is going to get better, not worse. Those pictures helped me understand why.

    I considered some of the awful things my grandparents and great﹣grandparents had seen in their lifetimes: two world wars, killer flu, segregation（隔离） , a nuclear bomb.  But they saw other things, too, better things: the end of two world wars, passage of the civil rights laws.

    I believe that my generation will see better things, too that we will witness the time when AIDS is cured and cancer is defeated. I will see things as incredible to me today as the internet to my father when he was 16.