A new tool of communication called the “drift diary” is doing the rounds among young college graduates.

    The “drift diary”, like those ancient paper messages put into a bottle left to drift on the high seas to reach hundreds of miles away, connects lonely hearts.

    The “drift diary” was first started by a Beijing woman, who goes by the Net name Little S, in 2007. It has become the preferred tool of communication among youngsters afraid to reveal their innermost self to peers, but wanting to share their lives with others.

    The way it works is that the initiator（发起人）of the diary mentions it on popular  Internet forums such as Tianya and Douban. Those wanting to react or otherwise add to the diary then send their real names and addresses to the initiator via e-mails or text messages.

    The numbers in one group are usually restricted to between 30 and 50. The diary then passes on to another by express delivery or personal handover. The diary writers are mostly anonymous but if they wish to reveal their identity they can do so by posting their contact information at the end of their postings.

    The diary writers add not just words but also decorate the plain notebooks with cartoons, drawings or even dress it up with a ribbon or a new cover. Interesting experiences, travel journals, the simple joys of everyday living or sweet recollections of childhood, all find a place in these diaries. Most often, though, the writers set down their frustrations and predicaments.

    It usually takes one year for a diary to return to the initiator. The last recorder is the luckiest one, with access to all previous entries, while others can request photocopies of these from the diary's initiator.

    When my friend Lesa was diagnosed(诊断) with cancer, another friend and I went to the hospital to spend some time with her. We bought her a small toy and  named him Lemon－Aide. We gave Lemon－Aide to Lesa and told her he was to go with her to all of her treatments to remind her that we were thinking of her and caring about her even though we could not always be with her. When the treatments were completed, she said when someone else needed him she would pass him along.

    A few months later，much to my surprise, it was me that she passed him to. Lemon－Aide went with me to all of my treatments.

    One day while waiting for my doctor I decided we could market the idea to fight cancer. Lesa thought it was a great idea so we founded the organization that came to be known as Lemon－Aide' s Friends, Inc. We designed our organization to remind people fighting cancer that there are people who love and care about them all the time. Today we have totally 5013 volunteers. The money raised is donated to cancer patients who do not have insurance. The physicians on our Board of Advisors determine how and where our money is donated.

    Lemon－Aide is for men, women, and children of all ages and to date has been sent to 34 states and 33 countries to provide smiling support for people fighting cancer. When life gave us lemons we made Lemon－Aide, a soft smiling toy that represents love, support, and encouragement.

    We all have dreams sometimes. Some are sweet but some are nightmares. Almost all researchers in sleep explain that nightmares are a reaction to negative experiences that happen during waking hours. However, some of them believe that nightmares do have some real benefits. One 2017 study, for example, found that frequent nightmare sufferers rated themselves as more empathetic（共鸣的）.They also displayed more of a tendency to unconsciously mirror other people through things like yawning. People who have constant nightmares also tend to think further outside the box on psychoanalysis tasks. Some other researchers have found support for the idea that nightmares might be linked to creativity.

    People seeking cure for nightmares were not necessarily more fearful or anxious, but rather had a general sensitivity to all emotional experience. Sensitivity is the driving force behind intense dreams. Heightened sensitivity to threats or fear during the day results in bad dreams and nightmares, whereas heightened passion or excitement may result in more intense positive dreams. And both these forms of dreams may feed back into waking life, perhaps increasing suffering after nightmares, or promoting social bonds and empathy after positive dreams.

    The effects go further still. This sensitivity overflows over into perceptions and thoughts: people who have a lot of nightmares experience a dreamlike quality to their waking thoughts. And this kind of thinking seems to give them a creative edge. For instance, studies show that such people tend to have greater creative talent and artistic expression. And people who often have nightmares also tend to have more positive dreams than the average person.

    The evidence points towards the idea that, rather than disturbing normal activity, people who are unfortunate in having a lot of nightmares also have a dreaming life that is at least as creative, positive and vivid as it can be distressing and terrifying. What's more, this imaginative richness is unlikely to be limited to sleep, but also is filled with waking thought and daydreams. Even after people wake up and shake off the nightmare, in other words, a mark of it stays behind, possessing them throughout the day.

    Every week in China, millions of people will sit in front of their TVs watching teenagers compete for the title Character Hero, which is a Chinese-style spelling bee (拼写大赛). In this challenge, young competitors must write Chinese characters by hand. To prepare for the competition, the competitors usually spend months studying dictionaries.

    Perhaps the show's popularity should not be a surprise. Along with gunpowder and paper, many Chinese people consider the creation of Chinese calligraphy (书法) to be one of their primary contributions to civilization. Unfortunately, all over the country, Chinese people are forgetting how to write their own language without computerized help. Software on smart phones and computers allows users to type in the basic sound of the word using the Latin alphabet. The correct character is chosen from a list. The result? It's possible to recognize characters without remembering how to write them.

    But there's still hope for the paint brush. China's Education Ministry wants children to spend more time learning how to write.

    In one Beijing primary school we visited, students practice calligraphy every day inside a specially decorated classroom with traditional Chinese paintings hanging on the walls. Soft music plays as a group of six-year-olds dip brush pens into black ink. They look up at the blackboard often to study their teacher's examples before carefully attempting to reproduce those characters on thin rice paper. “If adults can survive without using handwriting, why bother to teach it now?” we ask the calligraphy teacher, Shen Bin, “The ability to write characters is part of Chinese tradition and culture,” she reasons. “Students must learn now so they don't forget when they grow up.” says the teacher.

    A farmer grew some vegetables in his garden. One day his wife was ill and he had no money. He had to sell some cabbages and carrots in the market. The next morning he took two baskets of vegetables to town, but it was raining hard that afternoon and there were few people in the street. When his vegetables were sold out, it was dark. He bought some medicine and hurried to his village.

    On his way home he saw a person lying on the ground. He placed his baskets on the ground and was going to help the person to get up. At that time he found it was a dead man and there was much blood on his body. He was so afraid that he ran away quickly, without taking his baskets.

    The next afternoon the farmer was sent to the police station. Having shown the baskets, an officer asked, “Are these yours?" “Yes, sir." The farmer answered timidly（胆怯地）. “Have you killed the man?” “No, no, sir.” The farmer said in a hurry. “When did you see the dead man?” “About seven last evening." “Did you see who killed the man?” “No, sir." The officer brought out a knife and asked, “Have you seen it yet?” “No, sir." The officer became angry and told the policemen to beat him up and sent him into prison(监狱)。

    That evening the officer went on trying. Pointing to the knife, he asked again, “Have you seen it yet?” "yes, sir.” The officer was happy and asked, “When and where?” “I saw it here this afternoon, sir.”

As we all know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Now scientists have given us another warning: spending too much time on smart phones or computers makes you dull too.

"Many focus on the benefits of digital devices (设备) in education but ignore the costs," said Patricia Greenfield from the University of California, "losing the ability to understand the emotions of other people is one of the costs." Greenfield and her research team did an experiment. They worked with 105 children who spent about 4.5 hours in front of screens on a school day. The students were asked to describe the emotions towards the pictures of people who were happy, sad, angry or scared. Then, half of them attended a five-day nature and science camp. There they had no smart phones, TV, or computers. The other half stayed in school and spent the five days as usual. Five days later, all the children took the test again.

Students who had been to the camp got about 5 percent more answers correct than they had done before the camp. But the other group of students didn't show much improvement. The study is not perfect in some ways, said the researchers. But scientists say that the study is still a warning for us.

"Emotional skills develop in practice and the brain develops through real interaction." said Professor Taylor, a professor at the University of San Francisco.

Researchers talked to 2,000 parents of children aged 2-16 in the UK about what activities their children could do confidently. The results were surprising: Their children could use a tablet (平板电脑) (59%) and work a mobile phone (57%) more confidently than they could tie their shoe laces (鞋带) (53%)! So, spend more time away from mobile phones and computers if you want to be an understanding friend, and not a member of what the Daily Mail called "Generation Helpless".