Welcome to the Painting Competition for Woodlands Students

    The International Anti-Drug（禁毒） Day this year is coming soon. In order to raise teenagers' awareness （意识） to fight against drug taking, the City Art Council is going to hold a painting competition for the students in our city.

    Students who want to take part in the competition can hand in their own 2D paintings in either of the following two ways:

    Each school will be provided with a box for students to put in their paintings. Boxes will be picked up by the City Art Council on Thursday, June 23rd，2016, before the end of the school day.

    Paintings can be also handed in on Friday, June 24th, from 8:00 am to 10:00 am at the Woodlands Art Hall （175 Riverside Street）.

    All paintings are required to be 60cm wide by 80cm long or smaller. Larger sizes will not be accepted. Each student can only hand in one painting.

    The final decision on the competition results will be made on June 26th, the Anti-Drug Day. The name list of the winners will be made known on the website of the City Art Council on the same day. All winning paintings will be shown to the public at the City Youth Park from June 27th till the end of July.

Prizes：1st Prize（10 students）=＄300 Gift Card each

2nd Prize（20 students）=＄200 Gift Card each

3rd Prize（30 students）=＄100 Gift Card each

    For further information：

Visit http：//www. WoodlandsArtCouncil. org or call 2569-8632.

    The guzheng is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It belongs to the zither（齐特琴）family of string instruments. It is the parent of many musical instruments of some other countries.

    The guzheng should not be confused with the guqin, another ancient Chinese zither but without bridges. Now the guzheng is zither with movable bridges and usually 21 strings, although it can have from 15-25 strings. The guzheng's strings were formerly made of silk, though most players used metal strings by the 20^th century. Since the mid-20^th century most performers use steel strings. The guzheng has a large resonant cavity（共振腔）.

    The guzheng has existed since the Warring States Period and became especially popular during the Qin dynasty. The number of strings on the guzheng has always fluctuated. There were as few as 6 to as many as 23 strings during the Tang dynasty. The earliest record of the guzheng belonged to the historian Sima Qian. Until 1961, the common guzheng had 16 strings, although by the mid-20^th century 18-string guzheng were also in use. In 1961, Xu Zhenggao, together with Wang Xunzhi, introduced the first 21-string guzheng after two years of research and development. In 1960, they also invented the “S-shaped” left string rest, which was quickly adopted by all guzheng makers and is still used today. This curve allows for greater ease in tuning the strings and, combined with strings of different thickness, allows for greater resonance in both the deeper and the higher pitch（音调）ranges. The 21-string guzheng is the most commonly used one, but some traditional musicians still use the 16-string one.

    Julian Beever is a well-known British artist. His drawings have appeared on the streets of London, Paris, Tokyo, New York and many other cities around the world. Beever creates what looks like a three-dimensional design (三维设计). From animals to heroes to buildings, the paintings are wonders for our eyes to see.

    In his book Pavement Chalk Artist, Beever shares some of his most attractive and humorous pieces. Here are the examples you will find in the book.

    Philadelphia Eagle, created in the USA, is a huge drawing with an eagle (鹰) landing on an American national flag. Meeting Mr. Frog was created in Spain and is about a realistic- looking (样子逼真的) frog sitting on a lily pad (睡莲叶子). Swimming Pool in the High Street is about a woman relaxing in a swimming pool sinking into the middle of the street.

    Along with an introduction about his background, Beever shares information about his time at home in the UK and abroad. With a fun story coming after each piece of art, this 112- page book is really worth another look.

    The Republic of Vanuatu is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. It was one of the poorest nations in the region. Within the last five years, however, it has become a hot spot for adventure travelers. In 2006 it was voted the happiest place on Earth. The reason is not that Vanuatu are the richest but that Vanuatu has white-sand islands, clear waters, the world's most accessible live volcano, great diving and food that grows faster than it can be picked.

    With a population of about 221,000, Vanuatu has 113 languages, which is a result of 3,000 years of immigration from many Pacific countries. There are three official languages: English, French, and Bislama. Bislama developed from South Pacific English, a simplified language that traders and other foreigners used it to communicate with speakers of the many local languages.

    Most of the islands are mountainous and of volcanic origin. There are several active volcanoes in Vanuatu, including Yasur on the island of Tanna, one of the world's most accessible volcanoes. If you've ever fancied getting close to a volcano, here's your chance.

    Vanuatu Post's Underwater Post Office has quickly become one of the busiest post offices for postcards in the world! Visitors from around the world want to experience the world's first under- water post office. The Post Office is only 50 meters offshore and at just three meters below the surface, very appealing to the young and young at heart. Since opening in 2003, the underwater post office has received about 100,000 visitors. They have posted one of the waterproof（防水的）postcards available in Vanuatu; these cards are collected regularly by one of Vanuatu Post's four trained divers. The underwater branch is manned daily for usually about an hour, longer with demand.

    At 88, my grandmother Vera has dementia and barely recognizes me. But I'm determined to help her age with dignity and grace in her home for as long as she can.

    Since 2015, I've been a manager at Honor, a technology company that uses a website and an app to pair professional caregivers (we call them Care Pros) with loved ones who need a hand. I want to make sure we are offering all our clients (客户), including my grandmother, a service that is affordable, with people who are reliable, diverse and skilled. On Sundays. Amy, my grandmother's most-loved Honor professional caregiver, comes over to get her dressed for church. She loves the time she spends with Amy. That's the best gift I can give her and the best gift I can give myself. Care giving can exhaust a family emotionally and physically. At Honor, we're trying to create something that makes it easier for women to be moms, daughters, and sisters all at once. That's why this company was built.

    What sets Honor apart from other care giving services is that we're equally focused on treating the Care Pros well. We pay higher-than-average rates and they can get health benefits and sick leave. Most of our Care Pros are women, and a lot of them arc single mothers. The technology behind our app allows Care Pros to set parameters (参数) based on when, where, and how much they want to work so they can control their schedules. The company also allows continuity of care. Each Care Pro notes in the caregivers' app how the client is feeling or what should happen on the following shift. That way, the client's family can stay up to date on their loved one's health.

    When I was working with my team at Honor, I wanted to create opportunities for people who looked like me. I'm proud to say that there are single moms and other women without traditional educational training who lead teams here. The makeup of this company proves that people with diverse backgrounds can be part of a successful tech company. This has to be a model for the future.

    I'm confident it will happen.

Pick up any packaged processed food, and there's a decent chance that one of its listed ingredients will be "natural flavour". The ingredient sounds good, particularly in contrast to "artificial flavours" since there is a common belief that ingredients from nature are necessarily safer than something artificially made. But it's not true. Then what exactly does the natural flavour mean? It refers to extracts (提取物) got from natural sources like plants, meat or seafood. When consumers see the "natural flavour" on a label, they are unlikely to assume that someone is squeezing the juice from oranges into their bottles. They know even though natural flavour must come from natural sources, it needn't all come from the plant or meat. For example, orange flavours might contain not only orange extracts, but also extracts from bark and grass.

So if flavours like orange are needed, why not just use oranges? The answer comes down to "availability, cost, and sustainability", according to flavour chemist Gary Reineccius of the University of Minnesota. "If you're going to use all your grapes on grape soda," Reineccius says, "you don't have any grapes for wine making; the products are going to be exorbitant; besides, what do you do with the by-products you create after you've squeezed all the juice out of the grapes?"

Actually, while chemists make natural flavours by extracting chemicals from natural ingredients, artificial flavours are made by creating the same chemicals artificially. The reason why companies bother to use natural flavours rather than artificial flavours is simple: marketing. "Many of these products have health titles," says Platkin, professor from Hunter College. "Consumers may be talked to believe products with natural flavours are healthier, though they are nutritionally no different from those with artificial flavours. Natural flavours may involve more forest clear-cutting and carbon emissions from transport than flavours created in the lab."

Platkin suggests getting more transparent (易懂的) labeling on packaging that describes exactly what the natural or artificial flavours are, so consumers are-not misled into buying one product over another because of "natural flavours". Reineccius also offers simple guidance: "Don't buy anything because it says ‘natural flavours'. Buy it because you like it."