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    It is probably the strangest sport anyone has ever invented. And at first sight, it looks like the easiest. Competitors have to do two things. The first is to stand still. The second is to place their hands anywhere on the body of a car, and keep it there.   

    This is where things start getting difficult. Lots of people are doing the same thing. And the winner of the "handathon" contest is the person who can carry on doing it for the longest time. That person gets to own the car.

    It still seems to be an easy thing to do. At the beginning it is. Anyone can stand still. But when the contest has been going for four or five days, standing still seems like the most difficult job in the world. And keeping the hand in place over this time becomes an act of serious attention. After a few days, the hand seems to belong to someone else—someone who wants to go home and get some sleep.

    Competitors are allowed to take a five-minute break every hour to eat, drink or do whatever else is necessary. No one is allowed to lean on the car for support. Winners need to be able to show great powers of attention. They also need to be able to develop special skills.

    Maybe the popularity of the handathon is due to the fact that it is not necessary to be a trained athlete to enter. Competitors in the Longview handathon certainly don't seem to do much preparation. Most say they will prepare by "getting lots of sleep". Others say they will "eat healthy food" or "pray for success". The whole event gives ordinary people the chance to do something interesting and win something in the end.

    Handathons are competitions, but there is little rivalry(敌对) between competitors. They help each other out and keep each other's spirits up. People who drop out early return with food, drink and encouragement.

    China is a country on the move—especially around its Lunar New Year holiday. This year, the holiday crush（客流量） promises to be even heavier than before.

    Government officials estimate that Chinese people will take to the air, roads and railways 3.62 billion times over a 40-day period around the nation's most important holiday this year as people push their way home for family gatherings or to satisfy their new-found passion for travel.

    Getting tickets to all those would-be travelers is a discounting challenge that annually tries patience. And it is the railway system that routinely is most unable to cope. Railways are the transport of choice for low-cost long-distance travel, and that's where the ticketing system routinely falls down.

    Much of the criticism has, focused on the railway's online purchasing system, which has been unable to keep pace with the huge demand and also failed to stop scalpers（票贩子） from ending up with many of the hard-to-find tickets.

    While insisting that online sales were the fairest way to get tickets for travelers, railway officials told reporters that the public need to be patient. Efforts were being made to provide online identity checks that would reduce the ticket scalping problems. While officials had little good news for rail passengers, they did manage to bring a few smiles to those traveling by car as the country's extremely expensive highway tolls （通行费） will be free of charge for the period of the official holiday.

    Does Fame Drive You Crazy?

                                                                                              The National Gallery

    Description:

    The National Gallery is the British national art museum built on the north side of Trafalgar Square in London. It houses a diverse collection of more than 2,300 examples of European art ranging from 13^th-century religious paintings to more modern ones by Renoir and Van Gogh. The older collections of the gallery are reached through the main entrance while the more modern works in the East Wing are most easily reached from Trafalgar Square by a ground floor entrance.

    Layout:

    The modern Sainsbury Wing on the western side of the building houses 13th- to 15th-century paintings, and artists include Duccio, Uccello, Van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli and Memling.

    The main West Wing houses 16th-century paintings, and artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titan and Veronese.

    The North Wing houses 17th-century paintings, and artists include Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Claude and Vermeer.

    The East Wing houses 18th- to early 20th-century paintings, and artists include Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Renoir and Van Gogh.

    Opening Hours:

    The Gallery is open every day from 10am to 6pm (Fridays 10am to 9pm) and is free, but charges apply to some special exhibitions.

    Getting There:

    Nearest underground stations: Charing Cross (2-minute walk), Leicester Square (3-minute walk), Embankment (7-minute walk), and Piccadilly Circus (8-minute walk).

    Most high school students would rather spend their summer vacations far away from the classroom. But Vineet Kosaraju and Nikhil Cheerla are choosing to go back to school, and this time they are the teachers.

    "I think it's really nice that I can help the community by spending just a little bit of time every week helping just a few students here and there try and learn programming," Kosaraju said.

    Friends since they were young boys, Kosaraju and Cheerla always shared a love of computer science. They learned the skills from their parents and school, but recognized that not all children have that chance.

    "Programming isn't taught in that many schools, especially low income (收入) schools, because there isn't that much money to support it," Kosaraju said.

    So he and Cheerla developed "Math and Coding," an after-school program for kids of all ages to learn the basics of computer programming.

    Between applying for college and doing their own homework, the two boys now spend a few hours every week going to different libraries teaching classes that cover everything from building basic games to developing apps.

    The friends started the program a little over a year ago and already, it's spread to more than a dozen libraries across the Bay Area in California. They are even training volunteers to teach these very same classes in other US states and Canada.

    Maryann Mitchell brought her 8-year-old granddaughter, Gabriella, to a class on coding at the Alum Rock Library in San Jose, California.

    "It's a chance for her to learn," Mitchell said. "It's the way of the future, and it's a good way for her to get grounded and be ready for what the future holds."

    "I think the most rewarding thing is having people come up and thank you and say they really learned a lot from this class," Cheerla said. "It doesn't get any better than that."

    Making employees feel happy and healthy at work is good for many businesses. But it isn't always an easy thing. A study suggests that only 33% of the U. S. employees consider themselves fully engaged （投身于）in work, while 16% are greatly disengaged, and 51% are just showing up.

    But there is an exception. When it comes to employee engagement, it seems that employees in small companies are doing better. According to the same research, the largest U. S. companies are at the lowest levels of engagement, while companies with fewer than 25 employees are at the highest. And in one recent report, 75% of small business workers surveyed said they were "very" or "extremely" satisfied with their role as a small company employee.

    Unlike big companies, small companies are often short of resources but the employees can get more surprises there. Small companies offer excellent career opportunities to their employees. The bosses often know their staff very well and understand their personal needs. Employees of small companies are more likely to receive free meals, paid leave, and they can even bring their pets to work.

    But of course, there are many other draws in small businesses. One of the top draws is flexible scheduling (弹性工时). Another is being able to really see the fruits of one's labor. Besides, non-cash award is also a big draw. This could be something small that reflects employees' interests and lifestyles.

    While a parental leave might lead to some financial problems, small companies may do something to improve it. "It may be impossible for a five-person team to be reduced to four for six months," writes Camillia Velasquez, head of HR management platform, Justworks. "But it could be possible to allow new parents to take on reduced hours in a work-from-home environment." This kind of method has been realized in some small companies.