Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity (名人) chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.

    The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cooking a more manly picture, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality and men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.

    According to the research by Prof. Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.

    Prof. Gershuny said, “The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of sexual equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come.”

    Women, who a generation ago spent nearly two hours a day cooking, now spend just one hour and seven minutes－a great fall, but they still spend far more time in the kitchen than men.

    Some experts have named these men in aprons as “Gastrosexuals (men using cooking skills to impress friends)”, who have been inspired to pick up a kitchen knife by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.

    “I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later, I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed,” said Prof. Gershuny. “That would never happen now.”

    Two-thirds of adults say that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table. Prof. Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table－with many “family meals” in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by family members. “The family meal has changed a lot, and few of us eat－as I did when I was a child－at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format.”

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    Blowing bubbles is fun! The best thing about bubbles is that it's easy to make your own bubble solution(溶液). You can make as much as you want and blow as many bubbles as you'd like. If you add a "secret" ingredient(配料), you'll get bigger and stronger bubbles! Do just as follows:

    Measure 6 cups of water into one container, then pour 1 cup of dish soap into the water and slowly stir it until the soap is mixed in. Try not to let bubbles form while you stir.

    Measure 1 tablespoon of glycerin(甘油) or 1/4 cup of corn syrup（玉米淀粉） and add it to the container. Stir the solution until it is mixed together.

    You can use the solution right away, but to make even better bubbles, put the lid on the container and let your super bubble solution sit overnight. The soap mixture on the outside of a bubble is actually made of three very thin layers: soap, water, and another layer of soap. A bubble pops when the water that is trapped between the layers of soap evaporates(蒸发). The glycerin or corn syrup mixes with the soap to make it thicker. The thicker skin of the bubbles keeps the water from evaporating as quickly, so they last longer. It also makes them stronger, so you can blow bigger bubbles.

    Dip a bubble wand or straw into the mixture, slowly pull it out, wait a few seconds, and then blow. If you don't have a ready-made "bubble wand", you can make your own by cutting off the end of the bulb of a plastic pipet. Dip the cut end in solution and blow through the narrow end. You can also make a loop out of thin wire or pipe cleaner. Just twist a round end on your wire to blow the bubbles through. You can even make it heart-shaped, square or use other shapes if you're clever enough to bend it well.

    A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I had an opportunity to attend a dear friend's wedding in New York. After the wedding and reception, rather accidentally four of us gathered in a hotel room and began to explore the deeper meaning of life and death. What does it mean to live truly? If we are all getting closer to death, is all the material accumulation worth it? It is not exactly the type of conversations one has at a wedding.

    While the answers varied from person to person, I was left with more questions than answers and a feeling of gratefulness to be surrounded by friends who were asking the “right” questions. As the clock kept ticking past 3 a.m., one of the roommates suggested we watch a short film titled “Last Days of Zach Sobiech”. The film is about a teenager's journey through the last days of his incurable illness. The film brought up a lot of mixed emotions but one quote that stood out for me was Zach's simple explanation of happiness, “What makes one happy is seeing someone else smile because you put it there.” By 4 a.m. , there was this energy in the room that had to be shared! With a few packages of post-it notes, we hit the halls of the hotel. We decided to leave short inspirational words on guests' doors, so when they opened their doors few hours later a smile would turn up.

    We ended up sticking post-it notes on all the doors until we ran out of them. The note on the door of the newly-weds properly said, “Where there is love, there is life.”

    Do you need help in creating a character for your novel? Well, you have come to the right article.

    Write down your characters full name.

    You can also write down any other name/nickname/title he or she has. Try not to use your name or someone else's name that you know, as this may be considered personal information. You may be writing a mystery and your main character may just be referred to as, for example, the Man, all the way through the novel. Even if in this situation, to add depth to your character, you should know the character inside-out even if the reader will not.

    Describe your character's physical features.

    Does he/she have red or blonde hair? What color is his/her skin? Is he or she a human, animal, robot or imagined creature? Make your character unusual. Describe your character in an interesting way, even if your character is meant to be common or average. The possibilities are vast; just make the descriptive language good, so that it conjures up(使在脑海中显现)the character for the readers.

    Describe the character's personality in detail

    They are all great for working with as a writer, but you must choose a reasonable one that best fits your

Character—don't try to give the character an unlikely combination of many features. Don't give the character merely neutral or good features. Also add the bad habits and weaknesses. Your character is best if presented as defective (in actions, appearance or personality).Your character can make mistakes, have bad habits, and have little interesting strange habits. This is what makes the character interesting.

    Work out a good plot.

    What is a good story without a good plot? Maybe your character has become mixed up with some bad people or a strange mystery. Maybe your character has only months to live and wants to do something great

    But, the plots must be connected to the character. Keep imagining.

    “Helicopter parent” may not sound pleasant, but given the chance, most parents would probably prefer a vehicle to zoom (快速移动)little ones between school, football practice and piano lessons. Getting children where they need to go is a huge task and expense, especially in homes where both parents work. Hailing rides (专车服务)through firms like Uber and Lyft has made life more convenient for adults. But drivers are not supposed to pick up kids who travels without an adult aside (although some are known to bend the rules).

    Children represent a fresh-faced opportunity. Ride-hailing for kids could be a market worth at least $50bn in America, hopes Ritu Narayan, the founder of Zum, one of the startups in want of the prize. These services are similar to Uber's, except they allow parents to schedule rides for their children in advance. Children are given a code word to ensure they find the right driver, and parent sreceive warnings about the pick-up and ride, including the car's speed. These services promise more careful background checks finger printing and training than typical ride-hailing companies.

    Annette Yolas, who works in sales at AT&T, says that she spends around $200 a month on Hop Skip Drive, a service that operates in several markets in California, for her three kids to get to the school bus on time and to ballet practice. She says it has been a “life-saver” by allowing her to work longer hours. Meanwhile, kids avoid the embarrassment of a relative pulling up at school. But ride-hailing firms for kids may end up like the children in Neverland, and never fully grown. They face several challenges. One is finding enough drivers. All users need rides during the same limited set of hours: before and after school, which makes it hard to offer drivers enough work. It can also be challenging to persuade parents, who have drilled it into children never to get in a stranger's car.

    And while ride-sharing companies can annoy adult passengers by cancelling or being late, such behavior can be a disaster when children are involved. Shuddle, an early entrant in the taxis-for-kids business, which shut down in 2016, had only two out of five stars on Yelp (点网站)for that reason， and lots of negative reviews from parents. It had made money on rides mainly by raising prices ever higher.

    Shuddle's failure has not discouraged Uber itself, which is expected soon to launch a pilot programme for teenagers under 18. Parents may be happier to use services they are familiar with. But Uber's entrance is likely to add to the struggle of child-focused ride-hailing businesses as they compete for customers and new funds.

    Did you know that Albert Einstein could not speak until he was four years old, and did not read until he was seven? His parents and teachers worried about his rnental ability.

    Beethoven's music teacher said about him，"As a composer（作曲家）he is hopeless." What if this young boy believed it?

    When Thomas Edison was a young boy, his teachers said he was so stupid that he could never learn anything. He once said, I remember I used to never be able to get along at school. I was always at the foot of my class…My father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided that l was a stupid person. "What if young Thomas believed what may said about him?

    When the sculptor(雕刻家)Auguste Rodin was young; he had difficulty learning to read and write. Today, we may say he had a learning disability. His father said of him, "I have an idiot(白痴) for a son." His uncle agreed. "He's uneducable," he said. What if Rodin had doubted his ability?

    Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper editor because he was thought to have no "good ideas". Enrico Caruso was told by one music teacher, "you can't sing. You have no voice at all." And an editor told Louisa May Alcott that she was unable to write anything that would have popular appeal.

    What if these people had listened and become discouraged? Where would our world be without the music of Beethoven, the art of Rodin or the ideas of Albert Einstein and Walt Disney? As Oscar Levant once said, "It's not what you are but what you don't become that hurts."

    You have great potential. When you believe in all you can be, rather than all you cannot become, you will find your place on earth.