In Washington, Virginia and Maryland, the final months of the year have many festivals. Whether you are into a theatre environment, medieval times or a book festival, there is an event for you.

1). Maryland Renaissance Festival

    The festival, now in its 38th season, features 12 stages and hundreds of costumed actors offering entertainment such as music and theatre performance, sword swallowing and a human chess match. Sept. 21 through Oct.19.

2). Baltimore Book Festival in Maryland

    This three-day fair features talks and book signings from more than 275 locally and nationally known authors, including Alice McDermott and Andre Dubus III. The festival also includes live music and literary hands-on projects for kids. Sept. 26-28.

3). Middleburg Film Festival in Virginia

    The festival offers a relaxed theatre environment, and the events include a dancing party, an orchestra performance of horror film music by Marco Beltrami, and a discussion with Colleen Atwood, who is a famous costume designer. Oct. 30 through Nov.2.

4). Temple Hall Corn Maize and Fall Festival in Virginia

    The 286-acre farm offers a lot of family-friendly entertainment, including pig races, farm animals and camel rides. Grab seasonal goods at the farmers' market, take part in the corn harvest, and hear live bluegrass and folk music. Friday through Sunday, Sept. 26 through Nov.2.

5). Kids Euro Festival in Washington

    Here is a chance to celebrate and experience European arts and Culture, no passports required. Twenty-eight European countries will be represented during the multicultural children's event, which features more than 200 performances and workshops. The festival is for children ages 2 through 12, librarians and educators. Activities include puppet shows, cooking and theatre workshops. “It really brings Europe to the children, ” said organizer Sandi Auman. Oct. 24 through Nov. 9

    Now many young people are traveling around the world on their own, not because they have no one to travel with, but because they prefer to go alone.

    Kristina Wegscheider from California first traveled alone when she was at college and believes that it is something everyone should do at least once in their life, “It opens up your mind to new things and pushes you out of your comfort zone.” Wegscheider has visited 46 countries covering all seven continents.

    In foreign countries, with no one to help you read a map, look after you if you get ill, or lend you money if your wallet is stolen, it is challenging. This is what drives young people to travel alone. It is seen as character building and a chance to prove that they can make it on their own.

    Chris Richardson decided to leave his sales job in Australia to go traveling last year. He set up a website, The Aussie Nomad, to document his adventures. He says he wished he had traveled alone earlier. “The people you meet, the places you visit, or the things you do, everything is up to you and it forces you to grow as a person,” said the 30-year-old man.

    Richardson describes traveling alone like “a shot in the arm”, which “makes you a more confident person that is ready to deal with anything”. He said, “The feeling of having overcome something on my own is a major part of what drives me each day when I'm dealing with a difficult task. I walk around with my head up because I know deep down inside that nothing is impossible if you try.”

    The great 19th century explorer John Muir once said, “Only by going alone in silence can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.”

    It's time for those who are about to graduate to look for jobs since graduation season is drawing near. Competition is tough, so job seekers must carefully consider their personal choices. Whatever we are wearing, our family and friends may accept us, but the workplace may not.

    A high school newspaper editor said it is unfair for companies to discourage visible tattoos (文身), nose rings, or certain dress styles. It is true you can't judge a book by its cover, yet people do "cover" themselves in order to convey (传递) certain messages. What we wear, including tattoos and nose rings, is an expression of who we are. Just as people convey messages about themselves with their appearances, so do companies. Dress standards exist in the business world for a number of reasons, but the main concern is often about what customers accept.

    Others may say how to dress is a matter of personal freedom, but for businesses it is more about whether to make or lose money. Most employers do care about the personal appearances of their employees, because those people represent the companies to their customers.

    As a hiring manager I am paid to choose the people who would make the best impression on our customers. There are plenty of well-qualified candidates, so it is not wrong to reject someone who might disappoint my customers. Even though I am open-minded, I can't expect all our customers are.

    There is nobody to blame but yourself if your set of choices does not match that of your preferred employer. No company should have to change to satisfy a candidate simply because he or she is unwilling to respect its standards, as long as its standards are legal.

    How far would you go for your kids education? That's a question many parents are asking in the wake of the college cheating scandal(丑闻)involving 38 wealthy parents around the country, including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. Here's how far I went. In the fall of 2017 my husband and I lost our jobs. We had to tell our daughter, Casey, that we couldn't afford to send her back to school for her junior year at Fordham University. We decided the best choice for our family would be for Casey to sit out a year. We promised that we would get her back the following year. Casey decided to spend the year volunteering in South Africa On Sept 30, 2017, we put our oldest child on a plane halfway around the world. Casey worked as a tutor teaching kids math, English and music in Johannesburg. We did get Casey back in school in time. When she returned to the campus, she studied harder. She isn't what she used to be. Each day is marked by gratitude because she knows what it is like not to be able to get an education.

    I wonder why the college cheating scandal happened and I think it boils down to this: Parents want to create a comfort zone for their kids. Of course, we want the best for our kids but sometimes we forget that real growth doesn't happen in times of comfort; those valuable lessons come when we are forced to think in ways we otherwise wouldn't have.

    While I did less for my child than these wealthy parents did in terms of means, in other ways I did more. I taught her that disappointment is a part of life and we should face it bravely rather than avoid it. My husband and I showed Casey that her strength is in her struggle. That's how far I went for my kid s education. And I dare say she is wiser and better off for it.

    Bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news. Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers. But now that information is being spread and monitored in different ways, researchers are discovering new rules. By tracking people's e-mails and online posts, scientists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.

    "The 'if it bleeds' rule works for mass media," says Jonah Berger, a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. They want your eyeballs and don't care how you're feeling. But when you share a story with your friends, you care a lot more how they react. You don't want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer."

    Researchers analyzing word-of-mouth communication—e-mails, Web posts and reviews, face-to-face conversations—found that it tended to be more positive than negative, but that didn't necessarily mean people preferred positive news. Was positive news shared more often simply because people experienced more good things than bad things? To test for that possibility, Dr. Berger looked at how people spread a particular set of news stories: thousands of articles on The New York Times' website. He and a Penn colleague analyzed the "most e-mailed" list for six months. One of his first findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list than non-science articles. He found that science amazed tines' readers and made them want to share this positive feeling with others.

    Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative feelings like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused one way or the other, and they preferred good news to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, "Contagious: Why Things Catch on."

    Life for almost anyone is increasingly influenced by screens. Not only are screens themselves cheap to make, but they also make things cheaper. Any place that can fit a screen in can cut costs. And any activity that can happen on a screen becomes cheaper. The physical experience of learning, living and dying is becoming smooth glass. All of this has led to a curious new reality: Human contact is becoming a luxury good (奢侈品).

    "What we are seeing now is the luxury of human engagement," Milton Pedraza, the chief of the

    Luxury Institute, said. Expected spending on experiences such as enjoyable travel and dining is outpacing spending on goods, according to his company's research, and he sees it as a direct response to the rapid increase of screens.

    Screens exposure starts young. And children who spent more than two hours a day looking at screen got lower scores on thinking and language tests, according to early results of a landmark study supported by the National Institutes of Health. The study focuses on brain development of more than 11,000 children. Most disturbingly, the study is finding that the brains of children who spend much time on screens are different. For some kids, their cerebral cortex (大脑皮层) would become thinner before expected time. In adults, one study found an association between screen time and depression.

    There is also the reality that in our culture of increasing separation, in which so many of the traditional gathering places and social structures have disappeared, screens are filling a vital gap.

    For normal people, running away from the screen becomes impossible. It's not a luxury, and it's easy to get. It is normal for more people to need the network constantly. In addition, it has become an important part of social interaction.