For teenagers, it's great fun to explore new places and it feels like an adventure, even when you know you're not the first to have been there. But to make sure not to get lost or waste time going round in circles, the following tips may be helpful.

    ◆Do the map reading if you're being driven somewhere. It'll be easier if you keep the map following the direction you are traveling in. Keep looking ahead so that you can give the driver lots of warning before having to make a turn, or you'll have to move to the back seat.

    ◆Get a group of friends together and go exploring. You'll need a good map, a compass, a raincoat, a cell phone to call for help in case you get lost, and a bit of spare cash for emergencies. Tell someone where you're going before you set out and let them know what time you expect to be back. The purpose of the activity is in not getting lost, not in seeing how fast you can go, so always stick together, waiting for slower friends to catch up.

    ◆See if your school or a club organizes orienteering(越野识途比赛) activities, in which you need a map and a compass to find your way. This can be done as a sport, with teams trying to find the way from A to B(and B to C, etc. ) in the fastest time, or simply as a spare-time activity. It enables you to be familiar with the use of maps and compass and gain some special skills. In some way, it's not only good fun, but also a great way to keep fit.

    Do you know an outstanding junior high or high school teacher, coach, guidance counselor, librarian, or headmaster? Nominate (提名) that special teacher you'll always remember and give him/her the chance to be recognized in a famous national magazine through “Educators of the Year Contest”!

    Prizes

    Cash awards will be given to those from across the country who are given the honor of Educators of the Year. Besides, your winning essays will also be published in our magazine.

    Guidelines

    We will only consider essays written by teens, and nominations must be for junior high or high school educators only. Elementary school educators are not suitable.

    Convince us your educator is special. Tell us about his or her style of teaching, his or her role in school activities, and community service. What has your educator done for the entire school, your class, for you or another student? Give examples with specific details. Keep your essay between 200 and 1,000 words. Remember to include the first and last name, position, and school of your educator in your essay.

    Don't forget to submit (提交) your essays through our website. You can also read our submission guidelines for more information on this website.

    The Deadline

    The deadline for submitting your essays is December 30. Your essays are accepted and will appear in our magazine all over the year. Winners will be made public after the January issue is published.

    “Clothes Swapping”has become an increasingly popular activity for women in the United States. The women can give away unwanted clothing at a clothes swap event and get something different in return.

    Recently about 300 women went to a clothes swap at a high school in Springfield, Virginia. It was the largest crowd ever for the area's popular clothing-swapping group.

    Daphne Steinberg was having a good day.“For anyone who knows Ann Taylor LOFT, Ann Taylor is a really nice women's designer and I will totally wear this to work. So I love that, I love that I can equip myself for work, have a good time in doing it, not totally bankrupt myself.”

Sandy Van Dusen likes the idea that clothes are finding new homes instead of being thrown away. “Because it helps to keep the Earth green. There's no point in my opinion in continuing to buy new clothes when we can reuse what's already here. Give it a new home— let somebody else love what you used to love and no longer love.”

    Kim Pratt organized the clothing-swapping event in Springfield. She also organized a money-raising activity for the high school's debate team. It is one of several ways that her group gives to charitable causes. Another is by donating all of the“un-swapped” clothing to shelters for victims of domestic violence.

    “I started doing this four years ago, and we've been doing it for four years, getting bigger and bigger each time we have a swap.”

    She used the social media website meetup.com to help publicize the events. The website has helped her group grow from 30 members to 1,300. Mrs.Pratt says most of the members respect the clothing swap rules. But she say competition for desirable fashion can be strong.

    “We have to tell people sometimes not to hover over the new people coming in with their clothing. As they put it out, some people tend to grab the stuff right out of their hands and it becomes like a free-for-all. We try to avoid that as much as possible.”

    A newspaper reporter's job can be very interesting. He meets all types of people and lives quite a busy life. He is on the rush for news all the time, then after several years he may get a desk job, and life becomes a bit more settled. Let's look at his work a little more closely. In a day he may have to interview the prime minister of a foreign country, and the next day he may be writing about a football match. Sometimes he may be so busy that he has hardly any time to sleep. And at other times he may go on for days looking out for news materials yet return empty-handed.

    In the beginning, a reporter has to cover a very wide field. After the early years he becomes more specialized in his work. For example, he may finally be asked to write only on court cases or politics or sports. Some reporters may become so specialized that they are asked only to write on a special thing: horse racing, for example. In most newspaper houses there is at least one special racing correspondent. Some newspapers have book reviews. Their job is delightful. They read the latest book and then write reviews on the ones they like. Then there are those who write on films, so they get to see them even before they are shown in the cinema. How lucky, you would say!

    A reporter's job can also be very dangerous. A number of them have died rushing from one assignment to another, and if there is a flood or a riot(暴) they may get hurt or even be killed. Three years ago there was a reporter whose camera was smashed by a group of men, because they were angry with him for taking their picture. Dangerous or not, one thing is certain, and that is, their job is never dull!

    Actors Keira Knightley and Kristen Bell have both commented on their worries about using Disney princesses as role models for their children.

    On a famous talk show, Knightley said her daughter (who was born in 2015) was "banned" from watching Cinderella, which Disney produced as a cartoon in 1950 and a live-action film in 2015. "Cinderella waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don't. Rescue yourself! Obviously."

    Knightley added that she had also forbidden The Little Mermaid, the 1989 cartoon. "This is the one that I'm quite annoyed about because I really like the film. I mean, the songs are great, but do not give up your voice for a man. Well, that's a little difficult to handle, but I'm keeping to it."

    Bell, the star of Frozen, expressed her disapproval of the Snow White fairytale, which became a classic Disney cartoon in 1938. In an interview with parents, Bell said: "I look at my girls and ask, ‘Don't you think it's very unusual that Snow White didn't ask the old witch why she needed to eat the apple? Or where she got that apple?' I say, 'I would never take food from a stranger, would you?' And my kids respond, 'No!' And I think I'm doing something right."

    Bell, who played a Disney princess in Frozen, said she also used the story to illustrate issues about permission. She says that she asked her children: "Don't you think that it's very strange that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission? … Because you cannot kiss someone if they're sleeping!"

    Bell later responded to criticism on social media. To one user she wrote: "Everything is a message to our children, because they are sponges(海绵) that soak up everything and are learning how to be adults through what they see. I want my girls to see and practice critical thinking and respectful behavior."

A bot is a software program that often works by itself on the internet to perform the same kinds of actions as humans do. The report, produced by California-based internet security company Imperva, found that 49.6 percent of worldwide internet traffic ( 互联网流量） came from bots in 2023, while from human users fell to 50.4 percent. Imperva's study also found that web traffic linked to "bad bots" grew to 32 percent in 2023, a rise of 30.2 percent from 2022. Nanhi Singh, a security advisor at Imperva, said that bots are currently one of growing threats facing almost every industry.

Bots are generally designed to visit websites and independently search for many kinds of online information. They are able to operate at much greater speeds than humans and can process repeated searches and process large amounts of data. Online search advisor Yoast notes that some bots are considered good because they can be useful to individuals through tools such as OpenAI's chatbot, ChatGPT. Some others are considered malicious, because they are trained to hack, or break into network computer systems. These kinds of bots pretend themselves as humans and collect private data or financial information that can be used to commit crimes. And some bots are even designed to spread misinformation and false news.

The study also suggested that some countries have a much bigger problem with bad bots than others. Web traffic linked to bad bots in 2023 accounted for 71 percent in Ireland while Germany was next, with 67.5 percent. The percentage of Mexico and the USA was reported to be 42.8 percent and 35.4 percent respectively. Imperva even reported that bad bot activity would lead to account takeovers, which increased 10 percent in 2023 over 2022. The highest number of account takeovers – 36.8 percent–happened in the financial services industry. Next was the travel industry, with 11.5 percent, followed by business services at eight percent.

Nanhi Singh said the problem is likely to worsen in coming years to the point where such bots would exist everywhere. She urged organizations to introduce bot management and security tools in an effort to limit automated traffic and prevent dangerous account takeovers.