They wear the latest fashions with the most up-to-dateaccessories(配饰). Yet these are not girls in their teens or twenties but women in their sixties and seventies. A generation which would once only wear old-fashioned clothes is now favoring the same high street looks worn by those half their age.

    Professor Julia Twiggy, a social policy expert, said,“Women over 75 are now shopping for clothes more requently than they did when they were young in the 1960s. In the 1960s buying a coat for a woman was a serious matter. It was an expensive item that they would purchase only every three or four years—now you can pick one up at the supermarket whenever you wish to. Fashion is alot cheaper and people get tired of things more quickly.”  Professor Twiggy analyzed family expending data and found that while the percentage of spending on clothes and shoes by women had stayed around the same—about 5 or 6 percent of spending, the amount of clothes bought had risen sharply.

    The professor said,“Clothes are now 70 percent cheaper than they were in the 1960s because of the huge expansion of production in the Far East. In the 1960s Leeds was the heart of the British fashion industry and that was where most of the clothes came from, but now almostall of our clothes are sourced elsewhere. Everyone isbuying more clothes but in general we are not spending more money on them."

    Fashion designer Angela Barnard, who runs herown fashion business in London, said older women were much more affected by celebrity style than in previous years. She said,“When people see stars such as Judi Dench and Helen Mirren looking attractive and fashionable in their sixties, they want to follow them. Older women are much more aware of celebrities. There's also the boom in TV programmers showing people how they can change their look, and many of my older customers do yoga to stay in shape well in their fifties. When I started my business a few years ago, my older customers tended to be very rich, but now theyare what I would call ordinary women. My own mother is 61 and she wears the latest fashions in a way she would never have done ten years ago.”

    Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't love others until you love yourself. Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't expect someone else to love you until you love yourself. Either way, you've got to love yourself first and this can be tricky. Sure we all know that we're the apple of our parents' eyes, and that our Grandmas think we're geniuses and our Uncle Roberts think that we will go to the Olympics, but sometimes it's a lot harder to think such nice thoughts about ourselves. If you find that believing in yourself is a challenge, it is time you built a positive self-image and learnt to love yourself.

    Self-image is your own mind's picture of yourself. This image includes the way you look, the way you act, the way you talk and the way you think. Interestingly, our self-images are often quite different from the images others hold about us. Unfortunately, most of these images are more negative than they should be. Thus changing the way you think about yourself is the key to changing your self-image and your whole world.

    The best way to defeat a passive self-image is to step back and decide to stress your successes. That is, make a list if you need to, but write down all of the great things you do every day. Don't allow doubts to occur in it.

    It very well might be that you are experiencing a negative self-image because you can't move past one flaw or weakness that you see about yourself. Well, roll up your sleeves and make a change of it as your primary task. If you think you're silly because you aren't good at math, find a tutor. If you think you're weak because you can't run a mile, get to the track and practice. If you think you're dull because you don't wear the latest trends, buy a few new clothes. But remember, just because you think it doesn't mean it's true.

    The best way to get rid of a negative self-image is to realize that your image is far from objective, and to actively convince yourself of your positive qualities. Changing the way you think and working on those you need to improve will go a long way towards promoting a positive self-image. When you can pat yourself on the back, you'll know you're well on your way. Good luck！

AFTER AMAZON ECHO MISFIRE, WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR OWN PRIVACY

    Revelations that an Amazon Echo smart speaker accidentally sent a family's private conversation to an acquaintance highlights some unexpected privacy risks of new voice-enabled technologies. There's no way to totally avoid these sorts of privacy risks except unplugging them entirely, but you can minimize the unpleasant privacy surprises with these tips:

    KILL THE MIC: Most smart speakers have a physical button to disable the microphone, so a private conversation can't be recorded to begin with. You can hit that when you're having sensitive conversations. It doesn't make sense to keep the mic disabled throughout the day, though.

    LIMIT THE MIC: Disabling the microphone isn't practical on a smartphone, but you can limit what apps have access to it. Go to the settings and turn off mic access to all but essential apps such as voice recorders or video conferencing.

    ABOUT THAT CAMERA: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously puts a piece of tape over his laptop's camera to prevent spying if anyone were to hack his device. Buy yourself a roll. Or use bandages. If you have a home-security camera that's connected to the Internet, turn the camera to the wall when you're home.

    BLOCK THE SIGNALS: For smartphones and other gadgets you carry with you, a "Faraday bag" can help prevent unwanted spying. The good ones will block cellular and other signals, meaning privacy-compromising information such as your location won't leak out either. However, your phone won't get any calls while it's in the bag.

    Of course, the safest approach is not to buy a new gadget in the first place. That might not be practical these days, but do you really need a smart speaker or a television set that's connected to the Internet?

    Basketball Statistician Help Wanted

    The Athletic Department is looking for students to help assist staff during the Fall 2016, Winter 2016-17 and Spring 2017 semesters. Students in this position will be keeping live statistics during basketball games. Students must meet all of the following requirements:

    Good computer skills

    Available evenings and weekends

    Knowing basketball rules and statistics

    Students interested in working for the Athletic Department should contact the Athletic Coordinator at their respective campuses.

    TP/SS Athletic Coordinator, Michael Simone, 240-567-1308

    Rockville Athletic Coordinator, Jorge Zuniga, 240-567-7589

    Springfield Athletic Coordinator, Gary Miller, 240-567-2273

    Germantown Athletic Coordinator, Gauri Chavan, 240-567-6915

    Parents can cut the chances of their children getting fat simply by keeping them longer at table. Just three minutes extra at a family mealtime could help prevent child obesity. Research found that among poor families, the extra minutes at mealtimes made great improvement of a normal weight for the youth. The factors are likely to be communication and the importance of a scheduled mealtime.

    Dr Barbara Fiese said, “Children, whose families have a 20-minute meal over four times a week, weigh less than kids who leave the table after 15 to 17 minutes. Over time, those extra minutes per meal add up and become really powerful.”

    The researchers studied 200 family mealtimes, testing the effects of factors and mealtime behavior of families with children in primary school. They found that families, who said that shared mealtimes were an important part of family life and had special meaning for them, were less likely to have an obese child. Similarly, families, who talked more together and interacted more positively during the meal, were more likely to have healthy-weight children.

    Teaching low-income families how to make the most of family mealtimes was a wise idea. Dr Fiese said, “This is something we can target and teach.” She added, “It's also important to recognize the increasing differences of families and their sometimes complex living arrangements that may challenge their abilities to plan ahead and arrange a single time to communicate with each other.”

    Families in poorer US neighborhoods faced a lot of problems, including poor access to healthy food. But even so, regular high quality family mealtimes made a difference to the children's weight. Dr Fiese said, “Three to four extra minutes per meal will make a healthy weight more possible.”

    As computers become more popular in China, Chinese people are increasingly relying on computer keyboards to input (输入) Chinese characters. But if they use the computer too much, they may end up forgetting the exact strokes（笔画）of each Chinese character when writing on paper. Experts suggest people, especially students, write by hand more.

    Do you write by hand more or type more? In Beijing, students start using a computer as early as primary school. And computer dependence is more wide-spread among university students. Almost all their assignments and essays are typed on a computer.

    All the students interviewed say they usually use a computer.

    It's faster and easier to correct if using a computer. And that's why computers are being applied more and more often to modern education.

    "When I'm writing with a pen, I find I often can't remember how to write a character, though I feel I'm familiar with it."

    "I'm not in the mood to write when faced with a pen and paper."

    Many students don't feel this is something to worry about. Now that it's more convenient and efficient to write on a computer, why bother to handwrite?

    Many educators think differently. Shi Liwei, the headmaster of a famous primary school in the capital, said, "Chinese characters enjoy both practical and aesthetic（审美的）value. But those characters typed with computer keyboards only maintain their practical value. All the artistic beauty of the characters is lost. And handwriting contains the writer's emotion. Through one's handwriting, people can get to know one's thinking and personality. Beautiful writing will give people a better first impression of them."

    To encourage students to handwrite more, many primary schools in Beijing have made writing classes compulsory（必修的）and in universities, some professors are asking students to turn in their homework and essays written by hand.