Bursting into the classroom from recess, 15 children take their seats and face the woman they know as Ms. Yang.

    “What day is it today?” she asks, in Mandarin Chinese.

    “Confucius' birthday!” the fifth graders shout in Mandarin.

    “Why do we celebrate Confucius' birthday?”

    “Because he's the greatest teacher in the history of China!” exclaims a brown-haired girl. She is speaking Mandarin.

    English is rarely heard in Lisa Yang's class at the Chinese American International School(CAIS), despite the fact that few students are native speakers of Mandarin.

    The United States is actively trying to increase the group of students in “critical languages” such as Mandarin. The students at CAIS are way ahead in such a trend.

    Founded 25 years ago, this small private school in San Francisco, USA, does what few other American schools do: It produces fully fluent speakers of Mandarin Chinese, by far the most commonly spoken language in the world.

    Mandarin Chinese is suddenly hot in American schools. As China becomes the world's leading economy sometimes this century, schools in the U. S. are scrambling to add Mandarin to their list of foreign languages or expand Chinese programs already in place.

    “It really is almost unprecedented. People are looking at China as a force to be reckoned with… And to ensure that the U. S. has the ability to conduct trade, and to work with the Chinese. Certainly having an understanding of Chinese language and culture is an advantage,” said Marty Abbott of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages(ACTFL).

    To develop Chinese-language programs has not been smooth. A shortage of trained teachers has made it difficult for some schools to join the race. When schools do get teachers, they often hire them straight from China, and the teachers usually suffer culture shock when they come to the U. S.

    Robert Liu remembers his first two years in an American classroom It was not an easy adjustment. “In China, students respect their teachers,” he said. Liu found that American students, however, expect an active teaching style. He had to use games to engage them rather than lectures.

    To avoid many of the problems with foreign teaching styles, the CAIS has been working with the Chinese government to improve training of teachers who are sent to the U. S.

    Do you want to live forever? By the year 2050,you might actually get your wish-if you are willing to leave your biological body and live in silicon circuits (半导体电路). But long before then, perhaps as early as 2020,some measures will begin offering a semblance of immortality (虚的永生).

    Researchers are confident that the technology will soon be able to track every waking moment of your life? Whatever you see and hear, all that you say and write, can be recorded, analyzed and added to your  personal chronicles (履历). By the year 2030, it may be possible to catch your nervous systems through electrical activities, which would also keep your thoughts and emotions.

    Researchers at the laboratories of British Telecommunications have given the name of this idea as Soul Catcher. Small electronic equipment will make preparation for Soul Catcher. It would use a wearable supercomputer, perhaps in a wristwatch, with wireless links to microseosors under your scalp (头皮) and in the nerves that carry all five sensory signals. So wearing a video camera would no longer be required.

    At first, the Soul Catcher's companion system-the Soul Reader-might have trouble copying your thoughts in complete details. Even in 2030, we may still be struggling to understand how the brain is working inside, so reading your thoughts and understanding your emotions might not be possible. But these signals could be kept for the day when they can be transferred to silicon circuits to revitalize minds everlasting entities (永生实体). Researchers can only wonder what it will be like to wake up one day and find yourself alive inside a machine.

For people who choose not to live in silicon, semblance of immortal it would not be as useless as they thought. People would know their lives would not be forgotten, but would be kept a record of the human race forever. And future generations would have a much fuller understanding of the past. History would not be controlled by just the rich and powerful, Hollywood stars, and a few thinkers in the upper society.

    As we all know,drinking beers while running can upset the stomach.However,that's all part of the attraction of the Beer Mile,a unique race that has participants competing in running and drinking.The Beer Mile Race started off as a tradition in 1990,when a group of Canadians thought it would be fun to race each other while drinking a few beers.But it has come a long way since then.The Beer Mile Race is now a major sporting event with around 100,000 official competitors,brand name sponsors and so on.In 2015,the first Beer Mile World Classic was held in San Francisco,where all of the record holders from Canada and the United States came together for the competition.But this year,the event was organized in London,in an effort to take in more competitors about the sport outside North America.

    The rules of the race are pretty simple: runners have to consume four beers before each of the four 400-meter laps making up the famous Beer Mile.The beers can come in bottles or cans but should not be less than 355ml and must be at least 5% alcohol.The drink like apple juice will not do.Runners must drink the beers within a 10 meter zone before the start/finish line and then they are required to tip the bottle/can over their heads to confirm it is empty.

    In the case of vomiting（呕吐）during the race,and yes,there's quite a bit of that during the Beer.Mile,offenders must complete one more lap at the end of the race.Organizers mention that even in the case of vomiting several times, only one more lap must be completed.

    This year,the Elite Men's race was won by Canadian Corey Bellemore,who also set a new world record with a time of 4 minutes and 34 seconds.“I just drink the beers as quickly as I could,hold them down and get the burps（饱嗝）out,”Corey said.“If you can drink a beer in 8 seconds and also run very fast with a feeling of vomiting,then you'll be fine like me.”

    In the past five years, Instagram has taken off faster than anyone would have ever expected. It has become more than just a social media platform; it has become a community. With this community of over 800 million people, there are two distinct sides when it comes to diet culture and weight-loss programs. These two sides are body positivity and body manipulation(操纵）

    I have run a food and lifestyle blog/Instagram for over two years, and I have experienced both of these sides shown through Instagram. I have followed accounts (账户) that have been about strictly counting their calories, and have looked at other people carefully for their food habits

    On the other side of this, the only accounts that I'll follow now are people who support intuitive eating, never calorie counting, and make sure to remind people that their weight is the least interesting thing. They try to remind people that food is fuel, rather than something that will make them lose or gain weight. This side of

    Instagram is what helps people suffering from eating disorders, rather than fueling them.

    The rise of Instagram also led to the rise of what we called" Instagram models. These people have a lot of fans and a very pleasant page on Instagram. Basically, this isn't a bad thing. Humans are attracted to attractive people. Where this does go wrong is when weight-loss programs, weight-loss products, and other people supporting different types of diets get in touch with these people and offer them pay to get their message across.

    We also run into issues with how the public thinks of and admires these people for only their bodies. Not only is it bad for the self-respect of the people viewing the account, but also for the mental health of the person running the Instagram account.

    The people that promote these products are usually attractive, with what we would consider "the perfect body and the products are almost always diet related in some way, which makes consumers believe that in order to reach this ideal body they must use this product.