Welcome to the Painting Competition for Woodlands Students

    The International Anti-Drug（禁毒） Day this year is coming soon. In order to raise teenagers' awareness （意识） to fight against drug taking, the City Art Council is going to hold a painting competition for the students in our city.

    Students who want to take part in the competition can hand in their own 2D paintings in either of the following two ways:

    Each school will be provided with a box for students to put in their paintings. Boxes will be picked up by the City Art Council on Thursday, June 23rd，2016, before the end of the school day.

    Paintings can be also handed in on Friday, June 24th, from 8:00 am to 10:00 am at the Woodlands Art Hall （175 Riverside Street）.

    All paintings are required to be 60cm wide by 80cm long or smaller. Larger sizes will not be accepted. Each student can only hand in one painting.

    The final decision on the competition results will be made on June 26th, the Anti-Drug Day. The name list of the winners will be made known on the website of the City Art Council on the same day. All winning paintings will be shown to the public at the City Youth Park from June 27th till the end of July.

Prizes：1st Prize（10 students）=＄300 Gift Card each

2nd Prize（20 students）=＄200 Gift Card each

3rd Prize（30 students）=＄100 Gift Card each

    For further information：

Visit http：//www. WoodlandsArtCouncil. org or call 2569-8632.

    Standing in line for the latest iPhone at the Apple store, queueing for tickets to Wimbledon or even just waiting at the post office might just have got a lot easier. Japanese car-maker Nissan （尼桑）claims to have just the thing to relieve the sore(酸痛的) legs of tired queuers.

    The new system of “self-driving” chairs is designed to detect when someone at the front of the queue is called, and automatically move everyone else one step forward in line. The new invention is shown off in a company video, which shows a busy restaurant with customers waiting outside.

    In the video, diners are sitting in a row of chairs, but will not have to stand when the next hungry diner is called to a table. Instead, the chairs, equipped with autonomous technology that detects the seat ahead, move along a path toward the front of the line. When the person at the front of the queue is called, the empty chair at the front can sense it is empty and so moves out of pole position. Cameras on the remaining chairs then sense the movement and follow automatically.

    The system, which is similar to the kind used in Nissan's autonomous vehicle technology, will be tested at selected restaurants in Japan this year. Nissan said. “It appeals to anyone who has queued for hours outside a crowded restaurant: it eliminates the boredom and physical pain of standing in line,” Nissan added.

    Although Tokyo has some 160,000 restaurants, long queues are not uncommon. Chosen restaurants that meet the criteria will be able to show the chairs outside their restaurant next year. Nissan also released a short video showing the chairs being used in an art gallery, moving slowly in front of the various paintings to let viewers appreciate the art without the need to stand up.

    Shyness is the cause of much unhappiness for a great many people. Shy people are anxious and self-conscious; that is, they are concerned with their own appearance and actions too much. Negative thoughts are constantly occurring in their minds: What kind of impression am I making? Do they like me? Do I sound stupid? Am I wearing unattractive clothes?

    It is obvious that such uncomfortable feelings must affect people unfavorably. A person's self-concept is reflected in the way he or she behaves and the way a person behaves affects other people's reactions. In general, the way people think about themselves has a deep effect on all areas of their lives.

    Shy people, who have low respect, are likely to be passive and easily influenced by others. They need faith that they are doing "the right thing". Shy people are very sensitive to criticism. It makes them feel inferior（自卑）.They also find it difficult to be pleased by praises because they believe they are unworthy of praise. A shy person may respond to a praise with a statement like this one: "You're just saying that to make me feel good, I know it's not true.” It is clear that, while self-awareness is a healthy quality, overdoing it is harmful.

    Can shyness be completely got rid of, or at least reduced? Fortunately, people can overcome shyness with determination since shyness goes hand in hand with lack of self respect. It is important for people to accept their weakness as well as their strengths. Each one of us has his or her own characteristics. We are interested in our own personal ways. The better we understand ourselves, the easier it becomes to live up to our chances for a rich and successful life.

    You might not get what you wish for, but you always get what you work for. I want to be a professional ballerina(芭蕾舞者) with the American Ballet Theatre in New York when I grow up, and I work toward my dream by training over 18 hours a week. I even started homeschooling so I could make more time for dance. I love dancing more than anything. It makes me feel strong and invincible(不可战胜的), like nothing could ever bother me. Most important, it's helped me deal with the most difficult event of my life — the death of my dad when I was seven.

    My dad died of a heart attack while playing hockey, his favorite sport. When my mom first told me, it didn't hit me that I would never be able to see him again. It was also hard to tell my friends and classmates because I didn't know what to say, and they never knew how to respond. But four years later, everything that I do, I do in memory of my dad. I did my first dance solo. “The Love Lives On.” to him when I was nine.

    I would have never gotten through the experience without my mom. She comforted me when I was in grief and pain, and we wrote down all the memories I had with my dad in a special book. Now that I'm older, my mom and I do get on each other's nerves more often — for a while, my schedule was very busy and we were so stressed that our little miscommunications would rise into huge arguments. But after we attended counseling(心理咨询) and I started homeschooling, things got much better, and now my mom and I have more quality time to spend together.

    I've learned that talking and communicating are the most important things to do in any relationship, and that definitely includes friendships, too! When I hang out with my friends, I try not to look at my phone. It's so awkward(尴尬的) when you're sitting at a table with someone else, and she's texting instead of talking to you. I think a good friend is kind, respectful, fair, and funny — and I'll always try to be all of these things in person, not just on the phone!

    Since the sex of a sea turtle(海龟)is determined by the heat of sand hatching the eggs, scientists had suspected they might see slightly more females. Climate change, after all, has driven sea temperatures higher, which, in these creatures, favors female children. They found female sea turtles from Raine Island, the Pacific Ocean's largest and most important green sea turtle living area, now outnumber males by at least 116 to 1. "This is extreme," says turtle scientist Camryn Allen.

    Biologist Michael Jensen wanted to know if climate change had already changed turtles' sexes. By using genetic(基因的) tests, he'd figured out that he could follow turtles of all ages. Still, his research data would lack an important detail: sex. Only after a turtle matures is it possible to tell its sex from the outside -- mature males have slightly longer tails. By then turtles can be decades old, so scientists often use Iaparoscopy(腹腔镜检查)，sending a thin tube into each animal, but that's not so practical if you're hoping to examine hundreds of creatures. Fortunately, at a turtle conference, he met Allen, and all she needed was a little blood.

    They compared their results with temperature data for nesting beaches. What worries them is that Raine Island has been producing almost female turtles for at least 20 years. This is no small thing. More than 200,000 turtles come to nest there. During high season, 18,000 turtles may settle in at once. "But what happens in 20 years when there are no more males coming up as adults? Are there enough to maintain the population?" says Allen. They also found cooler beaches in the south are still producing males, but that in the north, it's almost entirely females hatching. These findings clearly point to the fact that climate change is changing many aspects of wildlife biology.

    But how widespread is this phenomenon -- and what is the consequence?

    It is irrefutable: Parents, who talk to, read and engage with their very young children as often as possible, help them build literacy (读写能力) skills at an early age.

    Also certain: Parents of very young children usually have to do a lot of laundry. And low-income families tend to bring their kids with them to public laundromats (洗衣房).

    Those truths appear once a week at select neighborhood laundromats in Chicago. That's when librarians lay down colorful mats and oversized board books beside the industrial washing machines.

    Inside one of about 14 laundromats in the city's low-income neighborhoods, the librarians gather all available children for Laundromats Story Time (LST), a Chicago Public Library (CPL) program.

    With the noise of the washers and dryers, anywhere between a handful to more than a dozen children hear stories, sing songs and play games designed to help their brains develop. The event also aims to instruct parents on how to repeat the experience for their kids, working to raise poor literacy rates in underserved communities.

    "We read books, we sing songs, we do plays," says Becca Ruidl, the CPL's STEAM Team early learning manager, who runs the LST program. "We kind of keep it going so parents can walk in adn join in at any time. But a big part of what we do is model literacy skills for parents so they can do it at home with their kids."

    While a laundromat seems an unlikely place to engage with children, "we really wanted to meet people in the community where they're. "Ruidl says.

    And it clearly meets a need: Library officials say the program is in increasing demand, while Ruidl says families have adjusted their household's laundry day to suit the librarians' laundromat visits. At the same time, LST's co-sponsors—including a laundry industry trade group and Libraries Without Borders, an organization fighting poverty through literacy—have worked with the CPL to draft an instruction handbook to help expand the concept to other U.S. cities.