Quintet Garden Concerts for Kids is a free outdoor music series for kids and their families in the Getty Center's Central Garden.
Inez Quintet
May 13 and 14, 2023
Miami native Inez celebrates Haitian art and culture through energetic drumming and singing, traditional dances, and visual art. Songs and phrases explore themes of community and gratitude. Joined onstage by her father Jan Sebon and other talented young artists, Inez leads children on a journey to a land rich with history.
The Lucky Band
May 16 and 17, 2023
The Lucky Band creates music sounds rooted in their child-friendly imaginations, with fresh pop beats. Lucky Diuz and Aisha Gaddis have put out six award-winning records that aim at exploring all the wonder and joy of a young person's life. Spanish and English language his earned them several awards.
Okee Dokee Brothers
May 20 and 21, 2023
As childhood friends growing up in Denver, Colorado, Joe Mailander and Justin Lansing were always exploring the outdoors, rafting down their neighborhood river or discovering hiking trails through the Rocky Mountains. Now, as the Grammy Award-winning Okee Dokee Brothers, they have put this passion for the outdoors at the heart of their American folk music.
Elena Moon Park and Friends
May 23 and 24, 2023
Elena is the leader of Elena Moon Park and Friends, a band that celebrates folk and children's music from all over East Asia, mixed with various musical traditions, languages, styles, and stories. She leads a fun and adventurous group of musicians for this cross cultural musical event. Expect to dance and sing tunes in Asian languages !
Mr. Smith, the professor at my business class, had a unique way of going over the answers to our weekly tests. For each question, he would ask a random student for their answer and then continue to grill (盘问追问) him/her, forcing him/her to defend that answer. It was certainly a memorable way to review. How I wished I'd been a more experienced student and got used to the professor's grilling! I wasn't, though.
But in my anatomy (解剖学) class, Dr. Cuddy introduced "high power" and "low power" body positions, saying "high power" positions involve taking up much space and making yourself look big, while "low power" poses, in contrast, involve making yourself look small, keeping your arms and legs crossed and held close. People tend to see others with high power poses as natural leaders, and are more willing to hire them. Her research finding was that spending just two minutes standing in a high-power pose increased a person's feeling of power and self-confidence. She wanted us to try it out.
On my next quiz-review day, instead of bending over my book studying quietly, I sat up straight and spread out my books and notebooks on the entire surface of my desk. When our teacher asked if anyone had any questions about the material before we began our quiz review, I raised my hand.
The effect was surprising. My professor answered my question as if talking to a colleague, and I had a wonderful feeling of calm. Suddenly, I realized that the important thing was that I was participating. I just needed to engage fully in the class and learn.
Today, before a presentation or a test, I spend a few minutes "thinking big" — taking up space and being seen. It calms me down and when I do, my best always turns out to be pretty good.
Everyone has "down days". Maybe it's because of the bad weather, or the disappointing grades on a difficult test, and some days teenagers just act uninterested in life or school. But these symptoms(症状) often pass quickly, as teens move on to new school subjects, or meet with friends to prevent themselves from thinking what troubles them at the moment. But if a teenager displays symptoms of sadness for more than two lasting weeks, it might point to something serious.
As teenagers develop, they push new boundaries(边界), complain about rules and look for more free rights from their parents. According to the online Health Guide on Adolescent Development, parents must be lasting figures in their teenagers' life, providing safe boundaries for teens to grow, even if the teenagers act like these boundaries are unwanted.
Parents need to provide rules, while also remaining flexible(灵活的) and respectful of the growing teens' need for freedom. For example, teenagers will often feel frustrated, embarrassed, and even angry that thought they want freedom, they still need to ask their parents for an agreement to go to a friend's house, or need their mothers to take them to school.
The US Department of Education says that parents should respect and support their teen's choices as long as those choices won't have long-term harmful effects. For example, even if a parent doesn't enjoy the music his or her teen listens to, it's unlikely that the choice of music will prevent that teen from entering a good college, or lead to health problems. However, if that teen is drinking alcohol and driving, parents must get through strict punishments to teach that there are bad results for poor choices that come with increased freedom.
In the book Consciousness Explained, the cognitive (认知的) scientist Daniel Dennett describes a kind of fish, which wanders through the sea looking for a suitable rock to make its home for life. On finding one, the fish no longer needs its brain and eats it. Humanity is unlikely to adopt such an eating habit but there is a worrying trend that people are dumping themselves down by becoming overly dependent on "intelligent" machines, especially when ChatGPT comes out.
Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has drawn 1 million people to register during the first week. Its allure is obvious: ChatGPT can produce jokes, write undergraduate essays and create computer code from a short writing prompt (提示).
But this is a false impression. Computers have become more capable but they lack genuine thinking, developed in humans through constant social practices. ChatGPT does not know what it is doing; it is unable to say how or why it produced a response; and cannot tell if it is making sense. So why all the fuss? Google's new Al-powered search tool, Bard was released in March 2023, making its ambition obvious in its promotional video. The profit-driven competition to fill our daily lives with artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly fierce.
Humans have a long track of turning a blind eye to the risks of new breakthroughs. Web companies want to draw their users to think extremely highly of their Al tools, encouraging humanity to think them far beyond human's cognitive competence. As we know, the rise of civilization through art and agriculture contributes mostly to the remarkable human mental powers. No one knows what will happen to such technologies if the software engineers of the future make themselves become software programs. Maybe the danger is not machines being treated like humans, but humans being treated like machines.
There are several reasons to use canvas (帆布) grocery bags or reusable grocery bags made from other materials. Some environmental organizations have been pushing for the use of such bags. .
From an environmental aspect, canvas grocery bags are better choices than paper or plastic bags. Besides, turning to reusable supplies is viewed as greener than using disposable (一次性的) products, many of which wind up in landfills.
Plastic grocery bags have a number of environmental disadvantages. When plastic grocery bags end up in the natural environment, they can cause a wide range of problems. Animals may choke on or be caught in such bags. While the bags may eventually break down, they can poison a wide range of sea creatures along the way.
As anyone who has had a bag broken open in the parking lot knows, it can be very upsetting to lose a lot of groceries to a poorly-constructed grocery bag. They can also be easily washed in the event of leaks or spills.
For example, they can be used to pick up books at the library or carry other shopping, and they make great beach bags because of their washability. For people who don't want to carry around a grocery store logo, canvas grocery bags can be turned inside out and left plain or painted with new designs.
A. Many grocery stores carry canvas grocery bags.
B. Canvas grocery bags have uses beyond the grocery store.
C. Instead, you only have to buy a canvas grocery bag once.
D. What's worse, plastic can stay in the ocean for thousands of years. .
E. They point out reusable bags can be a small change with a big difference.
F. Canvas is more environmentally friendly to produce than paper or plastic.
G. However, canvas grocery bags can hold much more weight than regular ones.
On a Friday evening in December, two weeks before Christmas, I lost my job. When my daughter, Kristil, then 12, and I planned to get our Christmas tree, I listened to my voicemail: "We're sorry but your work 1 has ended today." My heart sank. As a single parent, my anxiety 2 .
The next day as we searched for the tree, I 3 to be cheerful as I eyed each price tag (标签).
"Is everything OK?" Kristil asked. "You seem worried."
"I got some bad news yesterday," I told her. "I lost my job."
I eagerly wanted to 4 a job as my bank account became smaller. I felt as if the world was closing in on me.
One afternoon, I dropped Kristil in a wealthy community for a birthday party. I watched as she went in, 5 with all the nice things we couldn't afford. I drove home 6 . Back at home, I glanced out the window. It had been snowing 7 all morning. I noticed a slim woman trying to open her car door 8 the wind. As she got out, I realized it was my old professor, Sister Esther Heffernan. I'd first met her 10 years earlier when I was her student at Edgewood College. Kristil was 3 at that time, and I sometimes took her to class. Such was Sister Esther, a(n)9 professor. When I was busy with lessons, she would 10 coloring books to occupy Kristil.
"Well, I called last week but couldn't get through. 11 . I thought I would come by." Sister Esther said. "I have gifts for you and Kristil."
I made her a cup of tea, and we talked. Being in Sister Esther's 12 gave me hope that things would be all right. I opened her card as she 13 . Hundred-dollar bills fell onto the table. I took a deep breath 14 , tears of gratitude streaming down my face. Sister Esther had given me $1,000.
On Christmas Eve, I 15 watched as Kristil opened her gifts. In 2020, at age 91, Sister Esther died, but the love she gave during her life lives on in the hearts of many. I am lucky to be one of them.
Su Shi, a famous scholar of the Song Dynasty, was (high) thought of in poetry, prose and painting.
At the age of 21, his fresh prose style earned him the (recognize) of Ouyang Xiu. Xiu, a Chinese historian and politician of the Song dynasty, (say) that Su Shi's writings were outstanding, which made Su Shi instantly famous. However, before Su Shi's political dream was realized, he had to leave his position and return home.
With his dreams (cut) short, Su Shi started to focus on nature. In the spring of 1082, he took an outing with his friends. When sudden shower of rain made his companions rush for shelter, Su Shi burst into laughter as if completely unaware of the rain.
Along both sides of the path were growing trees, leaves made soft sounds as the rain-drops fell. With wet clothes, he walked along, (sing) a happy song. Then an idea struck him: "Shall go through this life in a (peace) mind, if only wearing a straw rain cape (蓑衣)."
Su Shi's optimistic and open-minded attitude life ensured his advancement despite political ups and downs. Expressed in his poetry and essay, which have been passed down through generations, such an attitude has truly inspired us (keep) a broad mind and persist in our struggle against all difficulties.
When I was 15, I fell in love with the songs when they were first released — Bring Him Home, I Dreamed A Dreamand On My Own. Even though I hadn't read Les Miserables and knew very little about the musical, the songs captured my attention and I happily sang along with enthusiasm and energy whenever I heard them on the radio.
At the age of 17, I watched Les Miserables in a theatre of Vancouver. After getting home, I was really thrilled and announced that I wanted to perform in the musical. Hearing what I said, my parents did nothing but support me, although they considered the thought ridiculous, given that we lived 50 kilometres from the nearest large town, Toowoomba. There was little likelihood of ever having a chance to perform.
But some things are just meant to be. The Toowoomba Choral Society bought the performance rights with the view to perform it. Although I was not a member of the choir, they called for auditions (试镜) and I went along. I had had no experience singing and had never performed in any musicals but I believed in miracles and hoped that there was a place for me somewhere in the chorus.
I tried out for the part of Javert but did not have the range. Little did I know there were a host of parts that needed filling. Fortunately, I was chosen to be in the chorus as well as playing seven roles — ten costume changes in all. It was so exciting to play all the different parts. Rehearsals (排练) started immediately and I got a crash course in singing, acting and dancing. There was so much to learn and as I drove to rehearsals three times a week a little voice would say, "You are in over your head, get out now."
I really had a hard time rehearsing — first with written texts and sheet music and then without. Personally, I struggled. So much to learn really made me so crazy that I had a strong desire to quit. And the little voice "You are in over your head, get out now." rang in my ears again.
注意：
1）续写词数应为150左右；
2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
At that time, my parents' determined look appeared in my mind.
On the opening night, nervous as I was, I gathered my courage and stepped on the stage.
