Dear Mr. Anderson: My name is Sophia Willis, Events Manager of the 2020 Caroline County Art Contest. I am currently looking for a place for this year's contest exhibition. The Caroline County Art Contest has had over one hundred artworks submitted to us by local artists. For the theme, we wanted artists to explore the natural world of Caroline County. I believe the Garden Café Gallery would be a perfect place to host the event, as your gallery is well-known for its beautiful garden. The exhibition is usually held throughout October, and we very much hope that we can rent a space for the exhibition at the Garden Café Gallery during this time. I look forward to your response. Yours sincerely, Sophia Willis

The day of the Five Mile Fun Walk had arrived. Annette had been waiting for Reiner at the registration point for over an hour. There was still no sign of him. She started thinking that something bad might have happened to him. Getting concerned, she tried calling Reiner's phone again, but there was no response. At that moment, she heard a voice calling her name. She found Reiner coming toward her. Thank goodness! What happened? she asked. He explained that the traffic had been terrible. What was worse, he had left his phone at home. I'm so sorry, he said. She started to relax. I'm fine now. As long as you're here and safe. Why don't we go and register? They headed into the event together.

Given the right conditions, entrepreneurship can be fully woven into the fabric of campus life, greatly expanding its educational reach. One study showed that, within the workplace, peers influence each other to spot opportunities and act on them: the more entrepreneurs you have working together in an office, the more likely their colleagues will catch the bug. A study of Stanford University alumni found that those who have varied work and educational backgrounds are much more likely to start their own businesses than those who have focused on one role at work or concentrated in one subject at school. To cultivate an entrepreneurial culture, colleges and universities need to offer students a broad choice of experiences and wide exposure to different ideas. They are uniquely positioned to do this by combining the resources of academic programming, residential life, student groups, and alumni networks.

By expecting what's likely to happen next, you prepare for the few most likely scenarios so that you don't have to figure things out while they're happening. It's therefore not a surprise when a restaurant server offers you a menu. When she brings you a glass with a clear fluid in it, you don't have to ask if it's water. After you eat, you don't have to figure out why you aren't hungry anymore. All these things are expected and are therefore not problems to solve. Furthermore, imagine how demanding it would be to always consider all the possible uses for all the familiar objects with which you interact. Should I use my hammer or my telephone to pound in that nail? On a daily basis, functional fixedness is a relief, not a curse. That's why you shouldn't even attempt to consider all your options and possibilities. You can't. If you tried to, then you'd never get anything done. So don't knock the box. Ironically, although it limits your thinking, it also makes you smart. It helps you to stay one step ahead of reality.

Music is a human art form, an inseparable part of the human experience everywhere in the world. Music is social, and tightly woven into the tapestry of life, and young children are very much a part of this multifaceted fabric. The musical experiences they have provide opportunities for them to know language, behaviors, customs, traditions, beliefs, values, stories, and other cultural nuances. As they become musically skilled through experiences in song and instrumental music, young children can also grow cultural knowledge and sensitivity. Music is an extremely important aspect of culture, shaping and transmitting the above-mentioned aspects that characterize groups of people. Exposing young children to the world's musical cultures brings them into the cultural conversation, allowing them to learn about self and others in an artistically meaningful and engaging way. Prior to the development of social biases and cultural preferences that all too easily turn into prejudices, the opportunity to know people through song, dance, and instrument play is a gift to all who work for the well-balanced development of young children into the responsible citizens they will one day become.

Conventional wisdom in the West, influenced by philosophers from Plato to Descartes, credits individuals and especially geniuses with creativity and originality. Social and cultural influences and causes are minimized, ignored, or eliminated from consideration at all. Thoughts, original and conventional, are identified with individuals, and the special things that individuals are and do are traced to their genes and their brains. The trick here is to recognize that individual humans are social constructions themselves, embodying and reflecting the variety of social and cultural influences they have been exposed to during their lives. Our individuality is not denied, but it is viewed as a product of specific social and cultural experiences. The brain itself is a social thing, influenced structurally and at the level of its connectivities by social environments. The individual is a legal, religious, and political fiction just as the I is a grammatical illusion.

The discovery that man's knowledge is not, and never has been, perfectly accurate has had a humbling and perhaps a calming effect upon the soul of modern man. The nineteenth century, as we have observed, was the last to believe that the world, as a whole as well as in its parts, could ever be perfectly known. We realize now that this is, and always was, impossible. We know within limits, not absolutely, even if the limits can usually be adjusted to satisfy our needs. Curiously, from this new level of uncertainty even greater goals emerge and appear to be attainable. Even if we cannot know the world with absolute precision, we can still control it. Even our inherently incomplete knowledge seems to work as powerfully as ever. In short, we may never know precisely how high is the highest mountain, but we continue to be certain that we can get to the top nevertheless.

The table above shows the top seven destination cities in the Asia-Pacific region in 2018 by international overnight arrivals, with additional information on the average spend per day in those cities. Bangkok was the top destination in the Asia-Pacific region with 22.8 million international overnight arrivals, immediately followed by Singapore with 14.7 million international overnight arrivals. Kuala Lumpur was ranked in third place based on the number of international overnight arrivals, and the average spend per day in this city was more than $140. Tokyo was ranked in fourth place for the number of international overnight arrivals, and the average spend per day in this city was $196. The number of international overnight arrivals in Seoul was larger than that of Osaka. Phuket was the only city where the number of international overnight arrivals was less than 10 million, and the average spend per day in this city was $247.

Marc Isambard Brunel (1769—1849) is best known for the design and construction of the Thames Tunnel. Originally born in France, Brunel escaped to the United States during the French Revolution. He later moved to London. When the Napoleonic Wars were at their height, he invented machines for making boots. During the Napoleonic Wars, Brunel's factory supplied British troops with boots. After the Wars ended, however, the government stopped buying his boots and he went out of business. A few years later, Brunel was imprisoned for several months because of his debt. At that time, London was very much divided by the River Thames and needed more ways for people and goods to move across it. In 1825, Brunel designed a tunnel under the river. The Thames Tunnel officially opened on 25 March 1843, and Brunel, despite being in ill health, attended the opening ceremony.

《Springfield Science Invention Contest》 Springfield High School invites all students to participate in the Springfield Science Invention Contest. In this annual contest, you have the opportunity to invent a useful object and show your creativity! Details • Judging criteria are creativity and usefulness of the invention. • Participants must enter in teams of four and can only join one team. • Submission is limited to one invention per team. Prizes • 1st Place ― $50 gift certificate • 2nd Place ― $30 gift certificate • 3rd Place ― $10 gift certificate Note • Inventions must be submitted to the science lab by October 1, 2020. For more information, visit www.hsspringfield.edu.

《Poetry Writing Basics Workshop》 Join our Poetry Writing Basics Workshop and meet the poet, Ms. Grace Larson! All students of George Clarkson University are invited. When: Thursday, September 24, 2020 (1:00 p.m. — 4:00 p.m.) Where: Main Seminar Room, 1st Floor, Student Union After an introduction to the basic techniques of poetry writing, you will: 1. Write your own poem. 2. Read it aloud to the other participants. 3. Receive expert feedback from Ms. Larson. Registration Fee: $10 ※ Register on or before September 18 and pay only $7. Any related inquiries should be sent via email to studentun@georgeclarkson.edu.

Competitive activities can be more than just performance showcases where the best is recognized and the rest are overlooked. The provision of timely, constructive feedback to participants on performance is an asset that some competitions and contests offer. In a sense, all competitions give feedback. For many, this is restricted to information about whether the participant is an award- or prizewinner. The provision of that type of feedback can be interpreted as shifting the emphasis to demonstrating superior performance but not necessarily excellence. The best competitions promote excellence, not just winning or beating others. The emphasis on superiority is what we typically see as fostering a detrimental effect of competition. Performance feedback requires that the program go beyond the win, place, or show level of feedback. Information about performance can be very helpful, not only to the participant who does not win or place but also to those who do.

If I say to you, 'Don't think of a white bear', you will find it difficult not to think of a white bear. In this way, 'thought suppression can actually increase the thoughts one wishes to suppress instead of calming them'. One common example of this is that people on a diet who try not to think about food often begin to think much more about food. This process is therefore also known as the rebound effect. The ironic effect seems to be caused by the interplay of two related cognitive processes. This dual-process system involves, first, an intentional operating process, which consciously attempts to locate thoughts unrelated to the suppressed ones. Second, and simultaneously, an unconscious monitoring process tests whether the operating system is functioning effectively. If the monitoring system encounters thoughts inconsistent with the intended ones, it prompts the intentional operating process to ensure that these are replaced by appropriate thoughts. However, it is argued, the intentional operating system can fail due to increased cognitive load caused by fatigue, stress and emotional factors, and so the monitoring process filters the inappropriate thoughts into consciousness, making them highly accessible.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. This thought of Shakespeare's points up a difference between roses and, say, paintings. Natural objects, such as roses, are not interpreted. They are not taken as vehicles of meanings and messages. They belong to no tradition, strictly speaking have no style, and are not understood within a framework of culture and convention. Rather, they are sensed and savored relatively directly, without intellectual mediation, and so what they are called, either individually or collectively, has little bearing on our experience of them. What a work of art is titled, on the other hand, has a significant effect on the aesthetic face it presents and on the qualities we correctly perceive in it. A painting of a rose, by a name other than the one it has, might very well smell different, aesthetically speaking. The painting titled Rose of Summer and an indiscernible painting titled Vermillion Womanhood are physically, but also semantically and aesthetically, distinct objects of art.

Genetic engineering followed by cloning to distribute many identical animals or plants is sometimes seen as a threat to the diversity of nature. However, humans have been replacing diverse natural habitats with artificial monoculture for millennia. Most natural habitats in the advanced nations have already been replaced with some form of artificial environment based on mass production or repetition. The real threat to biodiversity is surely the need to convert ever more of our planet into production zones to feed the ever-increasing human population. The cloning and transgenic alteration of domestic animals makes little difference to the overall situation. Conversely, the renewed interest in genetics has led to a growing awareness that there are many wild plants and animals with interesting or useful genetic properties that could be used for a variety of as-yet-unknown purposes. This has led in turn to a realization that we should avoid destroying natural ecosystems because they may harbor tomorrow's drugs against cancer, malaria, or obesity.

Since human beings are at once both similar and different, they should be treated equally because of both. Such a view, which grounds equality not in human uniformity but in the interplay of uniformity and difference, builds difference into the very concept of equality, breaks the traditional equation of equality with similarity, and is immune to monist distortion. Once the basis of equality changes so does its content. Equality involves equal freedom or opportunity to be different, and treating human beings equally requires us to take into account both their similarities and differences. When the latter are not relevant, equality entails uniform or identical treatment; when they are, it requires differential treatment. Equal rights do not mean identical rights, for individuals with different cultural backgrounds and needs might require different rights to enjoy equality in respect of whatever happens to be the content of their rights. Equality involves not just rejection of irrelevant differences as is commonly argued, but also full recognition of legitimate and relevant ones.

Protopia is a state of becoming, rather than a destination. It is a process. In the protopian mode, things are better today than they were yesterday, although only a little better. It is incremental improvement or mild progress. The pro in protopian stems from the notions of process and progress. This subtle progress is not dramatic, not exciting. It is easy to miss because a protopia generates almost as many new problems as new benefits. The problems of today were caused by yesterday's technological successes, and the technological solutions to today's problems will cause the problems of tomorrow. This circular expansion of both problems and solutions hides a steady accumulation of small net benefits over time. Ever since the Enlightenment and the invention of science, we've managed to create a tiny bit more than we've destroyed each year. But that few percent positive difference is compounded over decades into what we might call civilization. Its benefits never star in movies.

In a highly commercialized setting such as the United States, it is not surprising that many landscapes are seen as commodities. In other words, they are valued because of their market potential. Residents develop an identity in part based on how the landscape can generate income for the community. This process involves more than the conversion of the natural elements into commodities. The landscape itself, including the people and their sense of self, takes on the form of a commodity. Over time, the landscape identity can evolve into a sort of logo that can be used to sell the stories of the landscape. Thus, California's Wine Country, Florida's Sun Coast, or South Dakota's Badlands shape how both outsiders and residents perceive a place, and these labels build a set of expectations associated with the culture of those who live there.

In the fifth century B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Protagoras pronounced, Man is the measure of all things. In other words, we feel entitled to ask the world, What good are you? We assume that we are the world's standard, that all things should be compared to us. Such an assumption makes us overlook a lot. Abilities said to make us human ― empathy, communication, grief, toolmaking, and so on ― all exist to varying degrees among other minds sharing the world with us. Animals with backbones (fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) all share the same basic skeleton, organs, nervous systems, hormones, and behaviors. Just as different models of automobiles each have an engine, drive train, four wheels, doors, and seats, we differ mainly in terms of our outside contours and a few internal tweaks. But like naive car buyers, most people see only animals' varied exteriors.

It can be difficult to decide the place of fine art, such as oil paintings, watercolours, sketches or sculptures, in an archival institution. Art can serve as documentary evidence, especially when the items were produced before photography became common. Sketches of soldiers on a battlefield, paintings of English country villages or portraits of Dutch townspeople can provide the only visual evidence of a long-ago place, person or time. But art can also carry aesthetic value, which elevates the job of evaluation into another realm. Aesthetic value and the notion of artistic beauty are important considerations, but they are not what motivates archival preservation in the first instance. The best archival decisions about art do not focus on territoriality (this object belongs in my institution even though I do not have the resources to care for it) or on questions of monetary value or prestige (this object raises the cultural standing of my institution). The best decisions focus on what evidential value exists and what is best for the item.

We sometimes solve number problems almost without realizing it. For example, suppose you are conducting a meeting and you want to ensure that everyone there has a copy of the agenda. You can deal with this by labelling each copy of the handout in turn with the initials of each of those present. As long as you do not run out of copies before completing this process, you will know that you have a sufficient number to go around. You have then solved this problem without resorting to arithmetic and without explicit counting. There are numbers at work for us here all the same and they allow precise comparison of one collection with another, even though the members that make up the collections could have entirely different characters, as is the case here, where one set is a collection of people, while the other consists of pieces of paper. What numbers allow us to do is to compare the relative size of one set with another.

Film has no grammar. There are, however, some vaguely defined rules of usage in cinematic language, and the syntax of film ― its systematic arrangement ― orders these rules and indicates relationships among them. As with written and spoken languages, it is important to remember that the syntax of film is a result of its usage, not a determinant of it. There is nothing preordained about film syntax. Rather, it evolved naturally as certain devices were found in practice to be both workable and useful. Like the syntax of written and spoken language, the syntax of film is an organic development, descriptive rather than prescriptive, and it has changed considerably over the years. Hollywood Grammar may sound laughable now, but during the thirties, forties, and early fifties it was an accurate model of the way Hollywood films were constructed.

Research from the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation in the USA shows that people feel that 'materialism' somehow comes between them and the satisfaction of their social needs. A report entitled Yearning for Balance, based on a nationwide survey of Americans, concluded that they were 'deeply ambivalent about wealth and material gain'. A large majority of people wanted society to 'move away from greed and excess toward a way of life more centred on values, community, and family'. But they also felt that these priorities were not shared by most of their fellow Americans, who, they believed, had become 'increasingly atomized, selfish, and irresponsible'. As a result they often felt isolated. However, the report says, that when brought together in focus groups to discuss these issues, people were 'surprised and excited to find that others share[d] their views'. Rather than uniting us with others in a common cause, the unease we feel about the loss of social values and the way we are drawn into the pursuit of material gain is often experienced as if it were a purely private ambivalence which cuts us off from others.

To the extent that sufficient context has been provided, the reader can come to a well-crafted text with no expert knowledge and come away with a good approximation of what has been intended by the author. The text has become a public document and the reader can read it with a minimum of effort and struggle; his experience comes close to what Freud has described as the deployment of evenly-hovering attention. He puts himself in the author's hands (some have had this experience with great novelists such as Dickens or Tolstoy) and he follows where the author leads. The real world has vanished and the fictive world has taken its place. Now consider the other extreme. When we come to a badly crafted text in which context and content are not happily joined, we must struggle to understand, and our sense of what the author intended probably bears little correspondence to his original intention. An out-of-date translation will give us this experience; as we read, we must bring the language up to date, and understanding comes only at the price of a fairly intense struggle with the text. Badly presented content with no frame of reference can provide the same experience; we see the words but have no sense of how they are to be taken. The author who fails to provide the context has mistakenly assumed that his picture of the world is shared by all his readers and fails to realize that supplying the right frame of reference is a critical part of the task of writing.

The children arrived at sunrise at their grandmother's house. They always gathered at this time of year to assist with her corn harvest. In return, their grandmother would reward them with a present and by cooking a delicious feast. The children were all in great spirits. But not Sally. She disliked working in the corn field as she hated the heat and the dust. She sat silently as the others took a sack each and then sang their way to the field. They reached the field and started to work happily. Soon after, Sally joined them with her sack. Around mid-morning, their grandmother came with ice-cold lemonade and peach pie. After finishing, the children continued working until the sun was high and their sacks were bursting. Each child had to make three trips to the granary. Grandmother was impressed by their efforts and she wanted to give them presents accordingly. Sally just wanted to get her present and leave the field because she was starting to get hot and feel irritated. She had only filled her sack twice, but the others were now taking their third sacks to the granary. Sally sighed heavily. Then an idea struck her. To make the sack lighter and speed things up, she quickly filled her last sack with corn stalks. Sally reached the granary first, and her grandmother asked her to put aside the final load and write her name on it. Grandmother asked the other children to do the same thing. Then, all of the children enjoyed their grandmother's delicious lunch. I am so pleased with your work, she told them after lunch. This year, you can all take home your final load as a present! The children cheered for joy, gladly thanked her, and lifted their sacks to take home. Sally was terribly disappointed. There was nothing but useless corn stalks in her sack. She then made the long walk home, pretending that she was carrying a heavy load.