D.

If your job requires a lot of sitting, you could be putting your health at danger.

The American Journal of Epidemiology (流行病学) did a study in 2010 on the correlation (相互联系) between sitting and an individual's physical health. In the study, 53,440 working men and 69,776 working women were surveyed on their time spent sitting. The subjects were all disease free when employed. The researchers identified 11,307 deaths in men and 7,923 deaths in women during the 14-year follow-up.

The findings: Women who reported sitting for more than six hours per day had an approximately 40 higher all-cause death rate than those who reported less than three hours a day, and men had an approximately 20 higher death rate.

Well, now's a fine time to get this information. But why didn't they tell me this years ago? I would have planned on taking a more active job instead of the sedentary (坐着的) job of an editor.

So what can you do if you have to work for a living at a job that requires a lot of sitting? Here are some ideas:

Take frequent breaks. It is recommended that workers vary activities, change their position, and take short breaks every 20 minutes to rest muscles and increase blood circulation. Get a standing desk. Some studies have shown that working from an upright position may be better for health. The serious fitness people can even purchase a treadmill (跑步机) desk. It only goes about one mile per hour. Have a walking meeting. If your group is kind of small, going for a walk while discussing topics is a good alternative.

D   

Daydreaming was viewed as a waste of time．Or it was considered an unhealthy escape from real life and its duties．Daydreaming has always had a bad reputation，but now scientific research has showed that daydreaming may actually improve your mental health and creativity．It can even help you achieve your desired goals．

Now some people are taking a fresh look at daydreaming．Some think it may be a very healthy thing to do．Researchers are finding daydreaming，they tell us，is a good means of relaxation．But its benefits go beyond this．A number of psychologists have conducted experiments and have reached some surprising conclusions．   

Dr．Joan T．Freyberg has concluded that daydreaming contributes to intellectual growth．It also improves concentration，attention span，and the ability to get along with others，she says．In an experiment with school children, the same researcher found that daydreaming led the children to pay more attention to details．They had more happy feelings．They worked together better．Another researcher reported that daydreaming seemed to produce improved self-control and creative abilities．

But that’s only part of the story．The most remarkable thing about daydreaming may be its usefulness in shaping our future lives as we want them to be．Industrialist Henry J．Kaiser believed that much of his success was due to the positive use of daydreaming．He maintained that “you can imagine your future．”Florence Nightingale dreamed of becoming a nurse．The young Thomas Edison pictured himself as an inventor. For these famous achievers，it appears that their daydreams came true．

Of course daydreaming is no substitute(代替者)for hard work．You have to work hard to develop skills．Daydreaming alone can’t turn you into your heart’s desire．But in，combination with the more usual methods of self-development，it might make a critical difference．And who knows：You might see your own daydreams come true．

D

       Some of the best research on daily experience is rooted in rates of positive and negative interactions, which has proved that being blindly positive or negative can cause others to be frustrated or annoyed or to simply tune out.

    Over the last two decades, scientists have made remarkable predictions simply by watching people interact with one another and then scoring the conversations based on the rate of positive and negative interactions. Researchers have used the findings to predict everything from the likelihood a couple will divorce to the chances of a work team having high customer satisfaction and productivity levels.

    More recent research helps explain why these brief exchanges matter so much. When you experience negative emotions as a result of criticism or rejection, for example, your body produces higher levels of the stress hormone, which shuts down much of your thinking and activates (激活) conflict and defense mechanisms (机制). You assume situations as being worse than they actually are.

    When you experience a positive interaction, it activates a very different response. Positive exchanges increase your body’s production of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that increases your ability to communicate with, cooperate with and trust others. But the effects of a positive occurrence are less dramatic and lasting than they are for a negative one.

    We need at least three to five positive interactions to outweigh (超过) every one negative exchange. Bad moments simply outweigh good ones. Whether you’re having a conversation, keep this simple short cut in mind: At least 80 percent of your conversations should be focused on what’s going right.

    Workplaces, for example, often have this backward. During performance reviews, managers routinely spend 80 percent of their time on weaknesses and “areas for improvement”. They spend roughly 20 percent of the time on strengths and positive aspects. Any time you have discussions with a person or group, spend the vast majority of the time talking about what is working, and use the remaining time to address weaknesses.

Brrriiinnng. The alarm clock announces the start of another busy weekday in the morning. You jump out of bed, rush into the shower, into your clothes and out the door with hardly a moment to think. A stressful journey to work gets your blood pressure climbing. Once at the office, you glance through the newspaper with depressing stories or reports of disasters. In that sort of mood, who can get down to work, particularly some creative, original problem-solving work?

The way most of us spend our mornings is exactly opposite to the conditions that promote flexible, open-minded thinking. Imaginative ideas are most likely to come to us when we’re unfocused. If you are one of those energetic morning people, your most inventive time comes in the early evening when you are relaxed. Sleepy people’s lack of focus leads to an increase in creative problem solving. By not giving yourself time to tune into your wandering mind, you’re missing out on the surprising solutions it may offer.

The trip you take to work doesn’t help, either.The stress slows down the speed with which signals travel between neurons （神经细胞）, making inspirations less likely to occur. And while we all should read a lot about what’s going

on in the world, it would not make you feel good for sure, so put that news website or newspaper aside until after the day’s work is done.

So what would our mornings look like if we wanted to start them with a full capacity for creative problem solving?

We’d set the alarm a few minutes early and lie awake in bed, following our thoughts where they lead. We’d stand a little longer under the warm water of the shower, stopping thinking about tasks in favor of a few more minutes of relaxation. We’d take some deep breaths on our way to work, instead of complaining about heavy traffic. And once in the office—after we get a cup of coffee—we’d click on links not to the news of the day but to the funniest videos the web has to offer.

A football team stands hanging their heads. The other team has just scored again. Suddenly, a girl flies into the air. She drops down into the arms of her fellow cheerleaders. They start dancing, waving colorful pom-poms（彩球）and chanting. The whole crowd joins in the chant, lifting the spirits of the team.

Since ancient times, there have always been audiences to cheer on athletes. But somehow it took thousands of years for organized cheers to start. They first appeared at Princeton University in the 1880s. Students organized a crowd chant that went “Tah Rah Rah, Tiger Tiger Tiger, Sis Sis Sis, Boom Boom Boom, Aaaaaaahhh! Princeton! Princeton! Princeton!” Not surprisingly, this chant didn’t catch on.

In 1898, a man named Johnny Campbell from the University of Minnesota became the first cheerleader. During a football game, he wanted to pump up the crowd, so he started leading them in a chant that went “Rah Rah Rah! Sku-u-mar, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!” Soon after, the first cheerleading team was created.

Nowadays, 97% of cheerleaders are female. So, it’s pretty hard to believe women were not allowed to be cheerleaders until 1923. When women joined in, the sport changed in varieties of ways. Women cheerleaders made it more athletic by adding gymnastics and acrobatics（特技）into the act.

Though women were becoming more common in cheerleading, the majority of cheerleaders were men until the 1940s. When America joined World War II in 1942, many college-aged men went off to war. Women took over the cheerleading roles and from then on, they dominated（主导）the sport.

Pom-poms, the flashy balls that cheerleaders hold in each hand while doing their cheers, were first used in the 1960s. They add a little extra excitement and flash to the cheerleaders’ moves.

As cheerleading became more popular, it then spread from college to high school and finally became an important part of American culture.

  Mr William Shakespeare and the Internet

Explanation of Contents

This is the fourth edition of these pages. It is hard to believe, but once again they are new and improved. My motive in publishing these pages remains to help and stimulate others in Shakespeare studies, and especially those who might contribute their work to the Internet. The spirit of altruism (利他主义) that originally built the Internet is not quite gone, though, sadly, through the pressure of time and profit has lessened.

A major new addition to the pages is a Shakespeare Timeline, which is an online biography mounted at this site. The problems with searching for Shakespeare resources using the available Search Engines are:

---- It is difficult to focus most searches so that you get a manageable number of relevant hits;

---- It is impossible by simply reading an abstract(摘要) to make any distinction between the output of a Junior High School student and that of a professional researcher.

Another change in these pages over previous editions is the “What’s News” page.  If you come away from these pages with the feeling that they are very useful but slightly pedantic (学究的), I will have realized my goal.

An Apology

I am continually apologizing to the many who have written me requesting revisions of the pages. We are all too busy. I simply have not had the time to dedicate to these pages that I wish. But I love the material and so have, at long last, made some time to update them.

A Reminder to Young Students

These pages contain the best links I can find to Shakespeare on the Internet. As a reminder, I would say I very much enjoy hearing from people who view and use these pages. If you want to do Shakespeare research using the web, this page is a great starting point, and I keep it as current as I can. The web is in its infancy（初期in bringing good, scholarly content to students. Don’t forget the best, if not quickest, resources are still in your library.

C

Hospital emergency rooms have to treat fingers all the time. Without treatment, a bad cut can lead to permanent damage. But how should a person know when a bleeding cut is serious enough to require medical attention? We asked Dr. Tim Brown, a doctor of the emergency department.

First, the medical term for a cut or tear in the skin is a laceration(撕裂伤). The length is usually not as important as the depth. He says a long cut on a finger can likely be treated without a visit to a doctor if the wound is not very deep. "If you have a short but deep laceration where there's been a structure underneath that's been damaged -- a tendon, a nerve, a blood vessel -- it may, in fact, need professional attention."

Some injuries -- like a fingertip that gets cut off -- might even require surgery to repair. "That requires a specialist to either file down the bone or reattach the fingertip. More often, filing down the bone is what is done because reattaching a fingertip is often not successful."

How a wound bleeds can be a sign of how serious it is. Minor cuts usually produce what is known as venous bleeding. This means the blood flows steadily from the injury. The bleeding will often stop when pressure is put on the wound. In most cases holding direct pressure with a clean cloth for four to five minutes should stop the bleeding. With a cut finger, holding the hand above the heart can reduce the loss of blood. But if a cut appears to be pumping blood out with some force, this may be a sign of arterial(动脉) bleeding. This kind of injury should be treated by a medical professional as soon as possible.

Even a cut that does not require medical attention must be kept clean to prevent infection. Small cuts should be cleaned gently with clean water. Use a washcloth to clean the area if the wound is dirty. Cuts should be covered with a clean, dry bandage.

B

     Sometimes in a big city, there are a large number of things to drive you mad on your daily route, and it’s not just overcrowded subway trains.

      Vicky is a mainlander working in Hong Kong. For her, one thing she can’t put up with is people standing on the wrong side of the escalator（自动扶梯）in subway stations. “Escalators help us move faster and save time. It isn’t a place to rest,” the 24-year-old says. “I often see tourists block the way with their suitcases or chatting on the escalators during rush hours. It annoys me to no end.”

Admitting she is not the patient type, Vicky says things are much better in Hong Kong than in cities on the mainland where “stand right, walk left” signs are often ignored.

       The logic behind the “stand right, walk left” escalator etiquette（礼仪）seems obvious. Even though you may want to catch your breath while you’re transported up or down, you should still consider others and leave enough space for people in a hurry, so that they can run and catch the train.

        Many cities’ escalators, including London’s and Beijing’s, use the “stand right, walk left” system to speed up the flow of people.（Australia is an exception and you should stand on the left side instead.）But some cities discourage people from moving on escalators out of safety reasons. In Hong Kong’s subway stations there are regular announcements asking people to “stand still” on escalators. Even so, most people in this fast-paced city observe the “stand right, walk left” etiquette.

      But the people who stand on escalators defend themselves by telling the walkers not to be so impatient. The BBC quotes one stander as saying：“If the person is in such a rush, why not just take the stairs? Even when the escalator is packed and there’s nowhere to move, I see these same people complaining about not being able to pass.

     Whatever the escalator etiquette is in the place you live or visit, do what most people are doing and always be mindful of others: leave enough space between each other, don’t stay at the end of the escalator, and if someone is blocking your way, a simple “excuse me” is enough.

C

I live in Hollywood. You may think people in such an attract ive, fun—filled place are happier than others. If so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.

    Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The troth is that fun and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper, more long—lasting emotion. Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends.

    I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful individuals have constant access to exciting parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells “happiness”. But in memoir（回忆录）after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drag addiction, broken marriages, troubled children, and long—time loneliness. The way people hold on to the belief that a fun—filled, pain—free life equates happiness actually decreases their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equated with happiness, then pain must be equated with unhappiness. But, in fact, the opposite is tree: More times than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain.

    As a result, many people avoid the very efforts that are the source of tree happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment, charitable work and self—improvement.

B

A football team stands hanging their heads. The other team has just scored again. Suddenly, a girl flies into the air. She drops down into the arms of her fellow cheerleaders. They start dancing, waving colorful pom-poms（彩球）and chanting. The whole crowd joins in the chant, lifting the spirits of the team.

Since ancient times, there have always been audiences to cheer on athletes. But somehow it took thousands of years for organized cheers to start. They first appeared at Princeton University in the 1880s. Students organized a crowd chant that went “Tah Rah Rah, Tiger Tiger Tiger, Sis Sis Sis, Boom Boom Boom, Aaaaaaahhh! Princeton! Princeton! Princeton!” Not surprisingly, this chant didn’t catch on.

In 1898, a man named Johnny Campbell from the University of Minnesota became the first cheerleader. During a football game, he wanted to pump up the crowd, so he started leading them in a chant that went “Rah Rah Rah! Sku-u-mar, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-rah! Varsity! Varsity! Varsity, Minn-e-So-Tah!” Soon after, the first cheerleading team was created.

Nowadays, 97% of cheerleaders are female. So, it’s pretty hard to believe women were not allowed to be cheerleaders until 1923. When women joined in, the sport changed in varieties of ways. Women cheerleaders made it more athletic by adding gymnastics and acrobatics（特技）into the act.

Though women were becoming more common in cheerleading, the majority of cheerleaders were men until the 1940s. When America joined World War II in 1942, many college-aged men went off to war. Women took over the cheerleading roles and from then on, they dominated（主导）the sport.

Pom-poms, the flashy balls that cheerleaders hold in each hand while doing their cheers, were first used in the 1960s. They add a little extra excitement and flash to the cheerleaders’ moves.

As cheerleading became more popular, it then spread from college to high school and finally became an important part of American culture.