English listening

7/30 

Is she turning towards you  or away from you , no one can agree . She is a mysterious subject of (Dutch ) master Jan Vermeer’s,  girl with the pearl earring . A painting (often referred to )  as the mona lisa of the north . Belong to a (Dutch ) styles of the (idealized ) ,sometimes  overly (expressive ) paintings (known as tronies ) . The girl with the pearl earring, has the allure and subtlety characteristic of Vermeer’s work. Vermeer’s treatment of  light and shadow , (or chiaroscuro ) ,uses (a dark flat) background to (further spotlight her three dimensionality , instead of being like  a set piece , in a (theatrical  narrative ) scenes she become a psychological subject, her eye contact and slightly (parted) lips , as if she is about say something , draw us into her gaze .  

Dutch 荷兰的

idealized 理想化的

tronies 特写肖像画

chiaroscuro 明暗对比法

theatrical 戏剧化的

narrative 记叙文的

gaze 凝视

7/29

Trauma , is an experience that is constructed  like any other experience os  constructed . That is doesn’t trivialize  , that just shows  you the  real power of predictions in  the economy of your  everyday life . What’s  happening when (an adverse ) experience become traumatic ? The brain is weighing that experience very heavily in its future predictions . From  (a metabolic ) standpoints ,it’s always better to predict and correct  than it is to react, the traumatic event is re-experienced again and again and again , which only strengthen those connections and  only make those predictions more likely in the future , the reason why a brain would  do this is to avoid missing a threat .

trivialize 重要的

It’s just fun and  gorgeous , and it’s  (see through )  so we can see each other ,all the barbies in their own  barbie dream houses wake up in the morning , and then can wave at each other . 

This is a product of  so many discussions , so many references , I can’t even tell you the meeting we’ve had   about the pink . We sat with all these difference kinds of pinks and we were  like what is pink ,how does the pink interact . Because we didn’t want it  to be so classy that  it didn’t . When I was a litter girl ,  I like the pinkest  brightest  thing . Because barbie was invented in 1959 , and it felt like we can ground everything  in that  look , 1950 soundstage   musicals. (Gene Kelly ) or  (Vincente Minnelli) ,like those  kind of wonderful fake  but emotionally ) artificial spaces . One thing that  those  soundstage musical did so well were beautiful artificial skies . There is a sort of surrealness of the  (gradation) of the color

You can light (them into these intense colors  ,you can light pink and orange form the bottle ,the blue from  the top , you can really go (kind of expressionistic ) with it 

surrealness.  超现实

gradation 渐变层次

expressionistic 表现主义

I am from new York , and my favorite comfort food is grilled cheese , growing up as a  picky eater ,   (grilled cheese ) was  the number 1 thing  that I could  get from every single family member and every single restaurant .  And It be almost the exact same every single time .  It reminds me of being best friend with my mom . 

My favorite comfort food is congee , a type of  rice porridge , there are also many different types of  congee . And I’ve had it plain . with dried scallops ，with preserved egg and salted  pork, and just whitefish .growing up ,  my mother would make this for breakfast somedays ,and she will also make it for me when I was sick , and I couldn’t keep any solid  foods down . 

My favorite comfort food is Lahmajun,  it is a  thin flatbread  , almost like pizza , that’s (enjoyed in and ) around the middle east . It’s  typically made by taking  small dough balls  and flatting  them into really thin pieces , and them it’s topped  with beef or lamb , some vegetables ,and  spices , and then it cooked in oven for just a  few minutes . My family and I typically buy a dozen or so of them from Armenia bakeries or grocery stores  here in LA , because they make them  really tasty 

plain 清淡的

scallops 干贝

flatbread 小面包干

Flat  平坦的

oven 烤炉

Watching  a kitten fumbling around , it might feel as if you’ve  never encountered anything so devastatingly adorable in your mortal live . But you may also feel the conflicting urge to squeeze or smush the kitten . This urge  which phycologists call cute aggression ,is a surprisingly common one estimate to affect about a half of all adults . Cut aggression is importantly not link to the actual intention to do harm,  instead it seems to result  from emotional overload . Some scientist think the cute things (elicited) such positive emotions from certain people ,that the  experiences becomes overwhelming .  They hypothesize that sightly  aggressive  discordant  thoughts ,are the brain’s way of  putting the  brake on, and regulating those intense feelings , not getting you to actually eat a kitten . 

elicited 引出

hypothesize 假设

estimate to affect 估计影响

discordant 不和谐的

7/15

Diet is the behavior that’s been studied the most in terms of trying to affect thing like  aging and longevity.

There really three components of diet that seem to be impacting aging :

So the first is. How much we eat , the second is what we eat , and the third is when we eat . 

So in terms of how much we eat , a lot of science went into this idea of caloric restriction . Caloric restriction isn’t a starvation .it’s usually just about a 20 precent reduction in the overall caloric intake . The other thing , that has  been study , is this concept  of what we eat ,  a lot of research has  gone into whether things  like plant-based diet  are actually beneficial to  aging and longevity, there  seems to be some evidence ,that eating less animal products , more fruit ,veggies , more wholefoods ,it’s going to  be better overall . 

But  what scientists found , is actually fasting can (con mimic ) some of the benefits , that we’ve seen with (caloric restriction ) , so if people can perhaps minimize their eating to a small window , we think (that this  can actually recapitulate ) a lot of benefits , that we are saying in the  caloric restriction studies . 

7/8

In all those very different contexts ,one characteristic emerged  as a significant predictor  of  success . And it wasn’t social (intelligences  ), wasn’t good looks  , physical health , and it wasn’t IQ . It was grit . Grit is passion and perseverance for very long term goals  . So far the best idea I’ve  heard about building grit in kids  , is something called growth (mindset ) ,this is an idea  developed at sanford university  by (Carol  Dweck ) . And it is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed .that it can change with your effort . Doctor (Dweck ) had  shown that when kids read and learn about the  brain . And how it changes and grows in response to challenge , they are   must  more likely to preserver when they fail.  Because they don’t believe  that failure is permanent  condition 

Creamy , rich new York  style cheesecake is one of the city’s  most iconic desserts , the simple cheesecake recipe calls for cream-cheese ,sugar and eggs . At each spot ,we will be judging  based of the  three qualities . 

The filling , it should be smooth , (creamy ) and light.

The topping , it should add the refreshing brightness  to a rich cheese cake .

The crust ,if there is a crust , it should add texture and flavor to the overall cheese cake . 

Ok ,that I can get so down with, I really like that one , it’s sweet and tart, and I think I just prefer  more like  a fruit on my cheesecake , the plain is good ,but this like next level .

For someone who doesn’t like cheesecake , yeah ,they should eat this . 

I like also, how it taste almost like a meringue, because they whip (their egg white ) a lot ,so it’s fluffier , not so dense .

meringue 蛋白霜 蛋白酥

Dense 浓稠

fluffier 轻柔

Tart  酸的

Plain  无装饰的

Iconic 象征性的

The  fashion fad that could improve your mood , the hashtag dopamine dressing , now has over 95 million (views) on tiktok  and is inspiring  people to go bold .

what exactly dose dopamine dressing means 

So dopamine dressing actually plays into the psychology of color . And how wearing and  seeing these different fun  bright  color can actually create a  release of dopamine in our brain , which actually is chemical responsible for  happiness and just feeling good overall ,so  we can basically lean to in difference color categories ,depending on what  we want to  manifest  and how we want to feel . 

I love anything manifesting .so let’s us start with these  pink and red ,these  really bright colors . 

Yes , red as category itself , really represent strength ), and love and confidence . Yellow and   Orange actually stands for happiness ,joy ,and it’s inviting ,it’s warm  ,  Green and blue over all stand for peace , (tranquility) and good health . 

Willow has been here  at the prospect park zoo for  about three years, she is pretty great gregarious ,charismatic  ,obviously ,very cute . She is just a lot of fun to work with .  In the wild , red pandas would  spend a lot of time up  in  trees , red pandas are endangered so it’s important that we breed  them to help keep our  population in zoo’s healthy . We were able to successfully  ultrasound her and confirm that there is at least one cub there , the vet wasn’t sure  how many ,so we’re  just waiting to see .

Red pandas have what’s  called delayed implantation ,delay implantation is when a fertilized egg lies in a dormant  state , and  is to be an implanted later when  the situation is right for that species .   

So we don’t have know exactly  when that happens ,that’s why we don’t have an  exact date  for birth .

Habitat destruction  is really impacting, red panda  is  in particular  .so  To have a birth of a  red panda  is really important . 

Charismatic 有魅力的

delayed implantation 延迟着陆

ultrasound 超声 超声波

fertilized 已受精的