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Whether you're on social media or sending a text message, you encounter emoji ( 表情符号) regularly.While most people's enthusiasm for emoji increased in the smart-phone era, Japan has been crazy for emoji since

1999. Designer Shigetaka Kurita invented emoji for a Japanese phone company 20 years ago as a way to make it easier to express ideas in a short message. The word emoji can be translated as "picture character" from Japanese. After the release of Kurita's emoji, rival phone companies in Japan began creating their own emoji. Many emoji on our digital devices today are imported from Kurita's original set of emoji.

Japan's love for emoji continued well into the 2000s before the rest of the world discovered them. Apple Inc. officially introduced an emoji function in their software in 2011. Soon, other phone companies from around the world made it easier for their customers to use emoji.

As you scroll (滑动) through your phone, you can see the wide selection of available emoji. More than 2,000 emoji are in existence now, with more being released each year. These numbers show the popularity and demand for emoji.

Why? Because words alone can't convey the complete meaning of a digital message. In digital communication, emoji express a tone or mood. More than 90 percent of people online use emoji especially ones that show emotion like hearts and smileys.For example, they might send a red heart emoji as a response that they really like something instead of writing, "I love that."

Some emoji are also abstract enough for people to use in any way they like. You can send an emoji as an inside joke, which is only understood between you and your friend.

Nor do they belong to a specific culture. You and I give emoji meaning, because emoji is a language that belongs to all of us.

For those who can stomach it, working out before breakfast may be more beneficial for health than eating first, according to a study of meal timing and physical activity.

Athletes and scientists have long known that meal timing affects performance. However, far less has been known about how meal timing and exercise might affect general health.

To find out, British scientists conducted a study. They first found 10 overweight and inactive but otherwise healthy young men, whose lifestyles are, for better and worse, representative of those of most of us. They tested the men's fitness and resting metabolic (新陈代谢的) rates and took samples (样品) of their blood and fat tissue.

Then, on two separate morning visits to the scientists' lab, each man walked for an hour at an average speed that, in theory should allow his body to rely mainly on fat for fuel. Before one of these workouts, the men skipped breakfast, meaning that they exercised on a completely empty stomach after a long overnight fast (禁食). On the other occasion, they ate a rich morning meal about two hours before they started walking.

Just before and an hour after each workout, the scientists took additional samples of the men's blood and fat tissue.

Then they compared the samples. There were considerable differences. Most obviously, the men displayed lower blood sugar levels at the start of their workouts when they had skipped breakfast than when they had eaten. As a result, they burned more fat during walks on an empty stomach than when they had eaten first. On the other hand, they burned slightly more calories (卡路里), on average, during the workout after breakfast than after fasting.

But it was the effects deep within the fat cells that may have been the most significant, the researchers found. Multiple genes behaved differently, depending on whether someone had eaten or not before walking. Many of these genes produce proteins ( 蛋 白 质 ) that can improve blood sugar regulation and insulin ( 胰 岛 素 ) levels throughout the body and so are associated with improved metabolic health. These genes were much more

active when the men had fasted before exercise than when they had breakfasted.

The implication of these results is that to gain the greatest health benefits from exercise, it may be wise to skip eating first.

Planning a visit to the UK? Here we help with ways to cut your costs.

AVOID BIG EVENTS Big sporting events, concerts and exhibitions can increase the cost of accommodation and make it harder to find a room. A standard double room at the Thistle Brighton on the final Friday of the Brighton Comedy Festival (19 Oct.) cost £169.15 at Booking.com. A week later, the same room cost £118.15.

If you can be flexible and want to know dates to avoid—or you're looking for a big event to pass your time—check out sites such as Whatsonwhen.com, which allow you to search for events in the UK by city, date and category.

STAY AWAY FROM THE STATION If traveling to your destination by train, you may want to find a good base close to the station, but you could end up paying more for the sake of convenience at the start of your holiday.

Don't be too choosy about the part of town you stay in. Booking two months in advance, the cheapest room at Travelodge's Central Euston hotel in London for Saturday 22 September was £95.95. A room just a tube journey away at its Covent Garden hotel was £75.75. And at Farringdon, a double room cost just £62.95.

LOOK AFTER YOURSELF Really central hotels in cities such as London, Edinburgh and Cardiff can cost a fortune, especially at weekends and during big events. As an alternative consider checking into a self-catering flat with its own kitchen. Often these flats are hidden away on the top floors of city central buildings. A great example is the historic O'Neill Flat on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, available for £420 for five days in late September, with room for four adults.

GET ON A BIKE London's 'Boris bikes' have attracted the most attention, but other cities also have similar programs that let you rent a bicycle and explore at your own pace, saving you on public transport or car parking costs.

Among the smaller cities with their own programs are Newcastle (casual members pay around £1.50 for two hours) and Cardiff (free for up to 30 minutes, or £5 per day).

I've worked in the factories surrounding my hometown every summer since I graduated from high school, but making the transition between school and full-time blue-collar work during the break never gets any easier. For a student like me who considers any class before noon to be uncivilized, getting to a factory by 6 o'clock each morning is torture. My friends never seem to understand why I'm so relieved to be back at school or that my summer vacation has been anything but a vacation.

There are few people as self-confident as a college student who had never been out in the real world. People my age always seem to overestimate the value of their time and knowledge. In fact, all the classes did not prepare me for my battles with the machine I ran in the plant, which would jam whenever I absent-mindedly put in a part backward or upside down.

The most stressful thing about blue-collar life is knowing your job could disappear overnight. Issues like downsizing and overseas relocation had

always seemed distant to me until my co-workers told me that the unit I was working in would shut down within six months and move to Mexico, where people would work for 60 cents an hour.

After working 12-hour shifts in a factory, the other opinions have become only too clear. When I'm back at the university, skipping classes and turning in lazy rewrites seems too irresponsible after seeing what I would be doing without school. All the advice and public-service announcements about the value of an education that used to sound stale now ring true.

These lessons I'm learning, however valuable, are always tinged with a sense of guilt. Many people pass their lives in the places I briefly work, spending 30 years where I spend only two months at a time. "This job pays well, but it's hell on the body," said one co-worker. "Study hard and keep reading," she added.

My experiences in the factories have inspired me to make the most of my college years before I enter the real world for good.

Should you listen to music when you work?

Do you like to listen to music when you work?

Ask this question at a party, and you'll probably get 1 responses. Some will say they love it, claiming that it improves their performance; others will say they find it distracting (分散注意力的) and cannot work 2 with music playing in the background.

Interestingly enough our research has found that both of these viewpoints can be true. It just 3 on what sort of work you're doing.

In a recent study, we brought participants into our lab to perform a variety of tasks. They included a(n) 4 task-searching through word lists and crossing out words containing the letter "a" and a more difficult task—memorizing word pairs and 5 word to its partner. Some participants completed all of the tasks in silence, 6 others completed the tasks with instrumental music that was either loud or soft, and either simple or complex, the latter meaning music with more instruments being played. Several key findings 7 from our study.

We found that participants who listened to simple music or no music performed about the same on the easy task. However, participants who listened to 8 music performed best on the easy task.

On the contrary, participants performed worse on the more difficult task when they listened to any music, regardless of complexity or volume, compared to those who didn't listen to any music.

How should we 9 these findings?

We suggest that people have limited mental resources from which both 10 and tasks can draw. We can become 11 and our minds may wander when these resources are not fully used. But we also can become over-excited and 12 when these resources are used up.

Not surprisingly, we typically need to use fewer of our mental resources when we perform easy tasks, whereas demanding tasks require more brainpower. However, because we might be less 13 during easier tasks, there's a greater risk of drifting off. Music might give us the extra 14 we need to overcome the monotony ( 单调). However, difficult tasks already demand lot of our resources. Listening to music can become too much.

So best 15 should appear when we strike "sweet spot", which may depend on the type of music and the type of task.

You're making a PowerPoint presentation to a group of professors, for which you have stayed overnight. Even though your knees knock together, you try really hard to pretend to be confident on the site. All of a sudden, however, your mind goes, for one of the professors shoots a glance at you, and he whispers something to another professor beside him. All kinds of questionsyour mind at the same time. Did I say something wrong? Am I making a bad impression? Such uncomfortable feelings totally you.

If you once found yourselfin this nightmare situation, you fit the typical model of a shy person. Shy people, as many experts define in their studies, usually fallto what is simply a careless glance or a meaningless. What's more, because of their low self judgement rooted deeply in their mind, they often cannot take friendly comments like "If you are not so, you'll make a better performance." But being shy doesn'tmean being lacking in ability or competence. Rather, many shy people are capable professionals. And what distinguishes between acommunicator and a shy sharer is just that the latter needs to build up his self confidence.

Despite the terrible situations shy people are usually involved in, there's definitely hope for them. According to experts, 40 percent of the shy population canovercome shyness if given enough encouragement and support.

Everyone needs a break, and vacations are not meant serious study. Instead, they're a great way to take a break and enjoy a good book. The Spring Festival is coming up so this is the perfect time to discuss some great English language literature to take on a long train journey or while you're hanging out with the family.

Before getting into the recommendations, we need to determine your English reading comprehension level so you don't pick a book which is so challenging that it' s stressfulso simple that it's boring.

If you're at the beginner level, there are two options:(read) a children's book or beginning with a book that you've read in Chinese translation. This will help you get over any unfamiliar words or phrases, since you're already familiar with the story. If you're at the intermediate level, popular books like pop fiction, mysteries and thrillers, especially something suitable for intermediate English,(be) good options,as they'll be guaranteed page turners and that will increase the possibility of your getting all the way through the book.

The most important thing is to pick a book that you re really interested in. When I pick up a new book in Chinese, the first few chapters are always really hard to get through, as I have to get accustomed to the way the individual author uses the language. But after the first few chapters, things get a lot(easy) especially if I get involved in the story. Some of my favourite Chinese-language eye candy are books that are series like Brothers by Yu Hua or The Dancer by Hai Yan. I like themthere's always a lot of action and story development to keep me involved,helps me make it through those first few chapters.

Another great way to keep yourself(motivate) over the Holiday is to find a friend who's interested in reading the same book.

Some quick recommendations: Harry  Potter,(start) with the first book and go on from there; and if you like horror, U.S. writer Stephen King is always unusual and fun. But really youjust find a topic or author that you're interested in, and the rest will go from there. Happy reading!