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外刊精读

One Job is Enough - The rise of 'polyworking'

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As workers face frozen salaries, / inflation, / and fear of layoffs. / Some have decided to branch out from their traditional careers. /
They are taking on second, third / and sometimes fourth jobs / to bring in additional income, / and provide a backup plan / should they find themselves out of work. / This is something that's been called / 'polyworking'.

Some are drawn to side jobs because of instability in their workplace, / or worries that they may lose their income. / Others are reluctant to trust one employer / to provide steady job that lasts / and are supplementing their main roles with gig work on food delivery / or driving apps.

"We have seen stagnant saleries, we've seen inflation, we've seen cost of living overall increasing, even beyond our inflation meassures." said Alexandrea Ravenelle from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"So people are looking for ways to supplement, and to build themselves a little bit of a safety net." Some are creating "portfolio careers" meaning they wrok for a variety jobs, each building different skills for their portfolios.

While there are advantages to poly-working, / those who've done it / warn that it probably won't help with your work-life balance.

"You have to love it", said Elaine Chen from Tufts University. "Usually it is something that person is really passionate about." But for others, it is not about passion at all, it's a financial necessity - one income is not enough to pay the bills, or repay loans.

And poly-working make other risks, when people are looking for side jobs, they should be cautious if an opportunity found online seems too good to be true.

Perhaps poly-working is to be admired - it's something that a lot of younger workers are doing to give themselves more options. But, Nadya Williams, who writes for the Institute for Family Studies, doesn't agree. In a blog post, she said:"Having to take on a second job - and working more than 40 hours a week just to pay the bills - is not a positive for our society".

NOTE

  1. inflation /ɪnˈfleɪʃ(ə)n/ 通货膨胀
  2. layoff /ˈleɪɒf/ 下岗，解雇，休息
  3. branch out 拓展业务
  4. take on 承担
  5. bring in 赚得（收入）
  6. backup plan 后背方案
  7. side job 副业
  8. be reluctant to 不情愿
  9. last v. 持续
  10. gig work 零工，gig还有演唱会的意思
  11. stagnant 停滞的
  12. a safety net 安全网
  13. portfolio 作品集
  14. poly-working 多重工作

When Humanities Meet Python: China's Liberal Arts Go Digital

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Face with a competitive job market and shrinking humanities programs, Chinese liberal arts graduates are increasingly learning coding and data skills to enhance employability.

A record 12.22 million students graduated in 2025, with liberal students trailing STEM peers in both hiring rates and salaries. Li Jialu, an advertising major, began teaching himself to code, discovering that programming skills improved his marketing performance and structured thinkings, giving him a competitive edge and bridging the gap between arts and technology.

Platforms like Xiaohongshu reflects this trend, with "swithing to coding" posts, generating millions of views and discussions. Online courses in coding, AI, and data analysis have surged allowing students to self-learn despite concerns about feedback and measurable progress. Some, like Chang he, persue second degree in data scicence to break into the tech industry, using AI tools to navigate unfamiliar coding challenges.

Employers increasingly value technical literacy alongside traditional humanities skills. Roles such as product management reward hybrid compentencies, where data analysis and human insigt converge.

HR managers note that while STEM graduates dominate technical roles, liberal arts students with coding abilities can capitalize on their comunication and empathy skills to add value, especially in areas like user experience and people analytics.

Universities are responding under the "New Liberal Arts" initiative, integrating Python and data mining into humanities curricula, often through project-based learning.

Advisors stress that students should balance technical training with soft skills, including teamwork, communication, and problem-solving, ensuring that graduates are versatile in the AI-driven economy.

In sum humanities students are reshaping their education, embracing technology without abandoning their foundational strenths. By combining coding with empathy and creative thinking, they position themselves as adaptable professionals ready for an increasingly data-centric world.

NOTE

  1. humanities 人文科学
  2. liberal arts 文科
  3. employability 就业能力
  4. trailing 落后于
  5. STEM peers 理工科学生
  6. hiring rates 就业率
  7. structured thinkings 结构化思维
  8. giving him a competitive edge 给予某人竞争优势
  9. bridging the gap 减少差距
  10. swithing to 转向
  11. break into 闯入，成功进入
  12. navigate 应对
  13. technical literacy 文学素养
  14. humanities skills 人文社科能力
  15. hybrid compentencies 复合能力
  16. converge 交汇
  17. capitalize on 利用
  18. comunication and empathy skills 沟通和共情能力
  19. initiative 倡议
  20. data mining 数据挖掘
  21. soft skills 软实力
  22. versatile 多才多艺的
  23. foundational strenths 固有优势
  24. position themselves as 将自身定义为
  25. data-centric 以数据为中心的

The Attention Crisis: How To Take Back Control Of Your Brain

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In today's hyperconnected world, out attentions is relentlessly fragmented by emails, notifications, and endless information streams, creating a state psychologists called "continuous partial attention".

Despite spending hours on tasks, many find themselves unproductive, overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. The problem is not a lack of willpower but failure to intentionally direct attention, which, like a muscle, can be trained to improve focus and achieve meaningful goals.

Dr. Emily Balcetis, a social psychologist at NYU, emphasizes that attention shapes reality: we often believe that merely allocating time to a task equates to focus, yet mental energy is scattered across multiple priorities.

Attention involves what we observe, what we think about and how are brains integrate signals - forming distinct "attention muscles" that can be strengthened.

The first is visual focus, the ability to narrow or widen our attention spotlight, which makes distant goals appear closer and more attainable.

The second is temporal connection, linking present actions to future outcomes, which motivates delayed gratification.

Third is obstacle-processing, the capacity to anticipate challenges while maintaining motivation, preventing purely positive visualization from demotivating us.

Finally, cognitive flexibility allows switching between different type of attention, enhancing problem-solving and creativity.

By progressively training this components - through focused tasks, visualizations, planning for obstacles and cross-training cognitive skills - individuals can regain control over their scattered attention. Those who master this invisible skill often transform their productivity and goal achievement, demonstrating that focus is not innate but a trainable system.

In an era of perpetual distraction, understanding attention as a malleable and direct resource is critical: the more intentionally we strengthen it, the more we translate effort into meaningful accomplishments.

NOTE

  1. hyperconnected 高度互联的
  2. relentlessly 持续地
  3. overwhelmed 不堪重负的
  4. mentally exhausted 精神疲惫
  5. willpower 意志力
  6. equates to 等同于
  7. scattered 使散开
  8. priorities 优先
  9. distinct 独特的
  10. visual focus 视觉焦点
  11. spotlight 聚光灯
  12. attainable 可实现的
  13. temporal connection 时间联结
  14. delayed gratification 延迟满足
  15. obstacle-processing 障碍处理
  16. anticipate challenges 预判挑战
  17. demotivating 使失去动力
  18. cognitive flexibility 认知灵活性
  19. switching between 在……之间切换
  20. progressively 渐进的
  21. cross-training 交叉训练
  22. regain control over 重新获得对……的控制
  23. invisible skill 无形的技能
  24. In an era of 在……时代
  25. perpetual 永远的
  26. malleable 可塑的
  27. accomplishments 成就

When Ice Cream Comes With A Novel: Mixue's Genius Idea

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Chinese ice cream bran Mixue has recently gone viral for transforming its every day receipts into pages of serialized novel - blending marketing, story telling and fan participation in an unexpected clever way.

Now each of ice-cream purchase comes with the fragmented fiction forming part of twenty chapter story titled Xue Wang sales coffee in the ancient times where Mixue's snow-king mascot and his sidekick little lemon run the cafe in a daynastic setting.

The campping explode in the social medial with hush tags in Mixue reciepts hair a serialised novel attracts tens of millons of views in vibe, posts asking :"who has the next chapter", encourage to share and trade gra sheets, piecing the story together collaberatively.

NOTE

  1. gone viral

AWS Outage Freezes The Internet And Air Travel

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A global internet meltdown on Monday left millions stranded - both online and in the air.

The chaos began when Amazon Web Services(AWS) suffered a massive outage that rippled across continents. Disrupting major websites and even grounding flights.

While users of Reddit, Snapchat and Zoom reported widespread failures, the situation took a surreal turn midair. On a Delta red-eye flight, passeages found themselve in what one user described as a "flying prison".

According to posts on China's lifestyle app Xiaohongshu, the plane circled for nearly half an hour before the pilot announced that it couldn't dock because the airport's system - link to AWS - was offline. The whole plane is freezen, one passenger wrote. "Everyone just sitting here waiting."

Amazon later explained that the disruption originated at a major data center in Virginia, a site that had experienced similar outages before. The failure caused critical online systems, including parts of airline operations, to stop communicating effectively.

Experts warned that the incident exposes the extreme dependence of modern infrastructure on a handful of cloud providers. "When one goes down, the world goes dark." said cybersecurity advisor Jake Moore. Though WAS restored most services with in an hour, many apps continue to lag.

For passengers trapped on the runway, - and millions whose digital lives suddenly paused - the outage was more than the technical hiccup. It was stark reminder of just how vulnerable our hyperconnected world truely is.

NOTE

  1. meltdown 崩溃
  2. strand 使滞留
  3. outage 运行中断
  4. ripple across 蔓延
  5. take a turn 发生变化
  6. surreal 超现实的
  7. midair 半空中
  8. dock 停靠
  9. originate at 源于
  10. a handful of 少数
  11. cybersecurity 网络安全
  12. hiccup 打嗝 小问题

Can Starbucks Win Back China's Coffee Crown?

补一个链接，最上面那个太难翻了

TEXT

Starbucks has agreed to sell control of its China operations to investment firm Boyu Capital in 4-billion dollars deal, one of the largest devestmentm of a China unit by a global consumer brand in renct years.

The move sigals Starbucks' determination to revive growth in the World's second-largest economy, where competition from local players like Luckin and Cotti has eroded its domainance.

Under the agreement, Boyu will hold up to 60 percent of a new joint venture, while Starbucks retains 40% and continues to license its brand and intellecture property.