“Hey, guys. So I’m doing a Green Girl Goods unboxing video. And Green Girl is for tweens, and it is, like, skincare and makeup and all those kinds of things. And it’s a yearly thing. You get four boxes a year. It’s seasonally. So let’s open it. This is the winter box. The straw is really pretty. It’s like this metallic color. I love it. Then it comes with a straw cleaner, so you, like, can get all the stuff out of it or whatever. And then the little notes are super cute. I love them. And then the lip gloss. It’s, like, a matte color, but it’s, like, glossy. And that’s what it looks like. It’s so pretty and I’m so excited to use it. So come back for a Part 2 when I use all of this stuff. Bye, guys. Muah. OK.” [HIGH ENERGY MUSIC] [COWS MOOING] “Going to do a full face or just a half face? What are you doing?” “Like natural, full face.” “OK.” “So.” “Let’s knock out your pictures real quick, Peyton. You can stand right there.” “Do I need to brush my hair?” “Yes. That top’s cute. All right. When we go outside we’ll use the big camera. OK.” “What do we have to do after this one?” “Y’all got the other two dresses, but I think we need to go downtown to do those.” “And then is that —” “That’s it till the bike.” “OK.” “That’s it. There’s nothing else in the laundry room, is there?” “Mm-mm.” “Nita was supposed to come in, but I don’t know if it’s here yet. Oh, my God, Peyton.” [HIGH ENERGY MUSIC] “I messed up.” “Me, too.” “All right, speed it up.” “Lyla, can you see my face?” “No. Can you see mine?” “No.” “Look, this is my facial expression.” “No facial expression.” “What?” “Nothing.” “You look so magical like that. You look so majestic.” “Majestic? Do you even know what majestic means?” “Yeah, it’s like unicorns.” “Ow! God, that hurts in the cold. Don’t do that.” “Ow!” “OK, Let’s try again.” “Ow, I’m scared now.” “Lyla.” [VIDEOS PLAYING] “Ninety-second makeup tutorial, coming up.” “Start with a versatile cream product.” “Get ready with me while we try Hailey Bieber’s makeup routine.” “If you care about your skin or your hair, you’re going to want to get this Amazon Basics satin pillowcase.” “Get ready with me to go to the gym.” “You’re doing makeup to go to the gym?” “Yep, I am. 2023 is the year of doing what makes you happy.” “Perfect, I’m going to use this eyebrow pencil. And this is in Shade 3, which is kind of like the ashy, gray-brown that my eyebrows are right now.” “I’m simply just —” “Hi, guys, get ready with me —” “What I eat as a vegan model in Korea: leaves. [INAUDIBLE] leaves.” “You love it.” “Guess what?” “OK, let’s do it.” Bring the arms down here. Let’s go. One right, one left. Four, three, two, on beat. … work, dedication, practice. Come on … We’re doing a Valentine’s Day ride. Catch this beat on the right lead leg.” “This workout is so fun, and I’m so excited to do all the other ones.” “Bring your hands up.” “So today we’re going to be opening this Yesoul bike.” “OK.” “And a little bit of highlighter. Muah.” “And for sparkles I’m going to be using some of these ones.” “There’s hundreds of thousands of kids their age and even older that are … have their careers completely established, through advertisements and being influencers, and I’m kind of hoping that they can do the same thing.” “YouTube, especially.” “Give them freedom to just live their lives the way they want and not have to worry about going to a 9-to-5 or working a daily job. If they can just generate passive income, that’s, like, everybody’s dream, right, is to be able to do what you want and not have to worry about having to go and earn the money every single day at a 9-to-5 job, hourly rate or whatever.” “They can be their own boss.” “Right, exactly.” “By being an influencer. And enjoy it.” “Yeah, we get UPS packages every single day. There’s somebody sending something for them to try on or wear or demo.” “Whether it’s a supporter or a company or somebody.” “Or fans.” “Or fans or something.” “It’s like Christmas every day.” “For them.” Yeah.” “It’s Christmas every day. [KNOCKING] “Everyone, it’s my birthday.” [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] “How I went from this to this in just two weeks.” “Then, of course, using a [INAUDIBLE] mascara, the best mascara ever. I promise you guys, you will not be disappointed. And I absolutely love the way this turned out. I think it was exactly —” “I would say to girls our age to always be confident, never let anyone …” “Bring you down.” “Bring you down. Always be strong and happy. And yeah.” “I said that.” “I guess I just always stay positive because, like, other inspiring people that we look up to …” “Other people inspire us to be confident. So we try to inspire others to be confident, too.” “Yeah.” And do you feel like making yourself up or things like that make you feel more confident? “Sometimes.” “Sometimes it does.” “When I like, put dresses on and, like, cute shoes or fix my hair.” “It’s really fun.” “It makes me confident, but I’m also confident, like when I’m like …” “Just regular.” “Yeah.” “So.” “In regular clothes.” “Just depends.” Do you feel like it puts pressure on you to have all these followers? People who look up to you? “It’s a little pressure, but it’s not much pressure because —” “They’re like our friends. Like, it feels like we know them because they’ve been following us for, like, a long time. So, yeah.” “Yeah, it’s really good.” “It doesn’t really make me, like, nervous.” “I’m so tired.” “Me, too.” “Hey, guys. So today we are going to be unboxing our Ruby crate. So it’s toward tweens and teens.” “And there’s four boxes you can get. So the first thing we got is this cute little fanny pack, and I’m super excited about it.” “And then we both got this pink chocolate mask.”
New on Coursera, Google Agile Essentials course helps professionals deliver projects and results faster
By Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer, Coursera
Today, Google Agile Essentials is available on Coursera to help professionals across industries manage projects more strategically and efficiently.
Amid a rapidly changing skills landscape, Agile methodology remains vital, with nearly every company in a recent BCG survey adopting it. First used in software development, Agile is an iterative approach to project management that emphasizes collaboration, flexibility, and continuous improvement, enabling teams to adapt quickly and deliver results. Its enduring demand and proven productivity gains make it an essential skill across teams and organizations.
In less than 10 hours, seasoned experts at Google guide learners through the Agile framework and how to apply it in real-world projects. In this standalone course, learners will gain practical skills to:
- Use Agile principles and the Scrum framework to streamline workflows
- Organize complex projects into clear, actionable steps and prioritize key tasks
- Optimize sprints to improve team alignment and productivity
- Leverage Agile tools and documentation to keep projects on track
- Lead high-performing agile teams using proven collaboration techniques
Upon completion, learners will earn a shareable course certificate from Google, showcasing their agile expertise.
Companies that adopt can adapt 2-4x faster than traditional companies, making these skills increasingly valuable. We’re proud to partner with Google to equip professionals with the frameworks needed to lead with agility and speed.
Enroll in the Google Agile Essentials course to start driving impact with Agile today!
What Would You Try to Save From Your Home in a Disaster?
Imagine you suddenly have to flee your house and must make split-second decisions about what to save. What would you take and why? A framed photo? A family heirloom? A favorite souvenir, memento or trophy? A religious object? Some jewelry? Clothes? Your phone or computer?
For many people who survived the recent fires in Southern California, this was not a hypothetical question, but a painful reality.
In “What They Took,” New York Times editors share six stories from survivors of the Palisades and Eaton fires about what items they rescued from their homes and why they matter. Here is one of those stories — about Clarence Wright of Altadena, Calif., written by Ronda Kaysen:
After Clarence Wright fled his Altadena home and learned that it had been destroyed, he mourned the poems he had lost.
In spiral-bound notebooks, he had chronicled the lives of his children, explored his political leanings and mused about romance, friendship or a stranger at the airport.
The only poems he had left, he thought, were in three copies of a collection that he self-published 20 years ago. He had long kept those in his car so that he could reread his work on trips to the beach or the mountains.
“I would like to remind myself of who I am and who I was and where I came from,” said Mr. Wright, 75, who lived in his three-bedroom house for 40 years, raising four of his children alone after his wife died at an early age.
But as the fog of crisis recently lifted, he remembered that his spiral-bound notebooks might have survived after all.
It turned out that they were in a backpack that he had grabbed in the frantic early morning evacuation. The backpack had been sitting in his trunk for weeks.
“I was relieved because I thought that everything that I’d ever done would not exist anymore,” he said.
For Mr. Wright, the fire and its aftermath have resurfaced painful memories of his time as a Marine in Vietnam. He is now working on a new poem to make sense of those feelings after his home and community were destroyed.
“It brings out sort of an anger,” he said. “But in order to control that anger, I put it in words.”
— Ronda Kaysen
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
If your home were in danger and you could only save a few treasured possessions, what would they be?
What story do the objects tell about you?
What’s your reaction to the objects — and animals — saved by the families in the article? Which items — and the stories of their rescue — were most interesting, memorable or moving?
For some students, the following question may not be hypothetical: Have you ever faced a natural disaster like a fire, flood or tornado — or a human-made disaster like a war — when you had to abandon your home quickly? What was your experience? Were you able to save any meaningful items, like the people profiled in these six stories were able to do?
Does the article change how you think about your own possessions or the meaning of home? How so?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
Red Arrows
What do you think this illustration is communicating? How does it relate to or comment on society or current events? Can you relate to it personally? What is your opinion of its message?
Tell us in the comments, and then read the related editorial from the Opinion section to learn more.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Word of the Day: mutability
The word mutability has appeared in 15 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Feb. 6 in “The World of Kendrick Lamar, in 6 Key Performances” by Niela Orr:
Lamar has scaled up those performances, becoming more elaborate as his platforms have grown in the 14 years since his recording debut. Dave Free, his primary creative partner and a collaborator on his visual presentations, has in the past attributed the rapper’s mutability to what he called the roller coaster effect: “You give people some type of variation, they can’t get used to you. They can’t put their finger on you. The more you keep people on their toes, the more interested they stay in you, for a longer period of time.” The zigzagging ride Free described is not unlike the sensory swerve of verse, especially Lamar’s quirky couplets.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word mutability in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how mutability can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
If you enjoy this daily challenge, try our vocabulary quizzes.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.
Which Popular Phrases Annoy You?
“It’s all good.” “You’re perfect.”
The Opinion columnist Pamela Paul has grown to dislike these two upbeat expressions.
Do you hear them often in your everyday life? Do they bother you?
Are there any other common phrases you hear from your peers or parents or online that have started to annoy you? Why do you dislike them?
In the Opinion essay “It’s All Good, and You’re Perfect,” Ms. Paul writes about what she sees as “mindless optimism” in some of today’s common language. She begins:
Recently I’ve been told that I’m perfect, something I’m perfectly aware I’ve never been nor ever will be.
This generous assessment has come from strangers when I apologize for bumping into them and from the exceedingly cheerful salespeople at the store where my daughter shops for clothes. “No, you’re perfect!” they’ll insist when I explain the need to rest my Gen X weariness on the fitting room floor where a modest “No problem” would have sufficed.
The urge toward pronounced perfection is annoyingly catchy. Almost against my will, I now respond to emails with a knee-jerk “Perfect!” where I once would have said something more in line with the nevermind sensibility of my generation. “Sounds good,” for example, or “OK.”
Even our artificial intelligence exhorts us to greater heights of enthusiasm. To an email in which an acquaintance notes pleasantly, “It was nice seeing you last night,” Gmail suggests a more boisterous reply: “It was great to see you too!” or “So fun!” Our chatbots likewise communicate with endless effervescence, just as we have taught them to do(!).
When not being perfect, we are decidedly good. Should I so much as display a downbeat facial expression when fumbling a social nicety, the response is nothing short of impassioned: “No, you’re good!”
Being good is for everyone. We are all good now that “You’re all good” has replaced both the Commonwealth “No worries” and the American standard “That’s OK.” And it’s not always personal. Frequently, declarations of goodness come in the form of an expansive statement of general excellence: “It’s all good.”
But is it all good, really?
Students, read the entire essay and then tell us:
Are there popular phrases that people use today that annoy you? Tell us about one and why it bothers you.
What is your reaction to Ms. Paul’s essay? Do you agree with her that expressions like “It’s all good” and “You’re perfect” are too enthusiastic, and maybe even dishonest? Or do you find nothing wrong with this sort of positive language?
Ms. Paul suggests that these overly optimistic phrases may be a reaction to the negativity of social media, or even a way to convey emojis in the real world. To what extent do you think social media and the internet influence how you and your peers speak? Can you give an example?
Ms. Paul recalls the days in her life when “Sounds good” and “That’s OK” were acceptable responses. How do those phrases sound to you? What differences have you observed between the way your generation and those older or younger than you use language?
Are there expressions you and your peers use that you actually like? What are they, and why do you like them?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
Goals
Have you ever reached an important goal, something you had to work toward for a long time?
If so, what was it? How did you accomplish it? And how did you feel after?
A recent article in the Well section is about how it’s normal to feel a little lost after an accomplishment. As the piece puts it, “Pursuing a goal can give you a sense of identity and purpose, so reaching the end can feel a bit like having the rug pulled out from under you, even if you are thrilled with the results.”
Can you relate to this feeling? What, if anything, did you do to recover?
Tell us in the comments, and then read the related article to learn more.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Word of the Day: charade
The word charade has appeared in 46 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Feb. 16 in “3 Parrots, 1 Shared Wall, 2 Ruptured Lives” by David Segal. The article describes how noise complaints in a Manhattan co-op led to a $750,000 legal settlement and shattered a friendship between Charlotte Kullen and Meril Lesser.
To Ms. Lesser, the noise crisis was a sinister charade, an attempt by Ms. Kullen, in collusion with others in the building, to get her evicted so Ms. Kullen could buy her home, knock down their shared wall and make one large apartment.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word charade in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how charade can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com. Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary. See every Word of the Day in this column.
Supporting Federal Workers in Transition with Free Learning and Career Resources
By Coursera
The recent workforce changes in the federal government have created uncertainty for thousands of employees. At Coursera, we recognize the challenges of career transitions, and we’re stepping up to provide critical learning resources to help affected federal workers navigate this change and unlock new opportunities.
Today, we are launching a dedicated initiative to support federal employees in transition with learning pathways designed to help them gain in-demand skills, prepare for new careers, and explore different job opportunities. The initiative includes:
- Free access to job-oriented courses – We are offering 5,000 free enrollments to a curated catalog of career-relevant courses designed to help workers quickly gain high-demand skills in areas like generative AI, data science, cybersecurity, project management, digital marketing, and more. Once the 5,000 limit is reached, learners can still enroll at a highly subsidized rate of 40%.
- Industry-recognized credentials – Learners can earn certificates from leading industry partners, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM. These programs cover entry-level, intermediate, and advanced skills based on learner proficiency and career goals. Free access will be available until the end of the year, and learners will retain lifelong access to certificates earned during the period.
- Career transition resources – The Federal Workers in Transition page provides tailored guidance on navigating career changes, featuring content on high-income skills, resume writing, interview prep, and job application strategies. It includes career coaching articles on best practices to make a successful transition into new industries, guidance on professional development plans, and insights on navigating job interviews and salary negotiations.
Whether transitioning to the private sector, exploring entrepreneurship, or advancing within public service, Coursera is committed to supporting federal workers during this time of change and ensuring that high-quality learning resources are available to those who need them most.
For more information and to access these resources, visit our Federal Workers in Transition page.
Weekly Student News Quiz: Russia-Ukraine War, Quantum Computing, S.N.L.
Above is an image related to one of the news stories we followed over the past two weeks. Do you know what it shows? At the bottom of this quiz, you’ll find the answer.
Have you been paying attention to current events recently? See how many of these 10 questions you can get right.
