Guided Walking Week  April 2016

Dates: April 30th-May 7th 2016

Location: Abdet, Costa Blanca

    A week of guided walking in the mountains around Abdet. Highlights include the climbing of Valencia's highest summit (Sierra de Aitana), traveling completely around the impressive Puig Campana, and several explorations in the Sierra de Aitana. Ancient trails lead through spectacular canyons( 峡谷 ) to abandoned settlements situated high in the mountains. You will discover the snow trader routes which lead from the incredible snow holes high in the mountains down to the villages and towns on the coast. These years, golden eagles have made a return to this area, and you may also see other animals—wild goats, foxes, wild pigs and red squirrels.

    As part of the week you are invited to help clear some local walking paths. This involves clearing collapsed walls and rocks, cutting back fallen trees. This is of course optional and is just for half a day, it's actually great fun!

Price:$499

Includes:

● Accommodation in the beautiful mountain village of Abdet

● All food-good home cooking

● Beer, wine, soft drinks

● Snacks and post walk treats

● Packed lunches & drinks(except café/bar visits)

● Expert guiding

● Photos/Videos of your days in the mountains

● Airport pick-up/return $25 each way(fly to Alicante)

● Single room supplement $75

To book or get further information, please contact info@abdet.com.

    Frank Woolworth was born in Rodman, New York, in 1852. His family were very poor farmers, and there was never enough to eat. Frank decided he did not want to be a farmer. So he took a short business course, and went to work as a salesman in a large city.

    Woolworth realized he had a natural skill for showing goods to attract people's interest, but he soon learned something more important. One day his boss told him to sell some odds and ends (小商品) for as much as he could get. Frank put all these things on one table with a sign which said FIVE CENTS EACH. People fought and pushed to buy the things and the table was soon cleared.

    Soon afterwards, Woolworth opened his own store, selling goods at five and ten cents. But he had another lesson to learn before he became successful. That is, if you want to make money by selling low-price goods, you have to buy them in large quantities(大量) directly from the factories. Once, for example, Woolworth went to Germany and placed an order for knives. The order was so large that the factory had to keep running 24 hours a day for a whole year. In this way, the price of the knives was cut down by half.

    By 1919, Woolworth had over 1000 stores in the US and Canada, and opened his first store in London. He made a lot of money and his name became famous throughout the world. He always ran his business according to strict rules, of which the most important was: “ THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.”

    Does your local high school have a student newspaper? Only 1 in 8 of New York's public high schools has student newspapers – and many of those are published just a few times a year. A few more are online, which can leave out poorer schools.

    Rebecca Dwarka, an 18-year-old senior who works for her student paper said, “Facebook is the new way of finding out what happened. Nobody wants to actually sit down and read a whole article about it. This makes a 'whole article' sound a little like a long sentence in lonely places.”

    I am not nostalgic about high school student newspapers and never worked for mine. I put out what was then called a personal magazine with a group of friends because we wanted to write about peace, war and rock 'n' roll without school officials warning us not to make jokes about the local officials.

    School newspapers are in decline because students now find out what happened on social networking websites. This is a little discouraging because it proves that for millions of Americans, journalism is becoming a do-it-yourself thing. Every citizen can be a reporter.

    When something happens, we look for social media messages. Facebook posts and Tweets have become the means by which citizens and reporters can prove, deny, pass on stories and express opinions without the press' challenging, researching or slowing the message.

    But truly good journalism is a craft, not just a blog post. It requires seeing something carefully and it uses an eye for details to help prove a larger view. And even journalism that conveys an opinion tries to be fair. If school newspapers begin to disappear, I hope there are other ways for students to learn that.

    The flowers are blooming and the birds are singing as Melinda sits in the rose garden of the nursing home. She is recalling old times as she waits for her family's arrival. The nursing home has been Melinda's new settlement ever since Thomas passed away a week ago. Thomas had fought a long and hard battle against lung cancer for three years. Unfortunately, he has broken the promise that he and Melinda had made: to be with each other for every birthday. Melinda knew this was unrealistic (不现实的) but agreed to the promise for Thomas's sake.

    "Thomas, you are completely a dreamerl" Melinda shouted to Thomas as he dragged on about living on an island with his beautiful wife. That's what she loved about him most-he had a vivid imagination. They got married at age eighteen and began having children right away. Mary came within the year, followed by Thomas Benjamin II, Lilly-Ann, and Joseph "Little Joey" George. The family lived an exultant life filled with laughter and love.

    "Mom!" Lilly shouted, but it really sounded like a howl. Melinda had lost herself in thinking about the life she had shared with her late husband. Lilly pushed her down the long dark halls of the nursing home until they arrived at the recreational room.

    When the doors opened, Melinda put her hand over her mouth and was completely speechless. The room was crowded with the people nearest and dearest to her and the warmth and love was felt instantly. The night went on; stories and cocktails were shared and everything was perfect.

    However, when Melinda caught a moment to herself she looked around at her family. With a smile on her face, she raised her Manhattan and called out for a toast. "This one is for you, Thomas, though you are not here."

    It began as a game: High school and college students studying computer technology figured out they could use personal computers to break into telephone company computers and make free, long-distance telephone calls. These young computer talents soon gained the name "hackers".

    Police arrested a few hackers, but many went on to even more complex hacking. One of them was arrested for making illegal telephone calls and later he used a phone to change a police officer's credit records to get back at the officer for arresting him. He also used a computer to change his college records to give himself better grades.

    As hackers gained experience, they began invading computers at banks, airlines and other businesses. In one case a hacker instructed an airline's computer to give him free airplane tickets.

    The U.S. government is worried that hackers may break into its networks of defense computers. The government's secrets are easily attacked because thousands of government computers are connected by telephone lines that hackers can get into.

    In November 1988, a college student entered a U.S. Defense Department computer network called Arpanet. The hacker injected a computer program that made copies of itself throughout Arpanet. Some hackers use viruses to destroy all the data in a computer. But in this case, government officials shut down the network before the program reached every computer in the system. Shutting down the system angered many researchers who were using the computers. The hacker turned himself in to the police and he was charged with a crime.

    The incident put the spotlight on computer hacking in the United States. Many companies have hired experts to protect their computers from hackers, and many computer experts now advise companies on how to protect their computers.

    The U.S. government believes foreign governments have hired hackers to try to break into top-secret defense computers.

    Experts disagree over whether a computer network can ever be safe from hacking. But in the future, some of the most outstanding minds in the U.S. will be working to frustrate the attempts of computer hackers.

    If 62 is the number in red on the top of your math test, for most of us, it's a total disaster. Your entire week is ruined, and 62 is what races through your head for the rest of the day. If 9 is the number of likes on that cute photo you posted the other day, many will feel rather disappointed.

    Our lives have become a constant system of ranks, assessments, and numbers. The days of passing judgment on others based on personality are gone, and now we judge based on how good a person's numbers are. We compare ourselves to the numbers of others, such as how low another person's weight is how high their paycheck. Self-worth is no longer based on quality of character, but quantity of numbers.

    In today's social media consumed society, it has never been easier for people to broadcast their numbers to the world. A simple click of a button can take you to a page where you can observe the number of friends or followers a person has. Teenagers have taken on this mentality that if you don't have a certain number of followers, then you aren't "cool". Many feel they are not important if very few people are witnessing their status updates. This state of mind is harmful and not at all accurate. Twitter and Facebook can let the world witness your updates, but they will never let anyone see who you really are. In the end, self-worth should be based on what you think of yourself, not what the world thinks of you.

    So next time you receive a failing grade or you lose a follower, remember that these things cannot and should not define (定义) you. You are not your numbers. You are a person-a3-D living and breathing person with ideas and creativity and love that the rigidity of numbers cannot represent. You are the things you love and the things you laugh at and the way you treat others.