I've often wondered if I might do more good as a travel agent rather than as a psychologist.It seems that I have been more dramatically affected by certain kinds of travel experiences than I ever have.

     My trip to Iceland is a fine example of that.The plan was to spend two days in a remote mountain hut in Iceland.I was working on a photograhic book about winter in Iceland and needed to capture images of this amazing region of high mountain peaks，smoky volcanoes，and lakes with floating icebergs.

     The moment after we arrived，the weather turned extreme making visibility impossible.It snowed so much and the wind blew so hard that we couldn't leave the tiny hut.We tried to call for help but the radio did not work.Day after day，we watched our supplies of food and fuel grow dangerously short.We got acute cabin fever(幽居病)and started going for walks and ski expeditions outside.Even when the weather finally broke，nobody came to get us even though it was three days beyond our scheduled pickup.By the time the rescue team came to pull us out，we had all given up hope.

     From then on，the world looks different to me，as does my life.It would have taken me years of psychotherapy to get to the same point.

Almost everyone has a story to tell，and interestingly，most of these experiences were not altogether pleasant at the time.In fact，it appears that the most constructive life­changing journeys were those that involved some sorts of awful and uncomfortable events that forced the person to develop new resources，increase confidence，and solve problems in new ways.

    A few years ago, a company called Space Marketing came up with a plan to send a mile–long advertisement into space. To advertising agencies (机构), it would have been “a dream come true”. However, advertising standards agencies finally decided not to allow Space Marketing to go ahead with their plans and they were forced to give them up.

    Space may indeed be the final place for advertisers, because on Earth we are already surrounded by advertising wherever we are and whatever we are doing. Apart from the obvious adverts that we see every day on TV, and in newspapers and magazines, there is a whole 'other world' of advertising messages for our attention. There are ads that we see on the side of the bus we catch to work, for example. And what about the logos (商标) we see on the clothing of the people we walk past in the streets?

    Most of the time, we are probably not even aware of (意识到的) these less obvious advertising methods, but that doesn't mean that they don't work. Take 'product placement', for example. You are in a cinema, watching the latest Hollywood movie. Look carefully at the make of car your favorite actor is driving. And what about his watch? Can you see what brand it is? Chances are, you can, and the company that owns the brand is likely to have paid thousands for it to appear in the film.

    So, whether Space Marketing finally succeeds in sending ads into space or not is perhaps less important than it might seem. This would not change a thing. Our everyday lives are already strongly influenced by advertising whether we realize it or not.

    Below is a selection about Guinness（吉尼斯） World Records.

    Top 6 Unusual Guinness World Records

    ♦ Fastest 100 m running on all fours

    The 2008 Guinness World Records Day was, according to CWR, their biggest day of record-breaking ever, I- h more than 290.000 people taking put in record attempts in 15 different countries. Kenichi Ito's record attempt was port of this special day. He is just another example of Japanese with "super powers". His "super power" is to run with great speed on all fours. Kenichi Ito ran 100 m on all fours in 18.58 seconds. The Japanese set this record at Setagaya Kuritsu Sogo Undojyo, Tokyo, in 2008.

    ♦ Most people inside a soap bubble

    The Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, Califomia celebrated this year the 15th anniversary of the Bubble (泡泡) Festival. A bubble's math principles and science were presented and demonstrated at the three-week-long exhibition. The intriguing Bubble Show was also part of the program. Fan Yang and Deni Yang impressed the audience with their awesome skills for bubble making. The Yang family cooperated with the Discovery Science Center to set a new Guinness World Record for mow people inside a scup bubble and they succeeded.

    The family that has been working with soap bubbles for 27 years created a huge soap bubble and got 118 people inside it. The record was set or. April 4, 2011.

    ♦ Longest ears on a dog

       A bloodhound from Illinois has the longest ears ever measured a dog. The right ear is 13.75 inches long and the left one 13.5 inches. The dog named Tigger earned this title in 2004 and is owned by Christina and Bryan Flessner.

Mr. Jeffries is the previous record holder of this title. Each of his ears measured approximately 11. 5 inches long. His grandfather used to hold this amazing world record, but when he died Mr.Jeffries look over.

    ♦ Most living generations

    Did you ever wonder what is the Guinness World Record for most living generation in one family? Seven is the answer.

    The ultimate authority on record-breaking mentions on the website that the youngest great-great- great-great grandparent of this family was Augusta Bung "aged 109 years 97 days, followed by her daughter aged 89, her granddaughter aged 70, her great grand-daughter aged 52, her great-great grand-daughter aged 33 and her great-great-great granddaughter aged 15 on the birth of her great-great-great-great grandson on January 21, 1989".

    ♦ Most T shirts worn at once

Believe it or not, there is a record also for this category. Krunoslav Budiseli set a new world record on May 22, 2010 for wearing 245 T-shirts at the same time. The nun from Croatia was officially recognized as the new record bolder by Guinness World Records after he managed to put on 245 different T-shirts in 1ess than two hours. . The T-shirts weighted 68 KG and Budiseli said he began struggling around T-shirt No. 120. He dethroned the Swedish Guinness record holder who wore 238 T-shirts.

    ♦Heaviest pumpkin

    Guinness World Records confirmed on October 9. 2010 that a gigantic pumpkin （南瓜） grown in Wisconcin was officially the world's heaviest. It weighed 1,810 pounds 8 ounces and was unveiled by Chris Stevens at the Stillwater Harvest Festival in Minnesota. Stevens' pumpkin was 85 pounds Javier than the previous re I, another huge pumpkin grown in Ohio. The proud farmer said his secret is a precise of rain, cow mature, good soil, sea grass and fish emulsion. Some of the world's heaviest pumpkins, including the record bolder, were on public display at the Bronx Botanical Gardens in New Yost for a dozen days.

    Denali National Park, Alaska

    History

    Within Denali National Park, the Toklat River will always have a special significance, as it was the location where naturalist Charles Sheldon built a cabin and was so moved that he fought to preserve the land. He moved back east and spent nine years lobbying (游说）to create Alaska's first national park.

    When to Visit

    To avoid the crowds, visit in June, but keep in mind that there are up to 21 hours of sunlight in Alaska in summer. If it seems like a bit much for your taste, try visiting in late August or September.

    If you visit to climb Mount McKinley, May and early June are the best times to climb.

    Major Attractions

    It is difficult not to see Denali's largest attraction towering 20,320 feet high. Mount McKinley can even be seen up to 70 miles away on a clear day. If you brave the climb to the top, you will be rewarded with charming views of the Alaska Range.

    Sable Pass is a prime spot to view grizzly bears. Closed to off-road foot traffic, the area is popular for bears feeding on berries, roots, and even occasionally on other mammals.

    Beginning at just below the summit of Mount McKinley, Muldrow Glacier flows 35 miles through a gorge and across the tundra. Twice in the last hundred years, the Muldrow has surged (涌动）, most recently in the winter of 1956-1957.

Accommodation

    Five campgrounds are located within the park, and many are open from late spring to early fall.Note: reservations are strongly recommended during summer. Riley Creek campground is open all year round, and all but two (Sanctuary and Wonder Lake) offer RV (可供居住的大篷车）sites.

    Also within the park are a few lodges (旅馆）—North Face Lodge, Denali Backcountry Lodge and Kentishna Roadhouse.

    For several months, Cara has been working up the courage to approach her mom about what she saw on Instagram. Not long ago, the 11-year-old girl, like all the other kids in this story, discovered that her mom had been posting her photos for much of her life." I've wanted to bring it up. It's strange to see myself up there，and sometimes there are pictures I don't like of myself," she said.

    Like most other modem kids, Cara grew up immersed in social media. While many kids may not yet have accounts themselves, their parents, schools, sports teams, and organizations have been organizing an online presence for them since birth. The shock of realizing that details about your life have been shared online without your permission or knowledge has become an important experience in the lives of many teenagers. Recently a parenting blogger (博主)wrote in a Washington Post essay that despite (不顾)her 14-year-old daughter's horror at discovering that her mother had shared years of highly personal stories and information about her online, she simply could not stop posting on her blog and social media. The writer said that promising her daughter that she would stop posting about her publicly on the Internet would mean shutting down a vital part of myself, which isn't necessarily good for me or her." average parents do the same. There's even a special word for it: sharenting. Almost a quarter of children begin their digital lives when parents upload their photos to the Internet, according to a study conducted by the Internet-security firm AVG. The study also found that 92 percent of kids under the age of 2 already have their own unique digital identity.

"Universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here," wrote the Victorian sage Thomas Carlyle. Well, not any more it is not.

Suddenly, Britain looks to have fallen out with its favourite historical form. This could be no more than a passing literary craze, but it also points to a broader truth about how we now approach the past: less concerned with learning from forefathers and more interested in feeling their pain. Today, we want empathy, not inspiration.

From the earliest days of the Renaissance, the writing of history meant recounting the exemplary lives of great men. In 1337, Petrarch began work on his rambling writing De Viris Illustribus (On Famous Men), highlighting the virtus (or virtue) of classical heroes. Petrarch celebrated their greatness in conquering fortune and rising to the top. This was the biographical tradition which Niccolo Machiavelli turned on its head. In The Prince, he championed cunning, ruthlessness, and boldness, rather than virtue, mercy and justice, as the skills of successful leaders.

Over time, the attributes of greatness shifted. The Romantics commemorated the leading painters and authors of their day, stressing the uniqueness of the artist's personal experience rather than public glory. By contrast, the Victorian author Samual Smiles wrote Self-Help as a catalogue of the worthy lives of engineers, industrialists and explores. "The valuable examples which they furnish of the power of self-help, if patient purpose, resolute working and steadfast integrity, issuing in the formulation of truly noble and many character, exhibit," wrote Smiles. "what it is in the power of each to accomplish for himself." His biographies of James Walt, Richard Arkwright and Josiah Wedgwood were held up as beacons to guide the working man through his difficult life.

This was all a bit bourgeois (庸俗的) for Thomas Carlyle, who focused his biographies on the truly heroic lives of Martin Luther, Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon Bonaparte. These epochal figures represented lives hard to imitate, but to be acknowledged as possessing higher authority than mere mortals.

Not everyone was convinced by such bombast (浮夸的描写): "The history of all existing society is the history of class struggle" wrote Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto. "It is man, real living man, who does all that." And history should be the story of the masses and their record of struggle.

This was the tradition which revolutionized our appreciation of the past. It transformed the public history: downstairs became just as fascinating as upstairs. In place of Thomas Carlyle, Britain nurtured Christopher Hill, EP Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm. Whole new realms of understanding—from gender to race to cultural studies—were opened up as scholars unpicked the diversity of lost societies.