It is quite reasonable to blame traffic jams, the cost of gas and the great speed of modern life, but manners on the road are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men would become fierce tigers behind the wheel. It is all right to have a tiger in a cage, but to have one in the driver's seat is another matter.

    Road politeness is not only good manners, but a good sense. It takes the most cool-headed drivers great patience to give up the desire to beat back when forced to face rude driving. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards reducing the possibility of quarreling and fighting. A friendly nod or a wave of thanks in answer to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of good will and becomes so necessary in modern traffic conditions. But such behavior of politeness is by no means enough. Many drivers nowadays don't even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.

    However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. A typical example is the driver who waves a child crossing the street at a wrong place into the path of oncoming cars that may not be able to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they want to.

An experienced driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if drivers learnt to correctly join in a traffic stream without causing total blockages that give rise to unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, modern drivers can't even learn to drive, let alone master the roadmanship (公路驾车技能). Years ago, experts warned us that the fast increase of the car ownership would demand more give-and-take (互谅互让) from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

    You've flown halfway around the world; you've sniffed out this place that nobody in Falongland or Thailand seems to have ever heard of; so what on earth is there to do here? You consider this question as you sink into an old wooden beach chair that holds you above the sand.

    It was a long journey from Bangkok to Huaplee. By the time you found the bus station and got yourself sorted out, it took almost as long as the flight from Falongland.

    Huaplee is located just south of Hua Hin, about two hundred kilometres from Bangkok, down the west side of the Gulf of Thailand. Not many tourists find this place，and the ones that do wonder if finding it has been their purpose all along.

    There's an apparent laziness that surrounds you here. It's what this place offers, and it，s free of charge. The small waves that tap the shoreline seem to slow everything down. You settle into your beach chair in preparation for a long rest. You sit there and watch the sea.

It's early afternoon, so the cook comes out and asks what you'd like to eat this evening. Before long he's rushed off to the market to buy the ingredients for whatever it was that you ordered—every meal fresh and to order. No menu here.

    There is no poolside noise here but just that wonderfully warm, clear blue sea. There⁹ s no street noise. The only sounds are the murmurs of nature.For now you just count your blessings (福祉)，listing them in the sand with your toe (脚趾)• You don't have to worry about being late for work. You don't have to do anything.

    The beach to your right stretches off to the horizon (地平线)，slowly narrowing to nothingness only to re-emerge again on your left, now steadily widening until it covers the chair beneath you. Sand to your left and sand to your right; it's unbroken, endless. No start, no end, just sand, sun,and peace. Step off it, and you re-enter the world of traffic, stress, work，and hurry.

    Normally you，re the type who can，t sit still for more than ten minutes, but you're on Huaplee Lazy Beach now and, in the right frame of mind, it stretches all the way around theworld.

     “How could it take me so long to find it?” you wonder.

    Take part in one of these FUN summer camps.ID Tech Camps offer weeklong courses at locations throughout the US.Our junior courses provide additional time for off-computer activities,ensuring a well-balanced day.Learn from instructors who are passionate about technology.There is a maximum of just 8 students per instructor.Just choose a course.

    Adventures in Games Design

    Ages: 7-10

    Dates: July 1-July 7

    Cost: $520

    Don't just play games!Make them!Create your own video game in this fun,exciting video game camp for kids. Design your own arcade or platform game using professional software.Take breaks to play sports outside and do other activities.

    Adventures in Programming

    Ages: 7-13

    Date: July 4-July 10

    Cost: $750

    Let your imagination run wild in this multimedia adventure.Create your own interactive stories,animated adventures and creative comics.Learn drag-and-drop programming basics with scratch (a project of the MIT Media Lab).Computer characters are at your command!Take breaks with supervised outside sports and activities.

    Adventures in Robotics

    Ages: 12-15

    Date: July 4-July 10

    Cost: $1,200

    Imagine it,build it and watch it go!Powered by the LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT Base Set and Software,our Adventures in Robotics course explores the exciting world of robots!This course will have you create cool robots on your first day.

    Introduction to Web Design & Photography

    Ages: 9-12

    Date: July 14-July 20

    Cost: $700

    Use a high-end camera and learn the building blocks of web design with Adobe Dreamweaver.Put your photos into your basic website,and then share your creation with your friends and family.The software Adobe Flash may be introduced based on a student's progress throughout the week.

Movie Making Camp

    Ages: 12-15

    Date: July 14-July 20

    Cost: $1,8000

    Are you ready to learn the basics of filming and editing?

    Shoot with professional cameras and see how much fun creative editing can be with the video editor iMovie. Take home a DVD of your final project to show your family.Please remember it takes filmmakers years to master their skills.Please have realistic project expectations.

    Have you heard an old saying “The grass looks greeener on the other side of the fence”? It means other places often look better, more interesting than the place where you live. “Let's go to KFC for dinner and then watch some Japanese cartoons!” We all know it: more and more Chinese kids love American and Japanese food and movies. Some people worry that young Chinese are beginning to feel that way. They see young Chinese ignoring (忽视) Chinese culture and, instead, buying Japanese cartoon books, watching Korean soap operas and even celebrating Western holidays.

    Foreign books and soap operas are good, but Chinese writers and actors are just as good. As for holidays, Christmas is nice, but it can never have the meaning for Chinese that Spring Festival has, and the West has nothing to compare with the Mid-Autumn Festival. China has lots of cool things in its culture: calligraphy, Bejing Opera, quick meals on the streets, and even Jay Chou! And let's not forget the part of Chinese culture I like best: its friendliness. Not all countries are as warm as China.

    It's good to enjoy other cultures and learn from them, but they can never replace your own culture. It's good to look on the other side of the fence, but make sure you take a good long book. You will find that the grass isn't always greener.

    Although some people become worried about that, I don't think they should. Will we get more powerful without learning from other countries? Will Chinese people live more happily without American fast food? Besides, it's fun to learn about different cultures. Chinese kids can learn about other cultures and have fun, but they also need to learn more about their own culture. Be proud of Chinese culture and of being Chinese!

    Al was a skilled artist. One night, his older son developed a serious stomachache. Neither Al nor his wife took the condition seriously. But it was actually acute appendicitis (急性阑尾炎), and the boy died suddenly that night.

    Knowing the death could have been prevented if he had realized the seriousness of the situation, Al's emotional health became worse. Worse still, his wife left him a short time later, leaving him alone with his six-year-old younger son. The hurt and pain of the two situations were more than Al could handle, and he turned to alcohol (酒) to avoid the pain. Gradually Al became an alcoholic (酒鬼) and began to lose everything he had. Finally, Al died alone in a San Francisco motel room.

    When I heard of Al's death, I felt sorry for him. “What a complete failure!” I thought. “What a totally wasted life!”

    As time went by, I began to rethink my earlier judgment. I knew Al's son, Ernie, one of the kindest and most caring men I have ever known. I watched Ernie with his children and saw the free flow of love between them. I knew that kindness and caring had long come from somewhere.

    One day I worked up my courage to ask him. “I'm really puzzled by something,” I said. “I know your father was basically the only one to raise you. What did he do so that you became such a special person?”

    Ernie sat quietly and thought for a few moments. Then he said, “From my earliest memories as a child until I left home at 18, Al came into my room every night, gave me a kiss and said, 'I love you, son.'”

    What a fool I had been to judge Al as a failure. He had not left any material possessions (财产) behind. But he had been a kind loving father, and he left behind one of the finest, most giving men I have ever known.

    Norman Garmezy, a development psychologist at the University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four decades of research. A nine-year-old boy in particular stuck with him. He has an alcoholic mother and an absent father. But each day he would walk in to school with a smile on his face. He wanted to make sure that "no one would feel pity for him and no one would know his mother's incompetence." The boy exhibited a quality Garmezy identified as "resilience".

    Resilience presents a challenge for psychologists. People who are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity (逆境) won't know how resilient they are. It's only when they're faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, comes out. Some give in and some conquer.

    Garmezy's work opened the door to the study of the elements that could enable an individual's success despite the challenges they faced. His research indicated that some elements had to do with luck, but quite large set of elements was psychological, and had to do with how the children responded to the environment. The resilient children had what psychologists call an "internal lens of control(内控点)". They believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the arrangers of their own fates.

    Ceorge Bonanno has been studying resilience for years at Columbia University's Teachers College. He found that some people are far better than others at dealing with adversity. This difference might come from perception(认知) whether they think of an event as traumatic(创伤), or as an opportunity to learn and grow. "Stressful" or "traumatic" events themselves don't have much predictive power when it comes to life outcomes. "Exposure to potentially traumatic events does not predict later functioning," Bonanno said. "It's only predictive if there's a negative response." In other words, living through adversity doesn't guarantee that you'll suffer going forward.

The good news is that positive perception can be taught. "We can make ourselves more or less easily hurt by how we think about things," Bonanno said. In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown that teaching people to think of adversity in different ways--to reframe it in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less emotional way when the initial response is emotionally "hot"—changes how they experience and react to the adversity.