In Britain, it's bottoms up from the week before Christmas till the last firework explodes in the sky announcing the new year. The last Friday before Christmas, popularly known as ‘Mad Friday', is one of the busiest periods for the country's pubs and clubs.

    But it's not just the bars that get busy. Ambulances and A&E departments around Britain get packed out too. Head injuries, cuts, falls…it's easy to end up hurting yourself or others when self-control disappear and your head is spinning due to alcohol revelers have been warned by the health authorities about the dangers of deadly drinking but drinking crazily seems to be part of the festivities for some.

    The charity Alcohol Concern is running a campaign of restriction by encouraging people to have a dry January.

    Jackie Ballard, the charity's Chief Executive, believes the campaign has been successful in recent years. She says, “More than two-thirds of people even six months later are drinking at reduced levels having had amonth off drink. But also a study has shown the impact it has on people's health reducing their blood pressure and blood sugar levels.”

    The study by the University of Sussex followed up nearly 900 participants in Alcohol Concern's Dry January campaign and found out that 72％ of them hadkept harmful drinking sessions down and 4％ were still not drinking.

    Moderation (适度) seems to bethe key to everything. The official recommendation for women is not to regularly drink more than 2 to 3 units of alcohol a day. The limit for men is 3to 4 units of alcohol — no more than a pint of 5.2％ ABV lager, beer or cider.

    Teenagers like watching TV, but their weight problem is becoming more and more serious. Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to assure time in front of the television have been designed in the UK.

    The shoes named Square Eves contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the weather has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter (发射器) passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day's efforts.

    The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University in London, UK. We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. "And I wanted to deal with that with my design.”

    Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.

    Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals precisely one minute of TV time.

    Existing pedometer (计步器) normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”

    Choosing a vacation place your kids would love is quite a headache. Here are some highly preferred fun vacation places for you, which would make sure your entire family has fun together.

    Hersheypark

    Hersheypark, the “Chocolate Town” of USA, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, is now a main theme park with sixty rides. The amazing water rides, family rides, live concerts and shows make Hersheypark a perfect place for the young children. It also has a water park known as the “The Boardwalk at Hersheypark” and a zoo.

    Old Orchard Beach in Saco, Maine

    The Old Orchard beach, where there is the amazing sand, water, rides, some fried food, and great fun games, can keep your kids busy and happy. Besides, there are downtown shops with great beach food.

    Snowbird Resort in Snowbird, Utah

    As a great place for those who enjoy the snow, Snowbird Resort allows families to enjoy many activities in the winter months, such as snowboarding and ice skating. The live music concerts are held year round.

    Hilton Waikoloa Village in Waikoloa, Hawaii

    This is actually a fun vacation place when you are looking out for a getaway with your kids. Hilton Waikoloa Village is the place to go if you would like to have your children enter for Camp Menehune. Looking for the chance to feed birds is an exciting experience. However, an activity that your kids would enjoy most is the communication with dolphins.

    As a young girl growing up in the 1930s, I always wanted to fly a plane, but back then it was almost unheard of for a woman to do that. I got a taste of that dream in 2001, when my husband arranged for me to ride in a hot air balloon for my birthday. But the experience turned out to be very dull. Around that time, I told my husband that I wanted to skydive. So when our retirement community announced that they were having an essay competition and the topic was an experience of a lifetime that you wanted to have, I decided to write about my dream.

    In the essay, I wrote about my desire to skydive, stating George Brush Sr. did age 80. Why not me? I was just 84 and in pretty good health. A year went by and I heard nothing. But then at a community party in late April 2009, they announced that l was one of the winners. I just couldn't believe it. Inspired by this, I decided to realize my dream, even though some of my family members and my doctor were against it.

    One June 11, 2009, nearly 40 of my family and friends gathered in the area close to where I would land while I headed up in the airplane. My instructor, Jay, guided me through the experience. The plane was the noisiest one I had ever been in, but I wasn't frightened－I was really just looking forward to the experience. When we reached 13,000 feet, Jay instructed me to throw myself out of the plane. When we first hit the air, the wind was so strong that I could hardly breathe. For a second I thought, “What have I gotten myself into?” But then everything got calmer. We were in a free fall for about a minute before Jay opened the parachute （降落伞）, then we just floated downward for about five minutes. Being up in the clouds and looking at the view below was unlike anything I have ever felt－much better than the hot air balloon. I was just enjoying it.

    Skydiving was really one of the greatest experiences of my life. I hope other people will look at me and realize that you don't stop living just because you are 84 years old. If there's something you want to experience, look into it. If it's something that is possible, make it happen.

    On a Friday night, a poor young artist stood at the gate of the New York railway station, playing his violin. The music was so great that many people stopped to put some money into the hat of the young man.

    The next day, the young artist came to the same place, and put his hat on the ground gracefully. Different from the day before, he took out a large piece of paper and laid it under his hat. Then he began to play the violin. It sounded more pleasant than ever.

    Soon he was surrounded with people who were attracted by the words on that paper. It said, “Last night, a gentleman named George Sang put an important thing into my hat by mistake. Please come to claim(认领) it soon.”

    After about half an hour, a middle-aged man rushed through the crowd to the violinist and said, “Yes, it's you. I knew that you were an honest man and would certainly come here.” The young violinist asked calmly, “Are you Mr. George Sang?” The man nodded. The violinist asked, “Did you lose something?” “It's a lottery ticket(彩票),” said the man. The violinist took out a lottery ticket on which George Sang's name was seen. “Is it?” he asked. George nodded and took the lottery ticket and kissed it, then danced with the violinist.

    The violinist was a student at an arts college and had planned to attend advanced studies in Vienna. Later his classmate asked the violinist, “At that time you needed money to pay the tuition(学费) and you had to play the violin in the railway station every day to make money. Why didn't you keep the lottery ticket for yourself?” The violinist said, “Although I don't have much money, I live happily. But if I lose honesty I won't be happy forever.”

    Through our lives, we can gain a lot and lose so much. But being honest should always be with us.

    From composer, musician, and philanthropist (慈善家) Peter Buffett comes a warm, wise, and inspirational book that asks, "Which will you choose: the path of least resistance or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction?"

    You may think that with a last name like this, Buffett has enjoyed a life of endless privilege. But the son of billionaire investor Warrant Buffet says that the only real inheritance handed down from his parents is a philosophy: Build your own path in life. It is a principle that has allowed him to follow his own passions, establish his own identity, and achieve his own successes.

    In Life Is What You Made It, Buffett expounds on the strong set of values given to him by his trusting and broadminded mother, his hardworking and talented father, and the many life teachers he has met along the way.

    Today's society, Buffett assumes, has begun to replace a work ethic (准则), which enjoys what you do, with a wealth ethic, which honors the reward instead of the process. We confuse privilege with material wealth, character with external (外在的) recognition. Yet, by focusing more on substance and less on reward, we can open doors of opportunity and work hard toward a greater sense of achievement. In clear and brief terms, Buffett tells us a great truth: Life is random, neither fair nor unfair.

    From there it becomes easy to recognize the equal dignity and value of every human life—our circumstances may vary but our essence does not. We see that our journey in life rarely follows a straight line but is often met with false starts, crises, and mistakes. How we push through and insist on those challenging moments is where we begin to create the life of our dreams—from discovering our vocations (使命感) to giving back to others.

    Personal and instructive, Life Is What You Make It is about challenging your circumstances, taking control of your fate, and living your life to the fullest.