In the early 1980s, one of our neighbors asked my mom if she would make a few gift baskets for her to give as gifts for the holidays. My mom agreed and news of the unique gift baskets my mum was making spread like wildfire throughout the neighborhood. My mum was busy throughout the holiday season, so she asked a friend to help her. When the orders continued after the holiday season for baby gifts, birthday gifts and more, it occurred to them that maybe this job could be turned into a business and they did it.

    My mum went into her business because she had a creative idea. She got orders and filled orders. But there was no purpose and no real strategy(策略). In 1991, my mum' s partner got into financial trouble and there was not enough money to support either my mum or her partner.

    So if you are led by your creativity or enthusiasm, make sure you ask yourself what you want out of your business. If you don't set goals, how will you know what direction to go in? Do you want to create jobs and growth in the economy? Are you looking for a hobby? You can't keep scores if you don' t know what game you are playing.

    After my mom's partner gave up, she had to abandon(抛弃) her business to support herself. She swore（发誓）she would run a business again and do it differently the next time. However, there wasn't a "next time" for her. She passed away just after her 51st birthday. She never had someone tell her how important having a goal was. She never had an opportunity to be everything that she could be.

    There are no right or wrong goals, only the ones that matter to you. Set them so that you can make progress and achieve success, whatever that may mean to you.

    A young and successful manager was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar.

    As his car passed a park, one child appeared, and a brick smashed into the Jaguar's side door. He stopped the car very suddenly and drove the Jag back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown. He jumped out of the car, grabbed some kid and pushed him up against a parked car, shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what on earth are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?"

    "Please, sir, please, I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do!" begged the youngster. "It's my brother," he said. "He fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up."

    Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

    Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump(隆起的肿块)in his throat．He lifted the young mail back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes(擦痕)and cuts, checking to see if everything was going to be okay.

    "Thank you, sir. And God bless you, "the grateful child said to him. The man then watched the little boy push his brother to the sidewalk toward their home.

    It was a long walk back to his Jaguar... a long, slow walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent(凹痕) to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.

    Life whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes, when you don't have the time to listen... Life throws a brick at your head.

    It's your choice: Listen to the whispers of your soul or wait for the brick!

    Lagoon Bar, Iceland

    Blue Lagoon in Iceland is truly the place where you can get rid of all troubles. Here the warmth of hot springs gets you close to nature. A wonderful bar is opened among the hot springs. While you're sitting in the hot water, waitresses bring you a range of cocktails.

    What to order: cocktail “Blue Lagoon” and white wine.

    Baobab Tree Bar Wine Cellar, South Africa

    In the hollow (洞) of a huge 6,000-year-old baobab tree you can not only drink a cocktail, but also rest from the heat of Limpopo Province. Once this safe heaven was known only to the Bushmen, but now this ancient tree is the tourist destination for all kinds of tourists.

    What to order: anything in a glass.

    The Birdsville Hotel and Pub, Australia

    At the edge of the Simpson Desert, among the sand dunes (沙丘), which are the favorite spot for the mice, there is a hotel and a pub. The walls of this bar are decorated with old hats and posters of beer, the oldest of which dates from 1884. Most visitors of this building are the amateurs of racing. They come to this village for the September competition. However, the pub is not empty also on other months: the airstrip (飞机跑道) is located nearby, so those who get off the plane are going to have a glass or two of beer first.

    What to order: a pint of beer.

    Floyd's Pelican Bar, Jamaica

    It appears that these huge palm leaves and trunks fell into the ocean long time ago. They floated on the waves and then piled up year by year, sticking out of the ocean. That's probably how the Pelican Bar, located about a mile from the southwest coast of Jamaica, is built on. Some of its visitors have no room to be fitted inside the bar, and they just drink standing in waist-deep water.

    What to order: cocktail “Pelican Perfection”.

    The idea of cloning your pet sounds like a laughable waste of money, because it is. But it starts to seem a little less laughable when your own beloved pet starts getting older. If I had had a few hundred thousand dollars to spare, I know I would have half-seriously considered it for my dear little cat, who died last year. One couple that does happen to have a few hundred dollars to spare is Barry Diller and Diane, who have reportedly cloned their beloved Jack Russell Terrier (a kind of dog), Shannon, and now have two identical Jack Russell Terrier named Deena and Evita.

    When your pet dies, you just want your pet back, or at least as close a copy as you can get. So it's really no surprise that of the around 600 dogs cloned by Sooam Biotech Reaserch Foundation most were cloned for sad pet owners. The lab in Seoul, South Korea, is now the only place on the planet in the business of cloning pet dogs for pet owners.

    But, in fact, the technology won't give you your pet back. There don't yet appear to be any studies on the behaviour of cloned pets, but research on cloned cows and pigs has so far shown marked differences in behaviour and even looks in cloned animals. The DNA is exactly the same, but there are still differences in personality and appearance.

Even if Diller and Von Furstenburg raise their new dogs in the exactly same environment in the exactly same way that they raised Shannon, the new dogs will still behave differently. “The promise of pet cloning is that your cloned pet is going to behave and look like the one you already have — and that will not be the case,” said Professor Jorge Piedrahita at N.C. State. “We have cloned animals that were raised in the same environment, but they still didn't act the same.”

    Congratulations on having been offered, and accepting, a place to study at Cambridge! This page offers some tips that will hopefully make your arrival at Cambridge as stress-free as possible.

    Before you arrive

    Your College or Department will send you all the information you need to prepare yourself for your time in Cambridge, including College information, for example, accommodation, course information, and similar related details. You will be sent an email asking you to complete the University's Student Registration exercise. It will only take a few minutes.

    Pre-arrival Freshers' Events this summer

    Around the world in August and September, Cambridge Alumni（毕业生）Groups will be hosting pre-arrival Freshers' Events for new students coming to Cambridge this autumn. These events are a great opportunity to prepare for university and make some friends before you arrive. There will be the chance to meet current students and alumni from whom you can get tips and advice for living and studying in Cambridge.

    Arrival and registration

    Most courses start in October. The term between October and December is known as Michaelmas Term in Cambridge. Officially, the first day of the Michaelmas Term is 1 October and this date will be shown on your offer letter. Your College or your Department will advise you about when to arrive. Ceremony activities begin around 1 October for most students. When you arrive in Cambridge, you should go first to your College. They will be glad to know that you have arrived safely and will advise you on what to do next.

    Matriculation

    Matriculation marks the formal admission of a student to membership of the University, and a College may not normally allow an unmatriculatied student to be a resident member of the College. Every freshman for matriculation must agree with the following belief by signing the Matriculation Registration Form:

    I promise to observe the Statutes and Ordinances of the University as far as they concern me, and to pay due respect and obedience to the Chancellor and other officers of the University.

    After photographer Monni Must's daughter Miya died, the sad mother adopted her black dog, Billy Bean. As Billy became increasingly weak, the thought of its dying was just more than Must could handle. So she decided to clone the dog. “I feared everyone was going to forget Miya," she said, "and my other daughters thought I had completely lost my mind."

    Billy's cells were shipped to ViaGen Pets, a Texas company that provides the cloning service. With more than $50,000, Must picked up a new puppy. "The dog has a real soul and is everything my daughter was—fun, social and kind," she said. "I feel that I still have that touchable connection and not just a spiritual connection.”

    Cloning animals is hardly new. But the recent news that singer Barbra Streisand had cloned her dog grabbed international headlines. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) president Ingrid Newkirk issued a statement saying she would love to talk her out of cloning, noting that millions of wonderful dogs are getting old in animal shelters every year or dying in terrifying ways when abandoned.

    Normally, a doctor takes a tissue biopsy(组织活检), a piece of skin and muscle about the size of a pencil eraser, from the dog. The next step is to take an egg cell from a donor dog, remove the egg's nucleus, and insert DNA from the pet to be cloned. When an embryo(胚胎)develops, it is transplanted in the body of a mother dog.

    In the basic cloning procedure, scientists take an entire adult cell and put it into an egg that's been relieved of its own DNA. The resulting embryo is a clone. However, in many animals, only one in 100 cloned embryos ever leads to a live birth. Some embryos die in the IVF dish or in the mothers bodies. Of those that are born, a few suffer from abnormalities and quickly die. Besides, pet cloning doesn't mean copying everything of your beloved pets.