Rainy days don’t have to get you down, a happiness expert has claimed.

Paul Dolan, Professor of Behavioral Science at the London School of Economics, said that people only feel miserable in bad weather because they think about it too much. Studies have shown that people who live in warm, sunny climates are no happier than those in chilly, wet climates, he said.

So the British talking about the weather may be making us gloomier（沮丧的）than the weather itself.

He said: “A study was done that measured the happiness levels of people in California compared to the North West.”

“They expected that people in California would be happier because it is sunnier, but they found that levels of happiness were exactly the same.”

“If it is sunny every day you get used to it and the sunshine doesn’t make you any happier.”

“Most of the time the weather doesn’t affect our well-being at all. But when we think about it, and think that it does, that’s when we get miserable.”

In his new book, Happiness By Design, Dolan argues that we can think ourselves happy by taking our attention away from what makes us sad.

“Most of our anxieties come from what might be,” he argues. “If you want to be happier, pay attention to the things that make you feel good.”

He also claimed that a problem shared was not always a problem halved（减半）. He claimed that humans are actually very good at being able to get over tragedy and loss.

Professor Dolan also admitted for the first time that he had a stammer（口吃）, which had made his early life miserable. He claimed it only got better when he learned not to pay attention to his speech problem.

“Things are never as bad as you imagine them being,” he said.

Do you know the two lovely mascots? You may know the five “Fuwa” dolls from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. On September 17th of last year, the two lovely mascots first showed on TV. Now, let’s see who they are.

Look at the panda! It looks like an astronaut. It wears an ice shell (冰壳) and looks fat, so we call it “Bing Dwen Dwen”. White is the color of ice and snow. “Bing Dwen Dwen” likes ice sports very much and is good at them. That’s why it is the mascot of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

Do you think the red mascot looks like a lantern? The lantern’s name is “Shuey Rhon Rhon”. When the Chinese New Year comes, people always make or buy red lanterns. Red is the color of hope and good luck, so people think their dreams will come true in the new year. “Shuey Rhon Rhon” can give players hope and help them do well in the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games(残奥会).

Many people in different countries like the two mascots very much, and they show their love for them on the Internet.

The world is not only hungry, it will also be thirsty for water. About 97% of water on the earth is sea water, or salty (咸的) water. Man can only use the other 3% of the fresh water (淡水) which comes from rivers, lakes and underground.

The sea is very big. Look at the map of the world, there is more sea than land. It covers (覆盖) quarters of the earth, it looks very beautiful when the sun is shining on it. But it can be terrible when there is a strong wind.

Some parts of the sea are very deep. There is one place near Japan. It’s nearly 11 kilometers high. If we put that mountain into the sea at that place, there would be 2 kilometers of water above it!

The sea is salty. There is one “sea” called the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is not a sea. It’s a big lake in the Jordan Valley. It’s the saltiest. It’s near the city of Jericho. It’s about 80 kilometers long, between 4.8 and 17.7 kilometers wide. The river Jordan runs into the Dead Sea. The sun is not there and the water is salty. Fish can’t live in the Dead Sea and plants can’t grow near it. People can’t swim well in the Dead Sea, but they can float (漂浮) on the water. The water is very blue and the air is clean. In winter people come to the Dead Sea to enjoy the sunshine.