It was a hot, humid day, and my brother Walt and I had decided that the only way to survive it would be to go swimming in a deep swimming hole across Mr. Blickez's pasture(牧场) and through some woods.

    The only problem with our plan was that this pasture was guarded by a huge, mean Hereford bull. Mr. Blickez had told us that Elsie was the meanest bull in the township, maybe even the county, and we believed him. But the hotter it got, the more we thought there was something fishy about his claim. For one thing, we remembered Mr. Blickez liked telling tall tales; for another, Elsie seemed like an odd name for a bull.

    Finally, I talked Mom into asking permission for us to walk through the pasture, but then another problem surfaced. Mom said she would talk to Mr. Blickez if we would take our cousin Joanie along with us. Joanie was almost two years older than me and a head taller. If her teasing ever got around my grade school, it would be all over for me. In fact, I still had a headache from a quarrel with her that morning. “I'm not going swimming with that dumb girl cousin.” I told my mom.

    “Either Joanie goes with, or you stay home alone,” Mom said in her serious tone. I gave in and we set out. On our way across the pasture, Walt yelled suddenly. Elsie had approached him quietly and was licking(舔) his back.Joanie and I dove under the wire fence, but while I was on the ground I looked up and saw that Elsie wasn't a big mean bull after all. She was going to keep licking my brother's back as long as he stood still.

    We had many good days growing up and visiting our secret swimming hole guarded by the so-called “big mean bull”. And as it turned out, for a girl cousin, Joanie hasn't been too bad. She's been one of my best friends over the years.

Top attractions

    Amsterdam is most famous for its artistic heritage. This tradition is proudly on display in the Rijksmuseum (translates as State Museum). Once you've taken in all that has to offer, artists, history fans, and families shouldn't pass up the chance to visit the Van Gogh Museum —containing around 700 paintings and drawings by Vincent and his contemporaries (同时代的人), including Gauguin, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

    Amsterdam is also home to the Anne Frank Museum, where Anne hid with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. On a lighter note, taking a canal cruise through its extensive waterways is a rewarding way to see the Dutch capital.

    Art lovers get their kicks at:

    ♦♦ The Van Gogh Museum Rijksmuseum Museum het Rembrandthuis

    Food and drink

    Cheese lovers love Amsterdam. You can find an excuse to eat cheese at any time of the day here. Gouda is Holland's favorite, developing a more intense flavor the longer it's aged. Find a selection at the markets，try a cheeseboard at dinner time, or just order cubes with mustard for dipping to accompany a drink.

When you're hungry for non-cheese food groups, you'll find Michel in-starred restaurants, vegetarian, and organic restaurants that accompany an array of global cuisine. For old-fashioned and modern Dutch food, try these Amsterdam restaurants: Moeders, Haesje Claes, Loetje, Greetje, and De Silveren Spiegel.

Don't leave without tasting:

    ♦♦ Patat (hot chips with toppings) Stroopwafel (waffle cookie) Chocomel (chocolate milk)

    Amsterdam Fast Facts

    Approximate flight times:

    ♦♦NYC/Newark 7 hours 20 minutes Philadelphia 8 hours Boston 7 hours

    ♦♦Miami 9 hours 45 minutes Los Angeles 10 hours 15 minutes

    Entry requirements: Passport must be valid for at least 3 months beyond your planned departure from the Schengen area and have 2 blank pages for entry stamp.

    The Intelligent Transport team at Newcastle University have turned an electric car into a mobile laboratory named “DriveLAB” in order to understand the challenges faced by older drivers and to discover where the key stress points are.

    Research shows that giving up driving is one of the key reasons for a fall in health and well-being among older people, leading to them becoming more isolated(隔绝) and inactive.

    Led by Professor Phil Blythe, the Newcastle team are developing in-vehicle technologies for older drivers which they hope could help them to continue driving into later life.

    These include custom-made navigation(导航) tools, night vision systems and intelligent speed adaptations. Phil Blythe explains: “For many older people, particularly those living alone or in the country, driving is important for preserving their independence, giving them the freedom to get out and about without having to rely on others.”

    “But we all have to accept that as we get older our reactions slow down and this often results in people avoiding any potentially challenging driving conditions and losing confidence in their driving skills. The result is that people stop driving before they really need to.”

    Dr Amy Guo, the leading researcher on the older driver study, explains, “The DriveLAB is helping us to understand what the key points and difficulties are for older drivers and how we might use technology to address these problems.

    “For example, most of us would expect older drivers always go slower than everyone else but surprisingly, we found that in 30mph zones they struggled to keep at a constant speed and so were more likely to break the speed limit and be at risk of getting fined. We're looking at the benefits of systems which control their speed as a way of preventing that.

    “We hope that our work will help with technological solutions(解决方案) to ensure that older drivers stay safer behind the wheel.”

    Elizabeth Blackwell was born in England in 1821, and moved to New York City when she was ten years old. One day she decided that she wanted to become a doctor. That was nearly impossible for a woman in the middle of the nineteenth century. After writing many letters asking for admission(录取) to medical schools, she was finally accepted by a doctor in Philadelphia. She was so determined that she taught school and gave music lessons to get money for the cost of schooling.

    In 1849, after graduation from medical school. She decided to further her education in Paris. She wanted to be a surgeon(外科医师) , but a serious eye problem forced her to give up the idea.

    Upon returning to the United States, she found it difficult to start her own practice because she was a woman. By 1857 Elizabeth and her sister, also a doctor, along with another woman doctor, managed to open a new hospital, the first for women and children Besides being the first woman physician and founding her own hospital , she also set up the first medical school for women.

    If you find yourself checking your phone first thing in the morning, if you find you're text-messaging while driving, checking your phone instead of working on an important assignment—you are addicted.

    Don't worry. The new NoPhone might be just the thing you need. It looks and feels exactly like a smartphone, but it does nothing. It's just a piece of plastic that you can carry around in your hand to fool yourself.

    NoPhone is currently a prototype(手机模型) that will cost only $12 once it hits the market. Its makers are trying to raise $30,000 in order to cover the production and marketing costs.

    Dutch designer Ingmar Larsen, who helped create the NoPhone, said that he had the idea as a joke along with his friends Van Gould and Ben Langveld. To their great surprise, the idea received a lot of attention online and people from all over the world started placing requests for NoPhone of their own, so that's when the three friends decided to raise money for mass production.

    David H said," I used to sleep with my phone in my hand, but my night terrors would cause me to throw it across the room in an unconscious panic. With the NoPhone, I can still enjoy the comfort of holding a phone in my sleep, without waking up to a broken screen, thanks, NoPhone."

    If you're interested in NoPhone, but concerned about not being able to take selfies anymore, don't worry. The makers do have an update at no extra charge—the mirror sticker. That way, they say, you can enjoy "real-time" selfies with your friends when they're standing right behind you.

In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the center of psychology research and theory.

Since then, thousands of studies and hundreds of books have been published with the goal of increasing well-being and helping people lead more satisfying lives. But for over 40 years, self-reported measures of happiness have stayed stagnant (停滞的). Such efforts to improve happiness have been an ineffective attempt to swim against the tide, as we may actually be programmed to be dissatisfied most of the time. Why aren't we happier?

Part of the problem is that happiness isn't just one thing. Jennifer Hecht, a philosopher who studies the history of happiness, proposes that we all experience different types of happiness, which are not necessarily complementary Some types of happiness may even conflict with one another. In other words, having too much of one type of happiness may weaken our ability to have enough of the others. For example, a satisfying life is built on a successful career and a good marriage. It takes a lot of work and often requires cutting back on many of life's pleasures. That means we can't spend one pleasant lazy day after another in the company of good friends.

This difficult situation becomes more confused by the way our brains process the experience of happiness. A lot of evidence shows that most of the people possess something called the optimistic bias. They tend to think that their future will be better than the present.

Cognitive psychologists have also identified something called the Pollyanna Principle. It means that people process, rehearse and remember pleasant information more than unpleasant information. Why the good old days seem so good is because we focus on the pleasant stuff and tend to forget the unpleasantness. And if our past is great and our future can be even better, then we can work our way out of the unpleasant present.

Dissatisfaction with the present and dreams of the future are what keep us motivated. In fact, endless happiness would completely destroy our will. Among our earliest ancestors, those who were perfectly content may have been left in the dust.

Recognizing that happiness exists may help us appreciate it more when it arrives. Furthermore, understanding that it's impossible to have happiness in all aspects of life can help us enjoy the happiness that has touched us. Recognizing that no one "has it all" can cut down on the one thing that psychologists know prevents happiness: envy.