On Saturday my Catalan friend invited me to come along to a Calotada. Being from the UK, I had no idea what this would need, but he promised me it was a fun Catalan(卡塔兰)tradition, and so I agreed to go. I wasn't disappointed!

First, we took a train out to a small town near Tarragona, about an hour away from Barcelona centre. I was already amazed by how different everything looked from the city as the train rushed through small towns, all sitting on the coastline.

When we arrived, we were greeted by the sight of a small wind instrument band and about a dozen people dancing in a circle. While my friend later told me that it is a traditional Catalan dance called La Sardana, at the time I was totally confused at what I was seeing! It seemed so strange but yet so lovely that they were doing this dance completely for themselves.

Once we had been fully entertained by the dancers, we finally went inside for the Calotada and it was soon revealed to me what it actually was. We sat down at the table and a huge plate of leeks(大葱)was placed in front of us. It was explained to us that you have to peel the leeks with your fingers, dip them in a (delicious!) sauce and eat them. This sounds easier than it was.

    My friend had been right in the end, it had been an extremely fun day and it felt great to get involved in a local tradition of a place I am temporarily calling home. It really inspired me to learn more about the Catalan culture, although hopefully next time it will be something less messy!

    One of the greatest sources of unhappiness, in my experience, is the difficulty we have in accepting things as they are.

    When we see something we don't like, we wish it could be different. We cry out for something better. That may be human nature, or perhaps it's something ingrained(根深蒂固的) in our culture. The root of the unhappiness isn't necessarily that we want things to be different. However, it's that we decided we didn't like it in the first place. We've judged it as bad, rather than saying, "It's not bad or good, and it just is it."

    In one of my books, I said "You should expect people to mess up and expect things to go differently than you planned". Some readers said it's too sorrowful to expect things to go wrong. However, it's only negative if you see it as negative and judge it as bad. Instead, you could accept it as the way the world works and try to understand why that is.

    This can be applied to whatever you do: how other people act at work, how politics works and how depressing the news media can be. Accept these things as they are, and try to understand why they're that way. It will save you a lot of sadness, because you'll no longer say, "Oh. I wish bad things didn't happen!"

    Does it mean you can never change things? Not at all. But change things not because you can't accept things as they are, but because you enjoy the process of changing, learning and growing.

    Can we make this world a better place? You can say that you'll continue to try to do things to help others, to grow as a person, to make a difference in this world. That's the correct path you choose to take, because you enjoy that path. Therefore, when you find yourself judging and wishing for difference, try a different approach: accept, and understand. It might lead to some interesting results.

    When John was growing up, other kids felt sorry for him. His parents always had him weeding the garden, carrying out the garbage and delivering newspapers. But when John reached adulthood, he was better off than his childhood playmates. He had more job satisfaction, a better marriage and was healthier. Most of all, he was happier. Far happier.

    These are the findings of a 40-year study that followed the lives of 456 teenage boys from Boston. The study showed that those who had worked as boys enjoyed happier and more productive lives than those who had not. "Boys who worked in the home or community gained competence（能力）and came to feel they were worthwhile members of society, " said George Vaillant, the psychologist（心理学家）who made the discovery. "And because they felt good about themselves, others felt good about them."

    Vaillant's study followed these males in great detail. Interviews were repeated at ages 25, 31and 47. Under Vaillant, the researchers compared the men's mental-health scores with their boyhood-activity scores. Points were awarded for part-time jobs, housework, effort in school, and ability to deal with problems.

    The link between what the men had done as boys and how they turned out as adults was surprisingly sharp. Those who had done the most boyhood activities were twice as likely to have warm relations with a wide variety of people, five times as likely to be well paid and 16 times less likely to have been unemployed. The researchers also found that IQ and family social and economic class made no real difference in how the boys turned out.

    Working—at any age—is important. Childhood activities help a child develop responsibility, independence, confidence and competence—the underpinnings（基础）of emotional health. They also help him understand that people must cooperate and work toward common goals. The most competent adults are those who know how to do this. Yet work isn't everything. As Tolstoy once said, "One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one's work."

    Being an astronaut sounds cool, doesn't it? In space, they get to do some pretty amazing things, like floating (漂浮) in zero gravity(重力).

    However, there are also plenty of things that astronauts can't do because of their weightless environment(环境), and that's very sad. What's worse, they can't even let their sadness show -because it's impossible to cry in zero gravity.

    Of course, astronauts can still produce tears. But crying is much more difficult in space, reported The Atlantic in January. Without gravity；tears don't flow downward out of the eyes like they do here on Earth. This means that when you cry in space, your tears have nowhere to go — they just stick to your eyes.

    In May 2011, astronaut Andrew Feustel experienced this during one of his spacewalks. "Tears," he said, "don't fall off your eye...They just kind of stay there."

    Besides making your vision(视觉) unclear, this can also cause physical pain. Back on Earth, tears are supposed to bring comfort to the eyes. But that's not the case in space. The space environment dries out astronauts' eyes, and when tears suddenly wet the eyes, it can cause pain rather than comfort. "My right eye is painful like crazy." Feustel told his teammate during the walk.

    Since gravity doesn't work in space, astronauts need some extra help to get rid of the tears. Feustel chose to rub his eyes against his helmet to wipe the tears away. Another choice is to just wait — "When the tears get big enough they simply break free of the eye and float around," astronaut Ron Parise told The Atlantic.

    There are lots of small things — things like crying — that we are so used to on Earth, we usually take them for granted, until they become a problem in a totally different environment, like space. There, astronauts can't talk to each other directly. They also can't eat or drink in normal ways. They can't even burp (打嗝), because there is no gravity to hold the food down in their stomach. If they do burp, they just end up throwing up (呕吐) everything in their stomach, according to the UK National Space Center.

    Thus, perhaps it's only space explorers who can honestly say, "Gravity, you're the best."

    Dyeing eggs has long been an Easter tradition, but it's the dyeing of baby chicks that is upsetting in some states.

    The dye, which is often ordinary food coloring, is either injected into eggs being hatched or sprayed onto newly hatched chicks. Although hatchery owners say the practice is harmless, critics argue that spraying the birds with color is stressful and that dyeing the animals transforms them into something attractive that can be thrown away when their colorful feathers disappear.

    “These are living creature and dyeing them sends out a message saying that they are more of a new and unusual object than a living animal,” said Dr. Marc Copper, senior scientific manager for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Dyed chicks — and sometimes rabbits — have been a traditional part of the Easter holiday in some parts of the world, but the practice has gone largely underground in the U.S. because many people view it as cruel.

    Today, about half of U.S. states ban the dyeing of animals, but last month the Florida Legislature passed a bill to remove the state's 45-year-old ban. The drive to end the law wasn't related to Easter chicks; it was done at the request of a dog groomer(美容师) who wanted to enter pet beauty contests.

    Florida governor Rick Scott must agree to remove the ban, which would be lifted July 1, but the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida(ARFF) has asked him not to remove the ban. In addition to allowing animals dyeing, the law would also lift a ban on selling baby animals as pets, and the organization fears that next year the state could see hundreds of dyed baby chicks on the market.

As long as the dye is not poisonous, experts say the birds' health isn't affected, and there are scientific reasons to dye animals. Wildlife researchers often inject eggs with dye to track birds in the wild, and teachers have dyed chicks for educational purposes. However, animal advocates are quick to point out that dyeing baby chicks for Easter isn't educational — it's done simply to earn profits.

    Body language is the quietest, secretest and mostpowerful language of all! It is said that our body movements communicate about 50 percent of what we really mean while words only express 7 percent. So, while your mouth is closed, your body is just saying...

    Arms. How you hold your arms shows how open and receptive you are to people you meet. If you keep your arms to the sides of your body or behind your back, this suggests you are not afraid of taking on whatever comes your way. Outgoing people generally use their arms with big movements, while quieter people keep them close to their bodies. If someone upsets you, just cross your arms to show you're unhappy!

    Head. When you want to appear confident, keep your head level. If you are a monitor in class, you can also take on this position when you want your words to be taken seriously. However, to be friendly in listening or speaking, you must move your head a little.

    Legs. Your legs tend to move around a lot more than normal when you are nervous or telling lies. If you are at interviews, try to keep them still!

    Posture (姿势). A good posture makes you feel better about yourself. If you are feeling down, you normally don't kit straight, with your shoulders inwards. This makes breathing more difficult, which can make you feel nervous or uncomfortable.

    Mouth. When you are thinking, you often purse your lips. You might also use this position to hold back an angry comment you don't wish to show. However, it will probably still be noticed, and people will know you're not pleased.

    Face. When you lie, you might put on a false face. But that expression would crack briefly, allowing displays of true emotions such as happiness, sadness, disgust(厌恶)and fear to come through.