When asked about happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary, an absolute delight, which seems to get rarer the older we get.

For kids, happiness has a magical quality. Their delight at winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved (毫无掩饰的).

    In the teenage years the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it's conditional on such things as excitement, love and popularity. I can still recall the excitement of being invited to dance with the most attractive boy at the school party.

    In adulthood the things that bring deep joy—love, marriage, birth—also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. For adults, happiness is complicated (复杂的).

    My definition of happiness is “the capacity for enjoyment”. The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It's easy to overlook the pleasure we get from the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, and even good health.

    I experienced my little moments of pleasure yesterday. First I was overjoyed when I shut the last lunch-box and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the kids and my husband come home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day.

    Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a mix of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I don't think that my grandmother, who raised 14 children, had much of either. She did have a network of close friends and family, and maybe this what satisfied her.

    We, however, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we've got to have. We're so self-conscious about our “right” to it that it's making us miserable. So we chase it and equal it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren't necessarily happier.

    Happiness isn't about what happens to—it's about how we see what happens to us. It's the skillful way of finding a positive for every negative. It's not wishing for what we don't have , but enjoying what we do possess.

    The technology is great. Without it we wouldn't have been able to put a man on the moon, explore the ocean's depths or eat microwave sausages. Computers have revolutionized our lives and they have the power to educate and pass on knowledge. But sometimes this power can create more problems than it solves.

    Every doctor has had to try their best to calm down patients who've come into their surgery waving an Internet print-out, convinced that they have some rare incurable disease, say, throat cancer. The truth is usually far more ordinary, though: they don't have throat cancer, and it's just that their throats are swollen. Being a graduate of the Internet “school” of medicine does not guarantee accurate self-health-checks.

    One day Mrs. Almond came to my hospital after feeling faint at work. While I took her blood sample and tried to find out what was wrong, she said calmly, “I know what's wrong；I've got throat cancer. I know there's nothing you doctors can do about it and I've just got to wait until the day comes.”

    As a matter of routine I ordered a chest X-ray. I looked at it and the blood results an hour later. Something wasn't right. “Did your local doctor do an X-ray?” I asked. “Oh, I haven't been to the doctor for years,” she replied. “I read about it on a website and the symptoms fitted, so I knew that's what I had.”

    However, some of her symptoms, like the severe cough and weight loss, didn't fit with it—but she'd just ignored this.

    I looked at the X-ray again, and more tests confirmed it wasn't the cancer but tuberculosis (肺结核)—something that most certainly did need treating, and could be deadly. She was lucky we caught it when we did.

    Mrs. Almond went pale when I explained she would have to be on treatment for the next six months to ensure that she was fully recovered. It was certainly a lesson for her. “I'm so embarrassed,” she said, shaking her head, as I explained that all the people she had come into close contact with would have to be found out and tested. She listed up to about 20, and then I went to my office to type up my notes. Unexpectedly, the computer was not working, so I had to wait until someone from the IT department came to fix it. Typical. Maybe I should have a microwave sausage while I waited?

    The booking notes of the play “Sherlock”

    Price: $10

    BOOKING

    There are four easy ways to book seats for the performance:

    in person

    The Box Office is open from Monday to Saturday, 10 am—8pm

    by telephone

    Ring 01324976 to reserve your tickets or to pay by credit card (Visa and MasterCard).

    by post

    Simply complete the booking form and return it to Box Office.

    --online

    Complete the online booking form at www.Satanfiedtheatre.com.

    DISCOUNTS:

    Saver: $2 off any seat booked any time in advance for performances from Monday to Thursday. Saver s are available for children up to 16 years old, over 60s and full-time students.

    Supersavers: half-price seats are available for people with disabilities and one companion. It is advisable to book in advance. There is a maximum of eight wheelchair spaces available and one wheelchair space will be held until an hour before the show.

    Standby: best available seats are on sale for $6 from one hour before the performance for people suitable for Saver and Supersaver discounts and thirty minutes before for all other customers.

    Group Booking: there is a ten percent discount for parties of twelve or more.

    School: school parties of ten or more can book $6 standby tickets and will get every tenth ticket free.

    Please note: we are unable to exchange tickets or refund money unless a performance is cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.

    The China Daily newspaper group is looking for English-language senior business editors, senior copy editors, copy editors and graphic designers to strengthen its international team. We offer a competitive salary package, free and practical accommodation paid for, 90 percent medical assistance, a seven-day paid leave, eleven-day public holidays and a return ticket to the country of residence(住房).

    Senior Business Editor

    You must: assist the business editor in setting goals and working on achieving them; be an excellent team person who can generate ideas and think creatively and be able to rewrite totally if needed and mentor junior staff; ideally have been working or have worked in a position of responsibility and understand what leadership entails; have had at least five years' editing experience working on editing the Business Desk and be familiar with industry software.

    Senior Copy Editor

    You must: work on shifts in the Business Desk and usually have the last word before the page is sent to print; edit or rewrite copy and give snappy headlines and captions; have had at least two years' editing experience working on editing desks and be familiar with industry software.

    Copy Editor

    You must: be good at editing or rewriting copy and writing snappy headlines and captions; be able to work on shifts for different pages, and usually have the last word before the page is sent to print; have two years of editing experience working on copy desks, and be familiar with industry software.

    Graphic Designer

    You must: have excellent skills in information graphics; be good at illustrations(插图) and freehand drawings; be experienced in newspaper or magazine design; have a good sense of typography(活版印刷术); have good news judgment; be well-versed with Macintosh software, including InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop; be fluent in English.

For enquiries or to apply, write to job@chinadaily.com.cn.

    On Saturday evening, CCTV showed a computer-generated image of the Chang'e 3 lander's path as it approached the surface of the moon, saying that during the landing period it needed to have no contact with Earth. As it was just hundreds of meters away the lander's camera broadcast images of the moon's surface.

    The Chang'e 3's solar panels, which are used to absorb sunlight to generate power, opened soon after the landing. The mission blasted off (发射) from southwest China on Dec. 2 on a Long March-3B carrier rocket. It is named after a mythical Chinese goddess of the moon and the “Yutu” rover vehicle, or “Jade Rabbit” in English, afternoon the goddess' pet.

    China's military-backed space program has made much progress in a relatively short time, although it is behind the United States and Russia in technology and experience. China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the United States to achieve manned space travel independently. In 2006, it sent its first probe (探测器) to the moon. China plans to open a space station around 2020 and send an astronaut to the moon after that.

    “They are taking their time with getting to know about how to fly humans into space, how to build space stations, how to explore the solar system, especially the moon and Mars. They are making big advancements, and I think over the next 10-20 years they'll certainly be matching Russia and America in this area and maybe overtaking them in some areas.”