People can be addicted to different things, e.g. alcohol, drugs, certain foods, or even television. People who have such an addiction are compulsive, i.e they have a very powerful psychological need that they feel they must satisfy. According to psychologists, many people are compulsive spenders; they feel that they must spend money. This compulsion, like most others, is irrational-impossible to explain reasonably. For compulsive spenders who buy on credit, charge accounts are even more exciting than money. In other words, compulsive spenders feel that with credit, they can do anything. Their pleasure in spending enormous amounts is actually greater than the pleasures that they get from the things they buy.

    There is even a special psychology of bargain hunting. To save money, of course, most people look for sales, low prices, and discounts. Compulsive bargain hunters, however, often buy things that they don't need just because they are cheap. They want to believe that they are helping their budgets, but they are really playing an exciting game: when they can buy something for less than other people, they feel that they are winning. Most people, experts claim, have two reasons for their behavior: a good reason for the things that they do and the real reason.

    It is not only scientists, of course, who understand the psychology of spending habits, but also business people. Stores, companies and advertisers use psychology to increase business: they consider people's need for love, power, or influence, their basic values, their beliefs and opinions, and so on in their advertising and sales methods.

    Psychologists often use a method called “behavior therapy” to help individuals solve their personal problems. In the same was, they can help people who feel that they have problems with money.

    Thirteen-year-old American Jessica Goldstone wants to be a fashion designer when she finishes school. She thinks her designs would be more exciting than clothes bought from stores. But until this month, Jessica has never touched a sewing machine(缝纫机).

    After her first class, Jessica and six other girls aged 9 to 13 said that sewing was fun, cool and challenging.

    These students at Fabrics' Sew Fun class show that the sewing machine is becoming popular again.

    “There have been a lot of teens getting excited about sewing,” said a sewing company worker Donna Smith. “Some of them come from the Project Runway TV show,” she said. This TV show is an exciting weekly contest to make a great fashion designer. Every week one contestant (参赛者) fails the test and has to leave the contest.

    The number of people who joined sewing class summer camps grew by 10 percent this year. That's good news for companies that make sewing machines and publish sewing magazines. The Singer Sewing Company sold nearly 3 million sewing machines in the United States last year. This is about twice as many as in 1999.

    Sewing machines have been around for more than 150 years, but they have changed a lot since your grandmother was a girl.

    Spencer Carmel started sewing lessons after getting a sewing machine for her 11^th birthday. She has sewn a lot by hand, but she wants to make more difficult things. Spencer's class recently made hats.

    Another member of the class, Kelsey Oen, 9 years old, needed time to get used to her machine, but soon she could use it well. By the end of the class, Kelsey was happy and wearing her new hat.

    Rainy days don't have to get you down, a happiness expert has reported.

    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 says. 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 more sunny, 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 influence 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 believed that humans are actually very good at being able to get over tragedy(悲剧) 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 added 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.

Dear Mom and Dad,

    I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you. I have been very naughty and the school master is very angry with me. She is going to write to you. You must come and take me away from here. She does not want me in the school any longer. The trouble started last night when I was smoking a cigarette in bed. As I was smoking, I heard footsteps coming towards the room .I did not want a teacher to catch me smoking, so I threw the cigarette away. Unfortunately, the cigarette fell into the waste--paper basket. It caught fire.

    There was a curtain near the waste --paper basket. It caught fire too. Soon the whole room was burning. The master phoned the fire brigade. The school is a long way from the town and before the fire brigade arrived, the whole school was on fire. The master said that the fire was all my fault and I must pay for the damage. She will send you a bill for about a million dollars.

    I'm very sorry for this.

    Much love

Sarah

    Government in Tibet have denied the permanent( 永久的) closure of Mount Qomolangma National Nature Reserve.

    The announcement came after a report went viral online claiming the base camp of the world's highest mountain was "permanently closed due to heavy pollution" and caused a universal misunderstanding.

    Mount Qomolangma National Nature Reserve was set up in 1988. Covering an area of more than 33, 800 square km, it is home to one of the world's most weak ecosystems(生态系统).

    Kelsang, deputy director of the reserves administration, said ordinary tourists are allowed to visit areas around Rongpo Monastery, almost 5,000 meters above sea level. As for travelers who have a climbing permit, they can go to the base camp at an altitude of 5,200 meters. The mountaineering activities have been permitted by the regional forestry department.

    To conserve the environment surrounding Mount Qomolangma, China carried out three major clean-ups at an altitude of 5, 200 meters and above last spring, collecting eight tonnes of household wastes, human wastes and mountaineering trash. This year, the clean-up will continue, and the remains of mountaineering victims(受害者) above 8,000 meters will be centrally dealt  with for the first  time. Meanwhile, the number of people who stay at the base camp will be kept under 300.

Recently, there are 85 wildlife protectors in the reserve, and 1,000 herders have part-time jobs going around and cleaning up garbage.

These measures aim to strike a balance between various demands such as environmental protection, local poverty relief, mountaineering and education, said Wang Shen, county chief of Dingri at the mountain foot.

    Some people think going to the gym takes time and effort, it often hurts, and it can be extremely boring. Most weight-related exercises are a combination of sets and reps(几次几组). In order to see any significant change from any one exercise, it will probably need to be repeated six to eight times, for a minimum of three sets, for about three months: Then there's aerobics(有氧运动). For some, there's nothing more boring than endless miles spent running on a treadmill(跑步机).

    But what if there is a way to reduce the boredom of exercise while still getting a good workout? Luckily for us, there's virtual reality (VR).

"In the past, playing video games was a sedentary(久坐不动的) experience," says Jo Stauffer of the VR Heaitn-institute, but VR changes all of that. " Many VR games are played while standing In order to play properly, the players are forced to move around swinging their arms or using their legs. After an hour of this on a regular enough basis, it's not surprising, that many people unexpectedly find themselves a little fitter. There are already a number of virtual reality games which, deliberately or not, result in their player "getting a good sweat on" if played for enough time. For example, there's a music game which forces players to shadow box(做空拳攻防练习) in order to hit the notes—that's an upper-body workout.

    The benefit of VR has been noticed by one company. They want to take the whole experience into the gym. They are making a resistance machine, designed to be used in combination with a VR headset. Players challenge a virtual competitor in a series of games, which results in a 30-minute full-body workout. However, the cost of the equipment is expensive and there are safety concerns to be worked out, says J. P. Gownder from the consultancy Forrester.

    Although it's early days, for those: of us who struggle to overcome the boredom of exercise, a new solution could be coming. And a world where a person can exercise and have fun at the same time might be something that many people would want-virtual or not. So don't give up exercising.