I need my sleep.

SAN DIEGO, California (AFP) - – What starts with an "s" that seniors need more of than younger adults, is great to get a bit of in the middle of the day and could cause teens to turn to drugs if they don't get enough of it?

The answer is sleep, according to several studies presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) found that 68-year-old adults, on average, did better on a simple memory test if they got more sleep.

In younger adults, aged 27 years on average, the quality of sleep also affected how they performed on the same test.

"What mattered in the younger adults was sleep efficiency -- that the sleep was consolidated into one solid chunk," said Sean Drummond, a professor at UCSD's department of psychiatry who led the study, adding that sleeping soundly and uninterruptedly happens less and less frequently with age.

"The most common change in sleep as we age is you wake up in the middle of the night and you're awake for some time, meaning you have lower sleep efficiency," Drummond said.

"In the older adults what we found is that waking up in the middle of the night did not affect brain function or performance the next day but if a young adult did that, it had significant detrimental effects on brain function," he said.

Another study looked at the possible benefits of napping.

"Our question first was could you get the same benefits from a short daytime nap as a full night of sleep," said Sara Mednick, also from UCSD's department of psychiatry.

"We started looking over a number of different tests beginning with a visual learning test, which showed that if you had a 90 minute nap you showed the same level of benefit as a full night of sleep," Mednick said.

"There's something very special about naps," she said.

But not everyone has the luxury of being able to catch a few Zs in the middle of the day, and as a substitute, many seek a caffeine boost.

But a double espresso works less well than a 20-minute nap, said Mednick.

"On some tasks, such as those involving perceptual memory, caffeine works as well as a nap," said Mednick.

"But when the task involves the hippocampus, the area of the brain devoted to explicit memories you can manipulate consciously, such as learning a list of words or a phone number or name, with caffeine, your memory for those kinds of tasks is decreased," she said.

Meanwhile, another study found that "two significant clinical and public health problems, sleep disorders and drug use in teens" are closely inter-twined.

Not only are teens who sleep less than seven hours a day more likely to do drugs, but they are also likely to pass both their bad sleep and drug-use behavior to friends and siblings. Related article: Study links lack of sleep to drug use among teens

"An adolescent who does not get enough sleep can influence a friend's sleep behavior, which increases the risk that the friend will use drugs," the study says.

Researchers at UCSD and Harvard University found that teens with a friend who sleeps less than seven hours a night are 11 percent more likely to sleep less than seven hours themselves and 19 percent more likely to use marijuana than teens whose friends get a good night's kip.

The US National Sleep Foundation recommends that teens get at least 8.5 hours of sleep and that adults, both younger and older, get at least seven hours.

The study was the first to find that poor sleep habits and drug use spread through teenagers' social networks "like a contagion," extending to up to four degrees of separation -- or to friends of friends of friends of friends.

My Way

And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and ev'ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

I've loved, I've laughed and cried
I've had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way,
"Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way"

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!

[instrumental]

Yes, it was my way

CNY 2010

Another year has come and gone. These shelves that were just standing against the wall were finally put up.

It was something I told myself I must do this year, amongst many other things. Chinese New Year is a welcomed break to the monotony of things, of life. More than just the food, ang baos, gathering and time off, it was, in itself, a harbinger of getting things in order and changes to come.

Change, however, occurs when Man makes it. All the promises of change amounts to nothing if we do not carry it out. At the last day of CNY, I have not made any changes except this wall and these shelves. I am still not in order, nor those other areas of my life.

Whoever is it that said that the only constant in life is change? Haven't you heard that nothing's changed?

Excuses

ex⋅cuse  /v. ɪkˈskyuz; n. ɪkˈskyus/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [v. ik-skyooz; n. ik-skyoos]

–noun
1. an explanation offered as a reason for being excused; a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or for release from an obligation, promise, etc.

2. a ground or reason for excusing or being excused.

3. the act of excusing someone or something.

4. a pretext or subterfuge.

5. an inferior or inadequate specimen of something specified.

EXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSESEXCUSES

Reflection

I am now writing my lesson reflections for the past weeks. The reflections include not only lesson preparations, it also includes lesson execution and any other aspects of day to day school life.

I was looking at my notes from the conferences with my mentors and remembered that for one of the lessons, my plans were horrible, with important information missing and timing all wrong.

I knew how it happened. I was writing it as I drifted in and out of consciousness. That is one of the reasons why I have not been submitting lesson plans on time. I keep falling asleep, either during my free time or while writing them.

When I was younger it didn't matter. I was proud of the fact that I could sleep anywhere. It was part of my ruggedness and I saw it as a mark of a man. Now that I am assuming the responsibilities of an adult and bear the consequences of tens of thousands of debt, it frightens me.

I know that fatigue, both mental and physical, is one of the symptoms of spherocytosis. It is only logical; there is consistently insufficient amount oxygen to go anywhere. I also have an inappropriate amount of blood waste in my body.

But I have not allowed it to impair my life. I took part in marathons and play sports regularly because I wanted to prove that I will not be handicapped. I am still sore from the fact that I was dropped from the air force and I want to show them that I am not affected by this little lack of blood.

But mentally it is taking its toll. Mental fatigue is far worse than physical fatigue. Its mark is in the state of somnolence. I cannot, for the sake of my life, keep myself awake. I have been fighting sleep for these weeks of practicum. Each night is marked by alternate half-hour periods of sleep and wakefulness. In the end, I go to work each day as if I had not slept the night before.

More importantly, my work is not getting done properly. Both the preparations and the execution. I seem to move around in a state of semi-consciousness, occasionally roused awake by people talking to me.

I wanted to tell this to the people I am working under. But I find myself unable to do so. I am worried that it is just a convenient excuse for my inefficiency. Even if it were true, it is not a valid excuse other than for them to ask me to leave the service, adding another fifty thousand to my mountain of debt.

I am also afraid that the day I acknowledge it as the reason for my uselessness, I would turn to it whenever I have trouble completing anything instead of trying my best.

I have stopped going to the doctors ages ago. They could do nothing but give me iron pills and vitamins. There is nothing much I could do about this except a splenectomy but that causes problems of its own.

Everything is taking a turn towards the worst. I never saw myself being this despondent, but it is happening. I never wanted to just let things go so much. In less serious cases, I feel like quitting this job and just taking the debt in my stride. In more serious cases, I just feel like letting things go, period. It isn't so much the job, though it is not an easy job, but the realisation that this problem might be with me no matter what I do.

I have to give myself credit. I do not just say fuck it and go work everyday not ready. I do not just give this as an excuse and not work. I try and I try and I try and I try.

But when do I stop trying?

雖然我願意

After a long search, I've finally found it.

You, being you, were and are still so beautiful.