「故事·听力」I Want To Sleep All The Time. Except At Night!
I Want To Sleep All The Time. Except At Night!
Hi! This is Laura. She’s writing this at about 2 am, and she already knows that tomorrow she’s going to feel horrible because of that fact. And that’s…pretty much the story of her life.
So, this is how things happen for her every day.
She has to wake up every morning around 7 am to go to school. Her parents are busy at this time getting ready for work, so they don’t usually wake her up – she’s meant to get up by herself. She’s quite used to setting her own alarms, but over the last few months, Laura’s started having problems with getting out of bed. She would set as many as five alarms and still sleep through all of them. She finds it hard to even blame herself, because she doesn’t even remember turning them off. Because of this, by the time she gets up, she’s usually already late.
Recently she bought herself an alarm clock that “runs away”. This will definitely work, she thought. But no! It would start ringing and “running away”, and she would chase it, turn it off and...go back to bed! Once, she even turned it off and fell asleep right on the floor!
So, back to her schedule. Laura then goes to school, where she can neither socialize nor concentrate, because she’s literally falling asleep all the time. And if a teacher puts on a documentary film in class and dims the light, you can be certain that she’ll be napping in the back when the class ends!
After school, Laura has to be real quick to get to her swimming practice. She swims almost every day, and it’s not just a hobby – she’s actually quite serious about it. She finished second in the one hundred meters race for her age group at the state swimming championships. But to succeed in sports you have to be in good shape, which also means getting enough sleep.
Anyway, she finishes her swimming practice around six and then takes a bus to another part of town, where she volunteers at the local animal shelter. She first learned about it about three months ago. The staff there take cats and dogs off the streets and give them food and shelter, and search for a home for them. The moment she read about it, she knew that she wanted to help. So now she does voluntary work at the shelter several times a week.
She gets home around eight-thirty, reheats the dinner her family has already eaten in the microwave, and sits down to do her homework. It takes about an hour and a half, and…
That’s where you might say: okay, so this is the point where you can go to sleep in order to wake up feeling well-rested in the morning. But there are a couple of problems with this idea. First of all…who wants to live like that? Laura is busy all day, so in the evenings she just wants to relax and watch a movie or a TV show…or some YouTube videos! Whatever she chooses to do, she needs some time for herself!
So, most of the time she goes to bed around 2 or 3 am, and in the morning it all starts over.
Okay, now Laura knows what you’re thinking. “Just give something up, so that you’re less busy and have more time to sleep!” But the thing is: she can’t give up any of the things she just told you about. Obviously, she has to go school; getting ready for the national swimming championships is a priority, and she can’t stop volunteering, as the shelter lacks staff and the animals need care. And in the end, giving up on writing – that is, giving up all of her free time, basically! – would be certain to drive crazy real fast!
She’s heard that there are people out there who can sleep five or six hours every night and still feel well – listen up, if you exist, Laura is seriously jealous. Because she needs eight hours or more to function and feel okay.
And, you see, the problem isn’t just losing concentration or feeling sleepy. When her problems started, she began to get sick way more often. The doctor told her that lack of sleep makes your immune system a lot weaker.
Also, there was a really awkward moment about two weeks ago. She was helping out at the shelter and she went to the storage room for some cat food. At one moment she felt so tired that she just had to sit down; she blinked one or two times…And the next thing she remembers is opening her eyes three hours later and having eleven missed calls from her mom and dad. And you can imagine what she usually hears when she calls back.
So she’s been thinking about her schedule for a while, but she still hasn’t figured out exactly what she ought to do. How can she get more sleep without giving anything up?
So if you guys have any experience with problems like this, please share your advice in the comments. And get enough sleep, as it’s really important!