Sunny Youth Journal

In literature, sayings, which are similar to dialogue, are used in numerous ways. It can be used to portray society, action, and religion, or used to further elaborate on an idea in the story. Amy Tan is an american author who mainly writes about Chinese mother-daughter relations. In her short story “Rules of The Game” she uses two main sayings to exaggeratedly portray Chinese tradition and action.

Here is a brief summary on Tan’s short story. There is a young Chinese girl called Waverly who lives on Chinatown with her parents and two brothers. One day, she decides to start playing chess, and over the period of a few days, she improves tremendously. Her mother also teaches her sayings. Waverly decides to attend at a competition a few weeks later, and in her mind, she thinks about her mother’s sayings. When her mother realizes that Waverly is starting to become famous and appear on news, her mom goes outside to brag and also makes her brother do more chores. Waverly gets extremely annoyed at her mom’s behavior, and her mom gets furious.

The first saying is how Waverly’s mother uses the concept “American Rules”. When her mom is looking through the chess book, the author describes it as, “She scanned the pages quickly, not reading the foreign English symbols…This American Rules” (Tan 3). Her mother truly does not understand the rule book, as it is foreign, and proceeds to call it american. This is because Waverly’s mother does not enjoy being seen as bad, hence always wants to be the best. She simply denies that it is because she is not fluent in English, but instead concludes that it is because that the rules were american. Additionally, when Waverly’s brother has to do more chores than her, they obviously complain, but her mother says that this, “Is new American rules [sic]” (Tan 4). Her mother obviously favors her daughter because she has become a master at chess, so she makes her do less chores. Instead of telling the honest truth, she tells her sons that it is a new American Rule. Since the mother thinks American rules are foreign, and bad, she assumes that her sons think the same. She is taking advantage of “American Rules” so that she is not blamed. Tan uses the “American Rules” to create something that the Chinese see as foreign, bad, or irrelevant.

The second saying is, “he not go against wind…[he] come from [sic].” (Tan 1). The saying means that one must not go against something, but rather go with it. This further simplifies down to go with the flow. Going with the flow helped her in chess in many ways. In the world of chess, go with the flow translates to adapting to your opponent’s moves. Do what flows best, what strikes the enemy best. As the situation changes, so does the “wind”, and one should move differently accordingly to their opponent. Tan portrays how Chinese tradition involves creating sayings to help people improve on different activities.

In conclusion, Amy Tan’s usage of sayings shape the way of how the reader sees Chinese tradition in this “made-up” story. “American Rules” is something, foreign, and “he not go against wind…[he] come from [sic].” is one of the many possible sayings used to help people succeed. The Chinese in this story are thought to enjoy being honored and also enjoy creating sayings to further elaborate certain doings.

Us humans have been in 2 worlds. One is where you are fully conscious, and you spend most of your time in. This is the world where you wake up, where you dress and eat, where you exercise and think, et cetera. This world is called reality. The other one is a world we enter mostly at night. In order to go to that world, you must go through a portal. For most people, their portal is a bed. Others it may be a couch. This world, the birthplace of dreams, is the world of sleep. What exactly is sleep? Scientifically defined, according to Google, “Sleep is a condition of body and mind such as that which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is relatively inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended.” Why is sleep important? Sleep is the brother of consciousness. Without consciousness there is no sleep, and without sleep there is no consciousness. Consciousness allows your mind to experience new things each and every day, while sleep works alongside consciousness and allows your mind to file out that day’s experiences throughout the system.

However, many people are sleep-deprived. This is major issue. Sleep deprivation is causing many people to have health-damaging conditions, sleep is important for a good mood, and good sleep means a good body. People need to obtain a sufficient amount of sleep every day.

First and foremost, poor sleep is a lot of times the reason why people are having some health conditions. For example, poor sleep is related to depression, and many teens have little sleep each day, which means teens are sometimes prone to depression. Other unaccustomed symptoms also may occur, such as headaches and drowsiness. The article “How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?” by Jade Wu illustrates, “Having an unstable schedule can cause daytime sleepiness one day and insomnia the next, which confuses both you and your body.” This means a lack of sleep is a major distraction to your body. This matters because people need decent quality time to fulfill their everyday needs and to-do’s.

Moreover, sleep is one of the determining factors of mood. If you have a good sleep, the next day you might have a great mood, and your attitude to everything will be much better. On the other hand, if one day you have poor sleep, the second day you might scream at someone and then start weeping. The text demonstrates, “A recent meta-analysis including over 1600 participants confirmed that sleep restriction is associated with poorer attention and thinking. We’ve known for decades that sleep deprivation disrupts mood.” This proves that a lack of sleep can often affect your temper, to yourself and to others. This is significant because other people are trying to live their normal day as well, and it is bad for unnecessary conflict.

Last but not least, sleep determines whether your body is benefiting or damaging. Poor sleep is linked to a higher body weight, while good sleepers tend to have healthier diets. Having good sleep minimizes your chances of getting heart disease or stroke. These are just some examples. The article “The Benefits of Slumber” mentions, “It affects growth and stress hormones, our immune system, appetite, breathing, blood pressure and cardiovascular health. Research shows that lack of sleep increases the risk for obesity, heart disease and infections.” This exhibits that sleep can affect many factors of health. This is vital because everyone needs to maintain a good physical condition in order to live a fit life.

Ultimately, people, young or old, need to keep track of the hours of sleep and have an adequate amount of rest time. They need to prevent harming conditions, gain a fine mindset and spirit, and maintain a healthy body. I encourage you to sleep a few hours more. “Sleep is the best meditation.”

Imagine you’re going through a very hard time in your life. You thought your life was perfect and on track but suddenly, something tragic happens. This is what happens to Amy Morin in her Ted Talk about “The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong”. When she was 23, she had an amazing life with a husband and a good job. However, her mother dies. This was already hard for her but years later, her husband dies too. After she fell in love again, her father-in-law also passed away. This devastated her and she was thinking about why she has to be unlucky, why her loved ones are all leaving. This is where she says how to get through something difficult, you can’t just go around it and avoid it, you need to go through it. To be mentally strong, you should also break your unhealthy habits. Having self-pity is one way that is bad for your mental health. You keep thinking about your bad luck instead of finding a solution to it. Another is having unhealthy beliefs of others. By thinking other people have control over you, you’re giving away your power. The third harmful belief is having unhealthy beliefs in the world. You think that the world owes you something because you work very hard but it doesn’t always mean that. Breaking your unhealthy habits may be hard but being strong and healthy mentally is the key to being successful, recovering from pain, and many other things.

According to Google, people, and many other ‘sources’, people need, on average, 8 hours of sleep. Maybe some sleepless students and adults need to finish their work and get less than the rest of us. But is that the case? Do we only need 8 hours of sleep? If not, do we need more, or even less?

Sleep is a crucial part of everyone’s day, it’s a part where you can rest you mind and body, and be at peace. Sleep deprivation will make your mind go blank, go slow, go “dull”, to put it mildly, and possibly give you dangerous diseases like Alzheimer’s and heart disease. And some advertisements, “You can only live seven days without sleep.”

8 hours seems like a long time, which it is, but not necessarily long enough for you mind to recover. The amount of sleep for people ranges due to their personal needs or problems. For babies and infants, they need 11-18 hours, 7-11 hours for teens, and 5-9 hours for seniors above the age of 65.

So, statistically, the average of all those hours is 12 hours, which is a very healthy amount of sleep, if I do say so myself. I try my best to get at least 10 hours of sleep on a school day, and 12 hours on weekends, so I partially fit in the “criteria”. But this just goes to prove that 8 is mainly in the range, but it’s still on the lower half of the spectrum for teens and children.

How much sleep does a person really need? What causes a person to be tired during the daytime? What happens when one doenst get the right amount of sleep that their body needs? We all know sleep is important for the health, well-being, and performance. A common misconception is that the average human being needs at least 8 hours of sleep everyday. This is not always the case.

On 2015, the National Sleep Foundation recommended that teens get up to 8 to 10 hours. For newborn babies, the “may be appropriate” range is from 11 to 18 hours. For seniors over 65, that range is from five to nine hours. As you can see the hours of sleep suggested varies. The amount of sleep you need depends on our body’s current needs, and generally depends on the person.

Not getting enough sleep can cause a person feel tired, exhausted, or fatigued. More symptoms include sore muscles, low energy, low motivation and mental depletion. Sleep deprivation disrupts your mood. It can trigger manic episodes with the bipolar disorder. It can even affect the microbiota that resides on or within human tissues.

This seems obvious, but sometime when a someone is sleepy, it is probably because they aren’t getting enough sleep in the nighttime. If you have ever fallen asleep during class, or on a very long car ride, then you might have a problem. This can be caused by something as simple as a bad sleep schedule, or it can be something worse like sleep apnea or narcolepsy. You can do many things to solve your excessive sleepiness, like sleeping earlier or consulting a doctor.

Getting enough sleep is very important for your health and mood. The amount of sleep needed is always different for anyone, and can change throughout your life. Keeping a consistent sleep schedule is very important and will help you get the best sleep that you need in life.

Sleep is one of the most essential thing you need in your life. Without sleep your mind will not be able to focus or function correctly, and you'll be in a bad mood. An average person should get 8 hours of sleep each day, but it varies on your age. 

It was said that a person can only survive 7 days without sleep. So basically, that means sleep's more important that food or water! Now to go in some of the consquences if you don't have enough sleep. First, for instance, you'll will not be able to focus very well during daytime. You won't be able to focus because your brain doesn't have the energy to function and work correctly. When you feel sleepy, that's because your brain need to rest after a day of working and thinking; when you don't get enough sleep, your brain will still carry that sleepyness to the next day. Another thing that will affect you if you don't sleep well is that you'll be in a bad mood and you'll be very easy to anger because people don't feel good when they're exhausted. What I mean by that is that, when someone said something that's kind of teasing you for example; on a normal day, you'll laugh when pretend that it's not that big of a deal, but when you're exhausted, you can't think really well and that will affect your day.

Overall, sleeping is really important, and you should treat it correctly and seriously in you life. Deprivation of sleep will allow your brain to not work and focus really well as well as being in a bad mood. The "balm of hurt minds" really matters in you life.

After reading “How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?” by Jade Wu Savvy I thought: “I didn’t learn anything from this”. The article fails to make a reasonable point and the logic is extremely. It started off by listing the common “stereotypes” about sleep, by saying that “’Dr. Google hasn’t examined me; how would she know how much sleep I need,’”. The article talks about how most sources claim that eight hours is a good recommendation for most people, which is supposedly wrong because different people have different needs. This is a fair point, and it uses the different amounts of water that athletes compared to normal people have to drink as an example. However later in the article, they go on the say that teens are recommended 8 to 10 hours of sleep. Although this range does have some variation, it is basically the same as saying “teens need about 8 hours of sleep”, which kind of just ignores its previous point. But to try and salvage the purpose of the article, later it states that toddlers need 11 – 18 hours and the elderly need only 5 – 9. The problem with this is that it is common knowledge, and does nothing to disprove the supposed stereotype about needing an average of 8 hours of sleep. Besides, it is contradictory to the previous point that different people need different sleep. When they used the athlete example, they compare people of roughly the same age. Therefore, assigning a predetermined answer to an age group is going against what it originally intended to debunk. Overall this article is a mess and wasn’t thought through very well.

There are a few things I have learned from watching this TedX Talk by Amy Morin. This speech is a motivational speech on how to become mentally strong. Although the goal is to become mentally strong, there are three different thoughts that can hold you back.

The first one is unhealthy beliefs about ourselves. This essentiallty means not being able to move on from a problem. Being stuck on a difficulty without moving on can make people depressed, stressed, and basically any bad mental state. Not just that, there will most likely be more adversities coming, so if you don’t get past your current one, more bad thoughts and stress may occur.

The second one is unhealthy beliefs about others. This is when you let other people take advantage of you. This may be good because you are submissive, but sometimes you can be oversubmissive, this means you rely on what others think about you. Most of the time, people do not think good things about you, and this can drag you down if you think about it too much.

The third and final thought that holds you back is unhealthy thoughts towards the world. Often times, good deeds are not rewarded. There is no such thing as Karma. Blaming the world for things that happen to you is not going to benefit you. Sometimes expecting more than you deserve can lead to disappointment.

In conclsuion to all of this, the secret to becoming mentally strong is to get rid of these bad mental habits. Of course, easier said than done. But if people can take time, this may be the solution. Needless to say, getting rid of bad mental habits may not be easy for everyone because it needs patience, because not many people have it.

Rules of the Game is about a girl, Waverly, who learns to play chess. The author applies the rules of chess to real-life situations because if you want to win, you have to observe and think about what to move or capture. In the story, Waverly is irritated at her mother for always saying: “This is my daughter.” One day, Waverly gets mad, asks her mom why does she have to say that, starts being really offensive, and, finally, runs away and comes home after two hours. Waverly’s mother always said: “The strongest wind [move] cannot be seen.” This phrase describes that a trap or punishment is always lurking around, but you first have to think and observe before you take action.

I think being careful and observant is important because if you decide to go somewhere dangerous, it may cost your life or something similar. Also, if you eat something without asking if you are allergic or what it is, the food may be poisoned or you may have sever allergy reactions.

Additionally, I think being careful around people may also save one a lot of trouble. If one accidentally gets angry or has a bad temper around others, they may get into big trouble.

First of all, invisible strength can help you. In Waverly’s case, it can help you win chess match after chess match until you become known nationwide. She uses her invisible strength to put “Sand in the Eyes of Advancing Forces” (3) because this way, her opponent would fall into a trap and she could have a better chance at winning. And she could do “Double [Killings] Without Blood” (3) and “Double [Attacks] from the East and West Shores” as well as many others too. I think this is a great way to out think your opponent, because they don’t know what trap they’ve fallen into until it’s too late. Waverly could’ve used her strength in a bad way, but she only used it in a chess game, which I think is all right. And, since she spends so much time learning and perfecting these tricks, it would’ve been sad if she didn’t get to use them in a real match.

Second of all, invisible strength can aid you in doing bad things. In the story, Waverly’s mother manipulates the shopkeepers to think that she wouldn’t do anything harmful so that she could, essentially, do something harmful. “When [Waverly’s] mother finished her shopping, she quietly plucked a small bag of plums from the rack and put it on the counter with the rest of the items” (1). I think this is very wrong. I mean, Waverly’s mother is an adult and should know that what she is doing is literally shoplifting. And… that’s not a good thing… And I think if Waverly’s mother was the protagonist of the story instead of Waverly, then her mother would’ve done a lot more bad things, like, for example, lying about not being able to afford some items and manipulating the shopkeepers into letting her get them for free by telling them a sad story or something to earn their pity.

There’s also something in between, because I can’t decide if it’s bad or good, or maybe a combination of both. Once, in real life, I was at a math camp. We had worksheets that contained ten problems each and we would do two every day (There’s a question sheet and an answer sheet). Eventually, I noticed that the girl sitting next to me always seemed to have the same answers as me and get the same problems right and the same problems wrong. I mean, it could be just a coincidence, right? I decided to find out. I acted really nice and let her sit next to me again for the second worksheet of the day. I figured out all the problems, then scribbled down a really close but completely wrong answer in big writing on the question sheet and even circled it for good measure. I pretended to be satisfied and then went on to write the actual correct answer on the answer sheet, the only sheet we have to turn in. I did this for the whole sheet… It turned out, it worked. I mean, I think it worked? That’s the good part. But this time her score was zero. The teacher actually pulled her into another room to talk about it. And that’s the part where it could be bad.

This shows that Invisible Strength can be used for both bad and good, no matter if it’s in a story or in real life. Waverly used it to cleverly win her chess games, her mother used it to steal plums from the local grocery store, while I used it to prevent someone from copying answers from me… and I hope you learned something from my writing and will use your invisible strength for good.