Here`s some discouraging information for at least two groups of people:
Those who are night owls rather than early birds and those who aren`t overly thrilled about the concept of work.If you belong to both groups, it might be a good idea to skip this item.
First, a psychologist at Texas Tech University took a look at the academic records of 1,950 high school and college students and found that
”morning people”–those who were up and at `em and at their best in the a.m.–got the best grades.
Unfortunately, people who are most alert in the afternoon or at night probably won`t help themselves by going to bed earlier. Julian Biggers, who reported on his study in Self magazine, says this doesn`t seem to work because our alertness peaks are controlled by internal body clocks and body temperatures. One solution is to schedule your most important mental activities when you`re at your best. Night school maybe?
Second, a job-placement consultant says workaholics are just what many companies are looking for. ”A job seeker should be prepared to state convincingly that his or her style is not 9-to-5 and be able to prove it,”
said James Challenger, president of Chicago`s Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
(Then again, a recent survey found that more than half of business executives endorsed the eight-hour day as the best for achieving maximum efficiency and productivity.)
AGING CYCLES
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Americans, we are told repeatedly, are getting older. As a population, that is. (It goes without saying that you and I are aging by the minute.)
Yet another indication of this trend is the graying of the bicyclist. The Bicycle Federation of America proclaims that ”adult cyclists now outnumber child cyclists for the first time since the turn of the century.”
Another ”significant” change, we learn, is that the wide-tire bicycles, which are called mountain, city or all-terrain bicycles, are ”rapidly becoming” the cycle of choice for older riders. ”Soon,” the federation predicts, ”the narrow-tire, drop handle-bar, lightweight bikes will be specialty items for racing and long-distance touring.”
POTPOURRI
If all the water from the five Great Lakes were dumped on the country`s 48 contiguous states, we`d all be in water 10 feet deep, which, if everybody had an inner tube, sounds like an excellent way to cool off this summer.
This fact, provided by National Geographic, illustrates the enormous size of these inland seas, which contain one-fifth of the surface fresh water on Earth and 95 percent of the U.S. total.
Another intriguing tidbit from the magazine: There`s an unusual rite that accompanies the death of a king of Nepal. ”A Brahman priest eats a piece of the cremated royal head and then rides away to India, never to return.”