a problem and how i solved it

   The problem that I am writing about, most likely happens to most of us, the problem I am writing about is that when I do my homework at night, I will always sleep. The process is always like this, my eyelids will start to feel heavy, and I will rest my head on my arm and try to do my homework, and then my mind will become blank as I have already fallen asleep, and for some unknown reason, whenever I have not finished my homework, I will suddenly wake up in the middle of the night to realise that I had fallen asleep and continue it, only to come back to school looking very tired. To make matters worse, we always come back late and when we come back, we feel like sleeping already after a long day in school.

In the past, my mother would tell me to splash water in my face but that does not work for me, also people say that after a shower they would feel more refreshed, however for me after a shower I will always feel like sleeping more, as I would be more relaxed after a shower and thus fall asleep easier. Another way to make me less sleepy, is to make me sit up and do my work instead of lying down and doing my work, although it does help me stay awake, after a while I will still fall asleep even if I sit up and do my work but at a later time compared to doing my work lying down.

Then when I got older my parents allowed me to drink coffee, but like the previous attempts it failed as for some strange reason instead of not being able to sleep, the coffee made me increasingly drowsy. The during my PSLE my mother gave me chocolates and sweets thinking that sugar will help me, but I think what made me stay awake was that my mother was beside me and did not allow me to fall asleep.

  I found out how to stay awake last year, accidentally when it was the June holidays and I had just returned from Malaysia, I decided to do my school homework that night, so I would not have to rush to finish my homework at the end of the holiday. I took a bulk of the homework even though I knew that I would not be able to finish it, but to tell myself that there is a lot more homework and that I need to get them down and not to stray off or daydream. When I was doing the homework, I felt hungry so I ate a stick of chewing gum which I bought in Malaysia. To my surprise I manage to finish the homework without even falling asleep halfway, when I thought about it, I realise it was the chewing gum that kept me awake as I was constantly chewing it and that kept me from falling asleep.

  To think that chewing gum would be the answer to my staying awake problem is incredible and great news. However it’s quite sad as chewing gum is not sold in Singapore!