Jamie is much better. All that rest this weekend paid off. He went to school today and is almost caught up on make-up work from last month. Craig did go snowboarding and had a blast! He was very sore this morning, but had no trouble getting up and going to school.
Anyway, it's Monday, so the topic is movies! Not a lot of time for movies this past week. We watched one over the course of two weeknights (can't stay up late enough to watch a complete movie on a school night!) and one on Saturday night. I was too sick to stay up Friday night. So, two enjoyable movies:
- In the Valley of Elah. An excellent movie starring Tommy Lee Jones as the father of a young man who recently returned from Iraq. He gets a call when his son goes AWOL shortly after returning to the US. He heads to the base in North Carolina to look for him. It's a suspenseful mystery, but it's also about the horrors of war, this war in particular.
- Bourne Ultimatum. This one was for pure entertainment. Ken and I both read all the Bourne books years ago and enjoy the movie adaptations. We - once again - started this movie and wondered if we'd already seen it. I think we can be forgiven for this one, though, since there've been three of these movies! We hadn't seen it before, and it was good, action-packed, high-suspense fun, just like the first two.
I've seen "In the Valley of Elah" twice because, having watched it alone, I knew my husband would like it. It was even better the second time because I knew the story and so could just enjoy the acting and the well-written script (the latter is such a rarity these days). I'm glad you liked it too.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you need several "down" days in a row so you can bounce back from your busy holidays.
Rest up, Sue!
I liked the Bourne trilogy too. Very slick and suspenseful. I'll look out for the Valley of Elah. Our TV signal isn't very good here so I shall probably rent some DVDs.
ReplyDeleteYeah - you are terrible for overdoing it! Remember the 80% rule, or spoon theory. You need 20% in reserve i.e two spoons out of ten, for recovery. I know that's a bit rich coming from me, but it takes one to know one! I say it too - rest up Sue!
Ha ha - you're right, Jo! And I'm certainly better at giving advice than doing the right thing myself, so I can relate!
ReplyDeleteI think last Thursday, I not only left NOTHING in reserve, I was using up energy I didn't even have to begin with.
A little better today - well, a lot better than yesterday - and I will try not to overdo!
Sue
BREAKING NEWS: Breakthrough made in Diagnosing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Japanese researchers report
ReplyDeleteJanuary 11, 2010
[Note: The following press release was distributed Jan 11 via from the Japanese news site Daily Yomiuri Shimbun. We have not yet identified a journal article or other publication further detailing the study.*]
Researchers have discovered a protein in blood that can be used to diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome, a breakthrough that could help detect the ailment during physical checkups.
There are diagnostic criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome - a disorder involving extreme fatigue of unknown cause that continues for at least six months - that rely primarily on subjective symptoms, but there have been no objective markers such as blood tests.
The research team led by Hiroshi Kiyama, a professor of anatomy [in the Graduate School of Medicine] at Osaka City University, examined the intermediate lobes of the pituitary glands of rats in which they induced extreme fatigue by making them exercise for five consecutive days. They found that the lobes excreted extraordinarily high amounts of a protein called alpha-MSH and that alpha-MSH levels in the animals' blood also increased.
The neurotransmitter dopamine inhibits the secretion of alpha-MSH, but the rats' ability to produce dopamine declined as their fatigue grew.
The group also tested the levels of alpha-MSH in the blood of 57 people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and the blood of 30 healthy people.
The average level among the 37 people who had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome less than five years before was about 50 percent higher than in the healthy people.
Source: Daily Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan) press release Jan 11, 2009
* For abstracts of past reports by Hirosi Kiyama and colleagues involving alpha-MSH, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Kiyama%20H%22%5BAuthor%5D%20alpha-MSH