Hello again and welcome back to happy hour. We're already in January 2019. But I guess for a lot of people in China, it still feels more like the end of the year rather than beginning of one. Because we still have Chinese New Year to look forward to.
If you ask people to use one key word that describes their life at the end of the year, I'm pretty certain that an overwhelming majority of people will tell you the word is tiredness or exhaustion.
So in today's episode, let us focus on feeling tired. For most people, the end of the year is often a very busy time. No matter if you're working for a company organization, if you are a stay at home parent, a student, or even if you are retired, we always seem to have a lot more on our plate. Many people need to deal with a lot more overtime and they have to cope with heavy workload. workload l-o-a-d (工作量). So they have to work a lot. Apart from the actual work, you also have to attend the company annual party and also lots of banquets. Party is where you have to put on performances, and banquets is mostly just eating and drinking.
It sounds like fun, but it still takes a lot of energy out of you and students have to put up with exams. And since most people nowadays live far away from their original home town, many of you might be preparing for your trip home. And in general, everyone is doing something to prepare for Chinese New Year. All of us at one point or another would say, I'm so tired, but apart from the word tired and exhausted, what else can we say? And what do native speakers usually use when they feel exhausted?
I often find it very interesting that in a language you tend to have so many different ways to say how tired you are. In Chinese, we have 累趴下了，累垮了，累废了，we say 身体被掏空。In English, it's the same, apart from tired and exhausted you can simply say I'm beat b-e-a-t. Now to beat someone can mean to win against or to destroy someone. So I'm beat basically means the exhaustion has won, I am completely destroyed by the exhaustion. 被疲劳打败的感觉。I'm beat. If your friends ask you to go out you can say I don't think I can, I'm pretty beat today.
And in British English they have a specific word knackered, although they pronounce it differently. K-n-a-c-k-e-r-e-d knackered, when a British person says I'm knackered it means I'm exhausted. The word can also mean something is broken. So essentially you're so tired, you're broken.
In Chinese, we have 身体被掏空，in English, you have similar words. You use the word drain. To drain usually means to dry up something, to let the water out or let the energy out. So I am drained. It means all the energy has escaped from my body. So I'm drained. In addition to beat, knackered and drained, you can also use some phrasal verbs. You can say I'm worn out, worn out w-o-r-n, the word is originally wear, like to wear clothes. When we describe a piece of clothes as worn out, it means they're too old; we need to throw them away; we can no longer wear them. But when you describe yourself as worn out, it means you're like an old piece of clothes. You no longer look good. You are of no use anymore.（被累废了）
Similarly we have burned out, burned out. It's quite easy to understand burnout, because we burn our energy and when the energy is completely burnt out, you're exhausted. I feel burned out（经历燃尽耗尽）。We can put the word burn and the word out together to make a noun: burnout. We can say occupational burnout, this means you been working for so long. You're under so much stress. You're sick and tired of your work. You're exhausted, occupational burnout职业倦怠。For instance, as a teacher teaching for the whole semester, you probably need to cope with occupational burnout.

Now to let you in on a little secret doing this show, I sometimes also feel burnout. And at times I would find it difficult to produce anything new. And it's usually the thought of all of you who support this show and like the show that really keeps me going. The word burn is also used in a very interesting expression, burning the candle at both ends. Usually when we burn candle, we burn one end. But if you burn candles at both ends, it will burn a lot faster. It means that doing too much work, but doing too many things altogether, and tire yourself out, you can say to your friend, you've got to stop burning the candle at both ends. You will make yourself ill. You've got to stop burning the candle at both ends. You will make yourself ill. 蜡烛两头烧，一般是指懒得太多的事情让自己精疲力竭。
If all of these are easily explained because in Chinese we have similar expressions, then let's look at some less obvious options, things that when you look at it, you might not be able to guess the meaning. To describe tiredness, we can also say I'm done. Done d-o-n-e, it means I'm finished. I can do no more 冲到极限了，再也动不了了. I'm done. After you finish a big project, you can say, I'm done. I cannot do anymore.
You might also say I'm spent. The word spend like spend money and you say I'm spent with a "t", it means it's almost like you exhaust it yourself. You spend all of your energy on doing things. So now you are spent. 给累毁了 I'm spent. In English slang(在俚语里), you can also say I'm flagging， the word flag f-l-a-g. In this slang expression, when you say I'm flagging, I'm starting to flag. It means I'm starting to feel exhausted. I'm starting to feel tired. 差不多快没劲头了. Sometimes we go out with friends at eleven o'clock, they say, oh, let's go karaoke! And you say, well, I'm starting to flag. I think I'll just head home. I'm starting to flag or I'm flagging.
One more expression, which is probably very relevant to holiday experience, since we eat a lot during holidays, have you ever had experience of eating so much that after eating you wanna do nothing? You just wanna lie there and trying to breathe. This is called a food coma, c-o-m-a 食物昏迷 food coma. It means you've eaten too much. You simply cannot do anything. You just wanna lie there. For instance, you can say I slipped into a food coma after the big meal. I slipped into a food coma after the big meal. 陷入食物昏迷.
All of these that we have just covered are very useful and very very common day to day spoken language. But when you read, you might also see the word fatigue, f-a-t-i-g-u-e, this also means tiredness, but it's usually used in written language and also relating to medical language. 医学上的疲劳一般叫做 fatigue.
There is something called chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS, 慢性疲劳综合症。Now here are some of the symptoms and let's see if you have it. People with chronic fatigue syndrome usually suffer loss of memory or concentration. You find it difficult to remember things or concentrate, prolonged period exhaustion, always feeling tired, sore throat, joint and muscle pain （关节和肌肉疼痛）, headache and unrefreshing sleep. unrefreshing sleep means after a night of sleep you still don't feel refreshed. You still feel exhausted睡醒后仍然感觉疲倦。
If you hit all the markers, you might just have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And there are a few things you can do to combat that. You can maintain a balanced diet, don't over eat or skip meals, try to give your body enough time to unwind, to relax before going to bed. Avoid sedentary lifestyle. Sedentary means you don't move to avoid sedentary lifestyle and increase physical activity. And most importantly, try to maintain work life balance and address work concerns, work life balance工作生活的平衡. In short, don't overwork. If you are worried about anything, if you're feeling unhappy about anything that happened at work, share it with your friends, with your family, face it instead of bottling it up inside.
In the end, there is one more word that is relating to tiredness and exhaustion. This is very much written language比较书面化的，this is the word weary, w-e-a-r-y weary. It's a bit like 疲倦或倦怠. Remember this is more written word. You can see it in poems, in literature 在文学里比较多见。
So to wrap it up, I think by the end of the day, we can't avoid feeling tired and exhausted sometimes, maybe all we need when we feel like that is for someone to listen and for someone to understand. So we finished today with an old classic. The name of the song I would like to share with you is Carry On My Wayward Sun. 可能很多美剧 supernatural的粉丝会觉得这首歌很熟悉，这就是这部剧的一个主题曲。In the song, in the beginning you will hear: Carry On My Wayward Sun for there will be peace when you're done. Lay your weary head to rest. Now, don't you cry no more.

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