Student with ‘Sleeping Beauty syndrome’

A student who can sometimes sleep for 22 hours a day has hit back at people who accuse her of being lazy. Rhoda Rodriguez-Diaz, 21, suffers with the rare Sleeping Beauty syndrome which, at its worst, has left her sleeping for up to three weeks, waking up only to eat junk food and go to the restroom. The condition got so bad that at one point she was kicked out of university for falling asleep during her exams, but has now been given a second chance.

She said: “Life goes on whilst I’m sleeping. Reality hits me when I wake up and realise I’ve missed like a week of my life. I feel a huge setback when it does happen. I miss out on so much. That’s the hardest part of it. It’s hard to explain to people where I have been. Because it’s so rare, a lot of people struggle to understand.”

Rhoda was dismissed from De Montfort University in Leicester last year after missing a number of coursework deadlines and half of her exams because she was asleep. It wasn’t until after she was kicked out that she finally got a diagnosis from a doctor in September.

Thankfully, the university acknowledged Rhoda’s ‘exceptional case’ and have allowed her to re-take her second year of studies.

Who wants to stay in a potato hotel?

A giant potato sculpture built to promote Idaho’s spud farmers is now being converted into the Big Idaho Potato Hotel, a single-room accommodation.

The Big Idaho Potato sculpture, which measures 28 feet long, 12 feet wide and 11-1/2 feet tall, was constructed by the Idaho Potato Commission to mark its 75th anniversary in 2012 and was taken on tour for seven years to promote the crop.

The steel, plaster and concrete sculpture was retired when the commission decided to build a Big Idaho Potato 2.0. Kristie Wolfe, who was on the Big Idaho Potato’s tour team, offered to put her expertise as a tiny house builder to use and convert the original sculpture into a single-room hotel.

The Big Idaho Potato Hotel has now been outfitted with insulation, a wood floor, electricity, running water, heating and air conditioning. The room is furnished with a queen-sized bed, two chairs and an antler chandelier.

The hotel is listed on Airbnb for $200 a night and reservations begin in late May.

Man sees Captain Marvel 116 times

A Wisconsin man said he broke a Guinness World Record — his fifth such accomplishment — by going to see Captain Marvel 116 times in the theatres.

Steve Ruppel of Weston said he has spent 12,268 minutes watching the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film, which stars Brie Larson as the titular hero, after discovering there was a Guinness record at stake.

He said he needed to go to at least 104 screenings to break the current record for most times seeing the same movie in the theatre, but he decided to make it 116 while collecting the evidence required by Guinness.

“To be official, I have to have certain pictures taken, like in front of a movie poster, and I need to have two written witness statements saying that I was actually there,” he said.

“So I’m trying to think, if anyone wanted to break this, I really don’t want to re-break it, cause this has been pretty tough. It’s been a finite amount of time, but I don’t think I’m going to try this one again.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 4th, 2019