december 4, 2000. I have a sudden, weak urge to sing "King of Pain" to myself. It's completely dark, the yard is full of thin snow and my husband has yet to come home from work. I've spent the last hour and a half fruitlessly trying to find photos of F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald online (I had a brief mad urge to type "F. Scott Fitzgerald photos naked" into the search engine, but that mercifully passed.) They were only photographed twice in their life, apparently. Drag. There's a little black spot on the sun today… I think it's time to eat dinner. later… One turkey sandwich later and I'm ready to hop & bop. Love that blood sugar. My day was kind of quiet. I'm not teaching until Thursday, which is nice because I only got 6 hours of sleep last night. It's amazing, really. During the heady days of my undergraduate degree, a nine-hour sleep necessitated a nap, while any night of 6 hours or shorter was my absolute limit. I mean, you'd have to wheel me in and out of the room on a dolly, that's how dull & inert I would get after 6 hours of sleep. These days, I'm just tired - it's not that big of a deal. I wonder if - horrible thought! - this has anything to do with the drastically reduced amount of alcohol that I've put into my system in the last 3 months. I had a couple of discipline moments, nothing too serious. I was disappointed in the response to the paper I assigned last week - it was like a certain segment didn't understand the assignment or the lesson or both. And when I tried to talk it up, their response was less than interested. So I don't know. Was it a good assignment? I think so. But why did 35 people out of 107 not bother to hand one in? I have to wonder. I'm doing okay on the brainstorming aspects of this practicum, to the point where even my co-operating teacher is getting a little tired of me. The Boy is getting sick of teacher talk. My carpool is tired. I tried to call Dirk tonight to discuss the F. Scott Fitzgerald websites I've been looking at (highlight: How to be Zelda in under 30 minutes), but he wasn't home. Damn it, I need to talk to someone about my bright shiny ideas! The sanity I save could be my own. I have the makings of a first-rate teacher. Or so my co-operating teacher says. I wonder if it's true?