december 5, 2001. This morning I had a hard time leaving the house. Today promised to be a brutally hard day: 5 classes teaching, with a spare last period. I could only hope that they wouldn't have to scrape me off the floor before then. And I'm starting to carry around a lot of dread about one certain class, my Waterloo class if you will. Today my teacher decided to give them a work period instead of a lesson period today and about 40 tonnes of unhappy sand suddenly lifted from my heart. The problem is that once that happy euphoria wore off, I experienced the return of the sand. (And the euphoria wasn't all that long lived - it wore off 10 minutes into the period, as I was once again saddled with the problem child who began the class by threatening to throw a fit because he wasn't allowed to goof off with another partner.) It's getting so that my normal state of mind is a barely-panicking hum, a pain that turns to oppressive numbness after a few hours of consciousness. I guess you could say that I'm depressed. Certainly I'm maxing out my anxiety credit card this week, which is not really far off from depressed. It's getting hard to remember what life was like before the big fist took up residence in my chest. That's not a good sign. If I can just get through one more class with these little monsters, I'll be free till Monday. On the other hand, if I learn how to deal with them, I'll be free the rest of my life. Hm. The coin's spinning; call it in the air... It snowed today, tho,' meaning that we've officially left the period of waiting & entered into winter. It was Real, No Foolin' snow, big white wet flakes that soaked my skirt & coated the branches and clung to my sooty hair. (This is the first winter I've experienced with black hair; I looked down and was dizzily happy with the view.) And I thought about my hair, and the snow, and the crispness of the air, and the beauty of the basin view that I'm too stressed to notice these days, and I thought, this will be a good day. And it was. If I can just get the fist to unclench, tomorrow will be a good day too. this time 3 years ago: a ridiculous vogue for corruption