2:00

Incredibly groggy. I want to take a nap every minute of the day. I'm pushing myself through my work by sheer willpower (so...much...to...mark...). I thought that my remeron experience would be much like that of xanax, i.e. I would be groggy the first day but quickly rally. Besides, I thought that anti-depressants were supposed to take weeks to work. Yet I've been in la-la land since taking the first pill.

Once again the 6 million dollar question: can I teach like this? If possible, I feel worse than I did on Friday, and I've cut my xanax dose in half.

8:20

Okay. I'm feeling much better right now. I've marked just about everything to come across my desk, with the exception of one imaginative piece that can be started tomorrow. I've stopped worrying about the fact that half of my homeroom never hands anything in, or that my creative writing class will eat me alive, or that my youngest class will fail their upcoming literacy exam. I'm feeling...I dunno...competent, I guess. This is the first time this year that I've spent more than 3 or 4 hours on school work, and I've managed to bust through a lot of backlog. It's also nice to know that I can still work, and that my professional capacities were not permanently crippled by stress and depression. I think next month is going to go a lot better.

Socially I'm still pining a bit...I spent all night dreaming of a 2-story Garden and a council of goths that included Leslie Neilsen, a member of Codco, a handsome Native and a koala bear, so obviously there was some need to be with weirdos that went unfulfilled. Also, I wish I'd had a chance to go to Word On the Street, but realistically speaking, this was better - for the first time in a long while, I can head into the week without a barely-controlled panic seizing my heart. And I can't ignore the fact that this is the first lucid hour I've had in the last 48; I would've dragged around the booths like a corpse and been much the worse for wear. Still, I can't help but wish for a 9-5 job, one that would let me do things on the weekend that don't involve the week ahead.

I know, I know, I need to shut up. I just finished 4 months of vacation and I continue to draw breath (not to mention pay) in a reasonably civilized segment of the globe. Teacherangst is a small thing when one considers the fact that the last symptom of depression, the one I fortunately lack, might have ended all of my angst for good.