I had to go back to work and school today so I made sure to go to bed super early last night and then I tossed and turned the most of the night. I have been having some issues with my stomach for almost a week now and the pain kept me up.

I was glad, though, to get up this morning and go to work. I gave my students a promised extra credit quiz that most of them did very poorly on. I wasn't surprised. Learning grammar and using grammar are to totally different things. Most of my students now understand most of the rules as I have seen a lot of improvement in their papers. Sometimes they just have the same problems typing and proofreading that I have.

My second class was funny today as they are feeling the end of semester crunch, and since half of them are grad students, I have a had time not giving them extensions on their two page papers. I had to explain to them that their last paper was not as good as their other papers and they would need to work harder on the one due Wednesday. I then realized that most of them hadn't even started it yet. I was very disappointed.

I came home and took a nap as I am still not feeling very good. When I got up it was time to go to class, but first I went by the local bread store and got Sid some dinner. I can't eat, so I just had some coffee. Which probably isn't good for my tummy but helped me to stay awake in my class that went on and on and on...

We talked about Willa Cather tonight. I hate it when people try and give characters in a novel modern problems so I ran most of the conversation. Dr. Schell may not like my writing but I do keep the conversations going in some ways. I motioned at some point in conversation my 'ex-boyfriend.' This was the first time I have referred to Nathan as my 'ex.' It was really sad in some ways.

This was my day, fairly normal. A lot of my friends though are going through so much crazy drama I must say that I am thankful that most of my life is fairly smooth (except for the slightly bruised heart). Two weeks of school left, five sets of papers left to grade (about 100 in all), a 15 page paper to get started on and write by the 10th, and grades to post.

That's the just the school stuff. There is also Christmas to plan with Mom and Sid will be 13 in 34 days and we want to have a fun party for him but not sure what and my own Christmas party to plan. I really love this time of year. It will be so nice to see my sister and friends.

I haven't heard form Ike again. I'm really worried about him but also know that he would not want me to worry about him. Which in some ways makes it worse.