It all catches up with you in the end

So, I haven't been sleeping again lately. I'm not exactly sure what's going on with that. I guess that it's because I've had a very busy week. Last night I went to bed early, to try to get my system back on track. I was asleep by 11, which for me is insanely early. However, I woke up an hour and a half later, feeling like I'd slept all night. This was good in that it feels good to get a full night's sleep, but bad because it was 12:30am. I got up and worked on my lesson plan for today, and then went back to bed at 2am. However, working on the lesson plan gave me all sorts of ideas (that and the not sleeping) so I was just laying in bed with my mind all on fire, and I didn't know what to do about it. In the end, I did nothing, and it fizzled out sometime after 4am. I would post all of my ideas now, except that I have a horrible headache and am soon returning to bed. What I've learned about valerian is that it doesn't help to put me to sleep, but it does make the sleep I do get super-sleep, so that even a few hours feels better than a normal 8-hour night. Yay valerian!

Anyway. I'll stop the complaints there. I taught my two lessons this week on The Collector by John Fowles. I think that today's lesson went better than Wednesday's, so that's good. Only about half the class showed up, but I was assured by those who came that it wasn't because of me but because it was Friday. Either way, it was a cozy-sized class, and I felt much more coherent than previously. (For an example of Wednesday's sleepy incoherence, at one point I couldn't think of a word. I said, "What's that word that means when you make yourself innocent?" They all looked at me blankly. "Vindicated?" one person guessed. "No," I answered, "It's like exculpate but less Latin." The word was, of course, exonerate. I thought of it after the class and decided that I need to start sleeping more.) I also took today off of caffeine. With the not sleeping this week, I've been imbibing more substances than usual, which probably isn't helping anything at all. So far today I've had no coffee, caffeinated tea or chocolate, and it wasn't as hard as I expected. Of course, I have a headache right now, and the half-eaten chocolate bar sitting beside me looks very tempting, but I'm ignoring its siren call (for now, anyway).

This afternoon Ashley and I went shopping. We went first to the Home Hardware, which actually has a lot more stuff in it than I expected. I didn't buy anything, but I'm going to go back. Then we went to the natural food store in town. This is a very exciting place. I bought 4 different teas, a bag of organic chamomile, a rainforest chocolate bar (the mint chocolate flavour - I remember these being really tasty) and a locally grown thing of garlic. I'm drinking organic chamomile tea right now to ease my headache and hopefully help me to sleep. We then went to the bookstore next door, which is a lot like my favourite store in Stratford (Yesterday's Things). This store is called the Odd Book. Used books of all kinds were there... I limited myself to four purchases, but it was hard. I got an Agatha Christie novel (TV substitute), The Aristos by John Fowles (I've really gotten into him again after thinking and reading so much about The Collector this week), Shoeless Joe (this was Ashley's recommendation) and The Wind in the Willows which I remember liking when I was younger. All round, a very exciting shopping trip (for Wolfville). It's funny, because I was just thinking to myself the other day that the only reason that I can support myself financially this year is because Wolfville does not have a lot of shopping opportunities so that I spend much less money on impulse buys than I have at any other time in life. Then, today, I go out and impulse buy tea and books that I really didn't need. It's all good, though. I didn't actually spend that much, and I figure that at least I'll use these things. I'm going to make another trip back to the natural food place soon to get soap and bath products (they have Guelph Soap Co. soap here! Makes me feel like I'm back at home).

I think that's all I have for now. This is only scratching the surface of the wild chaos that has been my brain lately, but I think it will do for now. I'm going to get some rest and read some Agatha Christie until my headache goes away.