Almost 8:20PM, feels later, not sure if I'll be able to sleep tonight. Melonin (Melotin? Whatever the sleeping pills are called, you know what I mean) calls.

I am writing in the upstairs bedroom, formerly N's room. I am bit worried my harsh typing is disturbing Viper, the Beta fish in the tank next to my laptop. I don't think they like water with much movement. I will try to type softly.

Tomorrow I go back to work after Thanksgiving break. The five days off were decent, but I'm glad they're over. However, I'm not sure I'm crossing back into anything that fulfilling by returning to work. I'm feeling that awful "fuck, I have to return to school tomorrow" feeling that's haunting middle schoolers throughout the nation as we speak. I don't get this feeling too often, but I've felt it more often this semester than in the past four years combined. There is nothing absolutely dreadful waiting for me tomorrow. No one, to my knowledge, will come storming into my office, out to get me. I just don't feel like going. Ok, let's break this down. My struggles over the past four months could be due to any one of these or any combination of these:

1. Work-related stress (the most obvious)
2. My struggles with developing who I am as related to my leadership style (connected to #1, obviously)
3. Exhaustion related to three intense years as the chair and fourteen intense years in the field of education.
4. Exhaustion related to dissertation data collection.
5. Some sort of evolution I feel as if I'm nearing, as if I'm on the cusp.

I suppose I could continue listing, but these five sum them the major possibilities quite well. Let me think about it. These work for now.

The last thirty-six hours have been tiring in their own way. We met my sister and her family at a waterpark in Sheboygan. Now, I have a tried and true "twenty-four hours is enough time in any waterpark" rule. In turn, I was leery of arriving too early in a desperate attempt to "get our money's worth" or whatever. We showed up at about 1:00PM yesterday, Saturday afternoon, and the waterpark was close to packed. I was ready to turn around and leave immediately but M had already checked into the room (which wasn't ready) and wouldn't have left anyway. We changed in a scummy (surprisingly scummy, considering the waterpark is only a year or two old) locker room and let the kids go wild. I chased N around for a while and sat at a table near the pool. One waterpark pro...the humid air quickly cleared my sinuses. After a while we got our room key. The room was large, larger than our first apartment. The space featured two TVs (not sure why, as they weren't that far away from each other, and watching two separate programs proved difficult) and a fireplace. Of course, between all the kids, the rooms were trashed within thirty minutes. I swear, an eighties hair metal band might as well have been staying over...food on the floor, sheets ripped off the beds, pillows everywhere, etc. We ordered pizza (Pizza Hut, yuck) and watched some television. Later we returned to the waterpark, much less crowded, and hung out until bedtime. I was worried about the sleeping arrangements, but except for an N nightmare (accompanied by full-volume screaming, of course) we were fine. The kids were up early, so I took a shower and watched some Sportscenter while they played. We did the buffet breakfast thing (M pointed out that the kids are well-behaved in these scenarios because they get their food in about ten seconds), changed, and returned to the waterpark. I felt badly for S, sort of caught in the middle, age-wise, with his cousins, so I went down the tube slide with him a few times. We had fun, although hauling the huge tubes up the stairs wrecked my left knee. I'm surprised kids don't get hurt in waterparks more often. Oh, the lifeguards had this disturbingly lifelike infant dummy they must use for training...it creeped me out. My brother in law and I talked about my crazy parents (reaffirming the wisdom of my decision to cut off contact with them, as far as I'm concerned) and, thankfully, the group in general decided to head home after lunch. S rode with me. We listened to the new Killers single a couple times while he ate granola bars. I could have crashed on the couch all afternoon, but M wasn't feeling well, so I hung out with the kids while football played on the television. T and I hung out in the guest bedroom for a while as S made a bed for himself out of a laundry basket. Oh, I also read from the Tikkural (sp?).

Why am I grinding my teeth now? What is my body trying to tell me? Can I transcend this drama? Good night.