january 24, 2001. I've been in bed for an hour and a half, and I'm no closer to sleep now than I was at noon. So here I am, sitting at the computer in my flannel Winnie the Pooh pajama top. Hopefully this will drain off some of the wakefulness. I've had a hell of a day. I don't really want to talk about it, because every time I do talk about it, I work myself into a shouting rage. And I'm under a professional obligation not to speak ill of the program. But the program is what's keeping me up, so I'm going to try an oblique run at the issue. Okay. I've been scrambling to complete a project for a week and a half - hard-core research, heavy brainstorming, loads of creativity. By last night I had assembled a package that I rather liked. There was a bunch of stuff that tied into the entire Grade 10 curriculum, plus it was smart, it was fun, and it was done. This afternoon my partner and I had a conference with our instructor, and we piled my stuff on top of hers. That turned out to be fatal. Because my instructor spent a half hour tearing my activities (my babies!!!) to pieces while I sat two feet away and tried to look calm & attentive. I will not go into details (it's that rage thing), but I will say that she reacted to my literature-based activity by making the international hand gesture 'inducing vomiting.' "I hate this stuff," she said cheerfully, not looking up. By the time she got halfway down, she was done evaluating. My partner did not have one word spoken to her about her work: it was my work that was pinned, mounted & flayed. I became consumed in the effort to keep my face still and my hands unclenched. Hot defensive words whirled in my fevered brain, but died before they could reach my throat. My head throbbed. As we were leaving, my partner said, "That went well." "..." We then had three hours of lecture with the same professor. And besides the minor fact that I'm apparently no longer allowed to expect my students in Language Arts to read and write, that was my evening. You know, I've had better ones. Lots of them.