Salzburg, Austria.  Pumpkin festival in Stuttgart.  Nancy, France.  Czech Republic.  Poland.  As she lies in bed a bit past three in the morning, she lists the name of places she would consider driving to this this morning.  She really just wants to be able to sleep some more.  Her insomnia has a rude habit of waking her up around this time.

A thoughtful friend offered to hang out this rather depressing weekend, but she politely declined.  She did not have the energy to be pleasant, so she chose to be alone, although isolation isn't exactly what she wants either.  On weekends during which she doesn't want to be around people, but doesn't want to trap herself in her house either, she always picks up and leaves.  Thank goodness she is living in Europe.  She would be far more depressed if her duty station is, say, Fort Sill.

It takes her a lot of self talk and courage to decide to endure the isolation at home, vice run away to be distracted.  Fortunately, she is able to cut a few hours of her heightened awareness by being able to fall asleep again.

She wakes up from an unsettling dream, in which she receives an assignment paper back with a subpar grade.  To her horror, she realizes that she submitted her first draft, full of syntactical and otherwise careless mistakes.   Ever since she made up her mind to pursue a Masters degree, she has been having dreams of being an academic failure.