I've lost them. The three stories, written by my classmates, that I'm supposed to be reading and commenting on for class this week. Gone. Simply gone. Vanished into thin air! Gah!

I'm trying really hard not to freak out about this, but I'm not doing a very good job of it. I'm freaking out! I had them at work last week - Thursday to be exact. I read through them during lunch, the put them back in my purse and took them home. I'm positive! I can be positive because I spent Friday afternoon reorganizing my desk, separating my filing, and making nice, neat piles out of everything. I would've noticed three short stories, since they would stick out like three sore thumbs, so they're not at work.

But, they're not here, either. Granted, my room, being once again thrown into a redecorating whirl-wind, is completely disorganized and, well, trashed. There's also that wild shredding spree I went on over the weekend. *Shudder!* I'm pretty sure, however, that the only stuff I shredded was my own pathetic stories and poems, and miscellaneous notes and stuff. Pretty sure.

And, I looked! Everywhere! I tore my already messy room apart looking for the damn things, and THEY STILL AREN'T HERE!

*Deep. Cleansing. Breath.*

Ugh! So, now I'm stuck. I've read the two stories out of the book ("The Things They Carried" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find"), and had planned on spending this evening and tomorrow evening going over the three classmates' stories in more detail, and writing some thoughtful, and hopefully helpful comments and suggestions. Right now, I can't even remember what the three stories were about, or I could at least fake some generic verbal comments during class, then get lost in the crowd when everyone else returns their papers to them. (They'll be getting back 13 other marked-up copies of their stories, so they probably won't notice one less, right? And with thirteen other people providing comments and suggestions, what's one less "fewer descriptions of how the rain is falling in the second paragraph would make that sentence flow better", right? Am I right?) All I can remember was that the stories were all in first person, and two of them were childhood recollections or from a child's POV, and all of them convinced me that I really needed to come up with something more original for my own story.

Right now I can't even think of my own story, I'm so worried about finding my classmates' stories. It wouldn't be right to work on my own story when I'm basically ignoring everyone else's (or insulting them by accidentally throwing them away or shredding them) stories. Would it?

Reading: You've Got to Read This ed. by Ron Hansen. This week's stories are "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Conner. I was also supposed to read and comment on the three stories submitted by my classmates, but . . . well, if you've read the entry, you know where I'm at on that!

Classic Book: Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Listening to: Whatever's on the TV; I don't know, I'm not really watching, I've just got it on for background noise.

Writing: Nothing, really. I still need something for class. I've gone back through all my old crap, but it's all basically that: crap! As much as I hate to, I might just have to submit what I have written of "False Memories" even though the first-person childhood POV is what everyone else is doing, and is therefore becoming boring as hell very quickly.

Gratitude: I'm sure I have something to be grateful for today, but I'm not sure what that is. Breathing? Okay, sure, I'll go with that.