Dream diary

Lots of unpleasant dreams lately. On Thursday night, Stan made his appearance for the first time in months, and waking up full of anger, disappointment, and the desire to scream, cry, and throw things all at once was not a good way to start the day.

This morning, the dream was about being entirely unable to control a class full of students who suddenly started screaming and yelling, not being able to figure out why, and then realizing that Lisa Loeb was visiting campus and had wandered into our room by mistake. About 20 minutes later, when Ms. Loeb had left, I gave them a speech which included the lines "This is a CLASSROOM, not TRL" and "Youthful enthusiasm is not an excuse to act like an untrained baboon."

That last comment is probably an insult to baboons, and I apologize for it, but hey, cut me some slack: I was only half-conscious.

Anyway, I then told the students that I was going to let them run discussion on their own time, since they'd chosen to act like a bunch of fools on mine, that they were still responsible for having an intelligent response to the material, and that there would be a quiz during the next class meeting. And then I gathered my things and walked out.

At least I've gotten more assertive with students in some of my dreams.

Why Stan should show up after so long, I cannot tell you. But I think the uncontrolled-classroom dream was about the course I have to start teaching on Monday, since I have positively no idea what I'm doing yet, the syllabus is not finalized, and my books will not be arriving until at least three or four classes into the course. See, Nameless Summer Program didn't let me know I was hired until about two weeks in advance this year, so that's created a bit of a, well, nightmare.

And yeah, Lisa Loeb? I mean, she's really cute and I liked "Stay" just as much as anybody, but I don't know, and I can't explain.