Running late
I’m back in college, it was the first day of the semester, and I was taking another class with a very difficult professor. I’d had statistics with him, and he did not tolerate tardiness or absences.
In my dream, he gave us an assignment to be completed for our first day of class.
I realize this as I’m running late for class, and despair of getting there on time. The professor could be entertaining, but it was only if he was picking on other people. I had no wish to be the object of his ridicule. He had, in fact, threatened to kick out anybody who was late on the first day, in his communication with us all.
I’m trying to leave the apartment, and my roommate is running behind. I try to cajole her out, and tell her the professor will kill me if I’m late.
I look at the clock, and it’s five minutes before class, and it’s at least a 20 minute drive. I know I’m screwed.
Then my dream allows for changes in time, I suppose. We end up at the mall quickly, and I see my professor’s tall frame with the wild array of white hair in the distance, accompanied by someone I assume is his wife.
I feel a reprieve coming on; if he’s still here, I might have a chance to outrun him to class, and he’ll never know I was late.
Hop back into the car and try desperately to get there quickly. Drive through huge puddles. See what I know in my dream is his little red car taking a different way to school. I only hope my way is faster.
I do get to class just before he does, but then realize I haven’t done the assignment, and busily work on it. Then I curse myself, and wonder why in the world I took a second class in statistics or some other foul form of math. The first class had been a requirement of my graduation, and how I got an A in that class still remains a mystery to me.
I think the professor even had misgivings about me taking this class, and warned me it would be hard.
So here I am, doing a shoddy job of finishing a first-day assignment.
I also dream that I’m on a bus, and go to the back to sit with my brother and his friends. I think they’re still high school age, and I’m in college. I start talking with them and my brother’s friends conclude I’m pretty cool because of my sense of humor. I feel almost included for once; hanging with the cool kids. It’s almost like my own uncomfortable high school years have been erased. I just needed more time to be cool and accepted. I’d been too shy to speak up.
And as I’m realizing that I fit in, I also realize that I’ve left homework undone. This might be a carryover from the homework earlier in the dream.
I’ve been able to identify a couple of threads in this dream. I often dream that I’m back in school. My dreams usually involve being late for class or forgetting to go to class for the first one or two sessions in a semester.
Over the last two days, I’ve been involved in a diversity training seminar. I had homework to do last night, which I technically remembered to do observations for on my way home. I just didn’t bother to write it down until I was in the car, on the way back to the seminar this morning.
I also have additional editing class homework that I need to complete this weekend, but I am not yet delinquent on that. It’s just going to be time-consuming, and despite the label homework, is not something I can do at home.
I think school dreams are some of the most common dreams to have. Whether we like it or not, our school years shaped us into the people we were going to be. Our career choices, the people we choose to surround ourselves with and just general life lessons we’ve learned can probably all be traced back to high school or college. I’m sure the homework concept came in because of your homework you have for your job right now. (Since when do jobs require homework anyway?) I did find your “back of the bus, hangin’ with the cool kids” part interesting. Who HASN’T had that dream? I know I have.
I’m curious about the diversity seminar. Could you say more?
The diversity seminar is something that the company plans to put all employees through eventually. I volunteered pretty early on.
It was less horrid than I thought. I consider myself to be a pretty diverse and open-minded person, so I wasn’t sure how much I was going to take from the class.
But it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I don’t like group activities, and there were a lot of them, but I got to know the people in the class, so it wasn’t that uncomfortable for me.
Basically, the two days explored what diversity is (it’s not just about race, gender or ethnicity) and how to incorporate that in the workplace to the benefit of everyone.
Fosters valuing differences and using them to make a better company.
And I did learn a couple of things about other people in the class, as well as myself.
I surprised myself with my reactions to the class, being a very cynical newsroom employee. I won’t go into more detail of what reporters and editors often think of self-improvement for the good of the company seminars, in the interest of keeping myself out of trouble. But it was an interesting experience.
I have dreams that the college audits my credietials and tells me that I really did not graduate from high school because of a math class (I thought for sure I took) that be fulfilled. As a result, I had to go back to high school. Apparently, my high school graduation was a big fraud!