what dreams may come

I had to sleep for an hour and a half because I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. During the first half hour (because that's when I wanted to get up--after half an hour), I had a dream that was more along the terms of a nightmare.

I was sitting in a classroom at one of the student desks, along with several other students. One of them was my office-mate. While our professor, Dr. M., was talking, she whispered, "Here, we're supposed to pass this around," and handed something to me. It was my portfolio paper, and there were Dr. M.'s hand-written critiques written all over it. I wondered how she had gotten it--why Dr. M. had apparently given it to her--and why on earth we were passing it around. These things were supposed to be submitted confidentially, without your name on them, so that each person received a fair judgment from the committee responsible for passing or failing us. However, all of my fellow students were about to see a draft of my portfolio with my name on it before I submitted it, increasing the chances that someone on the committee would hear about it.

As I held the draft and wondered what to do (should I really pass my own paper around?), I was nudged by someone else in the room. Everyone was quiet and looking at me with expectancy. What had I missed? "Get up there," someone hissed. Apparently, Dr. M. had just announced that I was going to discuss this paper (the one that I still held clutched in my hands) with the class. I started panicking, leafing through the draft and trying to read every comment as I half-stood, half-stooped and slumped my way to the front of the classroom. Why hadn't he prepared me for this? He hadn't told me he'd be requesting that I'd make a professional presentation to the class on my portfolio subject! I wasn't ready for this, and as I reached the front of the class and turned around, I...

My alarm went off. I had to sleep some more, so made another attempt to only sleep an additional half an hour. I finally got up after an hour and a half, and as I write this, my eyes are still heavy and threatening to close. I'm not sure how I'm going to do this--write my third short paper--by noon, when I have to meet with Dr. M. I'm just hoping I can stay awake until then and then sleep for an hour or two after the meeting. Ugh. I'm tired.