Almost Finals

As Karuna has noted, I haven't updated in a while. This is true. Last week, was bad times. We had Denny dying on Grey's Anatomy (STRANGELY parallel to a scene in Our Mutual Friend, which I was finishing that day), Marissa getting killed in a car crash on the OC, and then on Desperate Housewives, we had the fake-out death of Carl, and the real(?) death of Mike. And poor, poor Susan.

In real life, I was stressing about final papers. Oh yes, it IS that time again! Because with the quarter system, you have not 2, but THREE finals periods. Great. For the first time ever, I'm not sleeping through the night as well. Last week I got on a bizarre schedule of waking up at 7 am, going back to sleep till around 8:30, 9 am, and getting up around a quarter to 10 for class. Not good. All these disruptions mean that I'm remembering my dreams (since you usually remember them only if you're woken up during a REM cycle). And folks, they haven't been the most pleasant dreams ever. I think the combination of finals, anticipation for moving all my crap into a storage unit (I'm going to need help!), and worries about studying for quals this summer, have influenced the old subconscious. I often wake up angry at someone and then realize it was a dream, or in a sweat worrying about a presentation that I don't have to make.

OK, example time. So my most noteworthy dream came over the weekend. I dreamt that we were having department awards, and Jill got something for "holiday spirit" (like being at camp or something!). Anyway, for some reason a professor I had last quarter, who will remain nameless, was going to cut my hair. He got about halfway through when I realized it was a disaster. For some reason he had assumed I wanted really short hair, and chopped much of it off in a really messy, unfixable way (Freudian, right?) Anyway, so then we heard wolves or wild dogs, and we were out in my backyard and I was calling for Merrie to come see. Then everyone disappeared and went to some villa for a ritzy brunch, but I got left behind. So I was horribly upset at being left behind with a bad haircut, and even moreso when I arrived at the restaurant and no one seemed to get why I was upset. Which is really strange for a number of reasons, but perhaps most so in that I'm actually really happy with my shorter haircut post-Spring Break.

Anyway, the weekend redeemed the week. Friday EM, Lupe, Marissa, and Jennifer threw a pinata party. Nothing like a bunch of drunk people wildly swinging a bat while other drunk people keep the pinata safely out of harm's way. We had our first English dept. Shut Up and Dance Party. Then Saturday I had a beach trip through the Village (ie Escondido Village Housing). We had a BBQ (yay veggie burgers), and I walked on the beach and collected shells (including a full sand dollar, just with a hole in it!), and sat on the beach doing some grading. It was good times.

I've got one more hurdle before I start digging into my final papers: Tomorrow I'm a respondent for a speaker who's coming to our How Do Identities Matter Workshop. Excited to meet our speaker, who is also from Hood River! Everyone raves about her, and her essays are wonderful. And I'm looking forward to going out to dinner afterwards!

So I guess I should go get on that response!...