dannydmc

Its been far too long since my last post on this blog and, I suppose, I have no real good excuse as to why that is. Part of me, I think, was waiting until I had some definite good news to post as to my position in Grad School but, so far, I have no real resolution. I should know within a week or so as to whether or not my grades were good enough this semester to warrent my staying in the History program. *crosses fingers*
I am feeling a good deal more confident lately, however. I know I should get an 'A' in one of my classes, which leaves only two to worry about. I sent an e-mail to the professor of one of those two remaining courses and told him that, no matter the grade I get, I learned a lot and had fun in the class (all of which was true). He responded with a letter of his own saying that he enjoyed having me in the group and also hopes that I'll stick around. This calmed my fears even more as, I figured, anyone who said that to me isn't going to fail me in his class (I hope )
That just leaves class number 3, the one that has worried me all semester. 2/3rds of the final grade for that class comes from our final paper, and I worked my butt off on it; having handed in my rough draft I took the professor's comments to heart when I revised it for the final and I feel much better about it than I did before. Hopefully my final score on it will be good enough that I'll scrape by with the required 'B', at least.
Seriously, I need to do well and stay in the program. Although its been a lot of work, I've had more fun in the past few months than at any other time since I graduated from college the first time. I really don't know what I'd do if they don't allow me to stay at the school; after the past three years it seems like I've done nothing but fail at pretty much everything I try to do. Even more than that, I can't go back to teaching High School; I'd tried submit myself to a slow-painful death than go back into that profession (and, with my undergrad degree, its all I can do!)
Despite the pressure I've been under, waiting for my grades, I've been doing my best to just relax and enjoy myself. With all of the work handed in, there's nothing else I can do to change the grades, so I might as well just lay back and wait.
Have I mentioned before that I'm an inherently impatient person? Yup; this is driving me crazy Its also resulted in some crazy-ass dreams lately that I can't really decipher.

Dream 1: "A Wedding, Two Deaths, and a Mission"

The dream begin with a son telling his Father that he plans on going into the peace corp. The Father becomes enraged and attacks the son, as well as the son's younger brother; apparently killing them both.
At the same time one of my best friends is getting married back home. For what ever reason, this is major news and is getting world wide attention; all of the major news networks show up at the church (its one of those beautiful early-summer days to boot; a beautiful day for the wedding). The wedding is going off without a hitch when....
We switch back to the first son who is explaining to a friend that he wants to get someone a book as a gift. The son's friend says, "Well, you can do that if you'd luck, but I doubt it'll do any good. He's not the learning type."

At this point I wake up; I'd left the window open and the temperature outside and plummeted into the below zero range. Despite the fact that I'm freezing and concerned that I'd given myself hypothermia due to the idiot decision to leave that window open, I can't help but wonder at the signifirance of the Murder/Wedding image from the dream.


Dream # 2 "The final episdoe of Frazier"

In this one I'm apparently everyone's favorite TV-Psychologist "Frazier" Except, I'm dead; well, Frazier is dead, or supposed to be. He'd been killed by an unidentified man, and no one knows who the killer is.
As the dream moves on, I realize that the priest presiding over my funeral isn't a priest after all! He's a black man(Not sure WHY thats important; but I remember that part) who, in fact, is the guy who 'killed' me. He might also have killed the real priest to steal his clothes!
Apparently I'm not really dead, because I attack my 'killer' and begin to beat him badly. By the end I'm kicking his body on the floor and have become convinced that I've killed him, myself. Although this is just, and it seems to have been in self defence, I feel somewhat guilty about this.
I'm very old by this point and begin to confess to my friends and family (those that are there; this is part of a TV show, after all, and I realize that its the final episode; almost everyone has left) that I was an arrogant man, cocky, and hurt people; but I feel horribly about it, because all I ever wanted to do was the right thing.
I also recall an image at one point of looking down at my left hand and seeing a hole in it; I'd tried to catch a bullet and it went through the hand. The wound, however, is partially healed and the partial-hole the remains intrigues me.
I go over to the body of my 'killer' and think about how I'd killed him. Then I see the body begin to twitch somehwat, and I realize he isn't dead. I think that maybe he will NEVER die, and I can't possibly kill him for good, but he can't kill me either.
By the end of the dream, the room of the funeral has changed into my old classroom in Alaska; I've returned to the school to visit some of my old students and am asking them how things are going. They tell me I should stay, but I laugh and say "no"; if I stuck around they'd start disliking me as much as they had before. Its better to just visit.

Dream # 3: "Lost Homework"

Its the end of classes at the university and I'm waiting, as in real life, to see if my grades are good enough to stay in the program. I'm back in my old dorm room at NMU, my undergraduate school (Ah, how I love that place! The school, not the dorm room ) I'm cleaning up at the end of the year when I suddenly find a yellow notebook which contains journal entries.
I suddenly realize that I needed to turn these in for my class; without them I'll fail, but the deadline has passed a long time ago! I begin to panic, it seems like my entire future has just flown out the window. I call up my Professor to see if I can still turn them in.
There is a knock on my door and its my Professor. He explains that I didn't really need to turn the journals in, everything is all right. To add even more weirdness to the scene, he's brought with him a huge bunch of furniture for my apartment if I want it. I leave the room and go into the hallway where he is, and see some old chairs, lamps and even a bike. I tell him I don't really want anything, but thanks for the offer.

In the case of dreams 2 and 3 I woke up feeling GREAT, as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders (I didn't notice this from dream one; but I was too worried about my supposed case of hypothermia in that case).

Common themes:

In both the first and second dream there is a common theme of a church. In the first, my friend is getting married to her boyfriend from Germany (and don't marriages in dreams usually represent a mergin of two parts of yourself?) I also remember seeing a priest and he seemed friends. In the second dream, however, the 'priest' was an imposter who tried to kill me!
Anxiety and Murder: Not suprisingly anxiety plays a huge part in these dreams, as does the idea of 'murder. In the first a father kills his two sons, in the second I am 'killed' and then 'kill' my attacker. The third dream seems to be a take on the usual theme of the 'missing class' (I'd had a similiar one a few nights back); in those dreams I realize on the final day of school that there are several classes I've forgotten about all semester and a test I need to take in them to still pass. THIS time, however, everything turns out all right.

Not sure what to make of these all. Anyone have any ideas?