Snow Day!

Today I was supposed to teach two classes - my own in the evening, and one in the afternoon that I'm subbing for a week.

While I was sleeping last night, I dreamed that I had taken an impromptu trip to Provo and I couldn't remember why I'd gone. I was at BYU visiting the math education department and suddenly I had a moment of panic because I remembered that I had to teach. There was no way I was going to make it back to Michigan by one, even if they let me switch my plane ticket. I didn't know what I'd been thinking, scheduling this trip that I didn't even need to take, and I felt like I'd really blown it.

But then I remembered that there was a winter storm moving in to Ann Arbor, and I thought maybe they would cancel classes. That was the only thing that could possibly save me at that point.

When I woke up, I had a text message from Washtenaw on my phone announcing that classes had been canceled for the day. By that time I had figured out that I was not actually in Utah, but it still made me happy that my dream-wish had come true.

I told my roommate Stephanie about my dream, and then I started telling her about the rest of my dreams (I had a wildly entertaining night), and she told me I should blog about the one that had us both laughing the hardest. I don't know if it will sound as funny as it did when I told it in person, and while I sometimes write about my dreams in my journal, I've never written one for a general audience. I can think of at least three friends who have blogged about dreams, so this is not without precedent. I was entertained, and Stephanie suggested it, and I have a snow day (i.e., extra time), so I'll give it a try.

I'll pick up partway through the BYU dream. I hadn't yet realized that I had to be back in Michigan to teach by one, and I was going to go to my old office in the Talmage Building to work on job applications. But my office, it turned out, was more like a phone booth, an old-fashioned one made of elaborately carved wood. It even had my name carved into it. I went into the booth, and then I decided to move the booth. But I had to move the booth past a room where all the math ed faculty were having a meeting, and I thought it would be awkward if they looked out and saw me, so I decided to try to move the booth while standing inside it where they couldn't see me.

I started jumping and pushing against the side of the booth to get it to slide across the floor, and it gradually began to inch along. But as I got closer to that meeting room, the booth fell over on its side. This was really awkward, and now it seemed like it would be even more embarrassing if anyone looked out and saw me, so I stayed inside the booth, now turned over on its side, and kept trying to push it along. As I did this, I felt more and more that this had just been a really bad idea. I didn't even really know why I needed to move the booth, and it occurred to me that moving the booth from the inside looked a lot stranger than moving the booth from the outside would have. I pictured everyone looking out from their meeting and seeing this booth bumping along in the hallway on its side and I realized how ridiculous it must appear. And of course they would see me - I was making a lot of noise. What were you thinking, Amy? I asked myself. But now I had to start what I had finished, and so I resigned myself to getting that booth to wherever it was I needed to get the booth.

I finally managed to get my booth over to the Wilkinson Center (which was attached to the Talmage Building in my dream and had been remodeled in the past year to look like a huge old-fashioned drive-thru), and then I was even more confused because I didn't know where to put my booth, or even why I had brought it over there in the first place. And that was about the time I realized I had scheduled my trip to Provo on a teaching day. The trip was just turning into a disaster!

There was more to the dream, and I also dreamed about being on Project Runway last night. That one was funny too, and not nearly as awkward. I won't go into detail, but I'll say that even though in my dream I got voted off the show, I also got invited back for the next season. I don't really have dreams about being on TV shows, but I've had three dreams now about being on Project Runway. Maybe I'm pursuing the wrong career path with this whole math education thing.