Monday, November 10, 2014

Rude Awakening


Worn out and weary.  That's how I felt when I woke up this morning. In fact, I had to reassure myself that I was, indeed, awake.

It took a while. 


The intense events in a very real dream prior to my awakening had put me in a mood of frustration and desperation.


It was the first work day in late summer when teachers had to return to school.  


For some reason, our first-day activities took place at my friend Ann Gehring's house, overlooking Oden Bay on beautiful Lake Pend Oreille.

I arrived at the Gehring's home early and was immediately greeted by someone---most likely an upset administrator---handing me a pile of yet ungraded projects from last year's students and directing me to please get them done, pronto!


For some unknown reason, I had not graded those projects, meaning that several students IN MY CLASSES had not received grades for their spring semester.


So, before the actual teachers' meetings began, I was to finish last year's work by looking at those projects and then figure out the students' semester grades.


Stunned that I would have overlooked so many papers at the end of a school year, I frantically laid out the pile of projects on a table in Ann's house and started the mind-boggling process of looking them over in a hurry, determining a grade and then averaging scores leading to the final letter grade.


In the midst of all my sudden, uncomfortable panic, other people started arriving and distracting me.  Because they were there early, they got to go for a swim.  So, they were all having fun outside.  


Also, as I tried desperately to concentrate on those projects which had been completed months before, Ann kept reappearing in the house.  

After all, I was at her dining room table attempting to complete my "rather late assignment." 


Eventually, for a reason known only to God or my subconscience, in the midst of this activity, I just up and decided to leave those assignments on the table and go join the fun with all my teacher friends. 


That part of the dream remains a muddle, but I do know that as the clock kept ticking, I did eventually realize that I'd better cut the fun and get back to my work.


When I arrived back inside Ann's house, the assignments had mysteriously disappeared from where I'd left them on the table. 


No sign of them! 


Deep doodoo for me if I didn't find them and finish them and turn them into that faceless administrator before the official teacher meetings began. 


At this point, I must report to readers that never in my 33-year teaching career did I leave at the end of a school year without completing my required duties of turning in all grades and cleaning my classroom.

Nor, did we ever go to someone's house and go swimming or boating before those teacher meetings. 

Our late summer district gatherings always took place at school cafeterias or gyms where we'd gather around a coffee pot, munch on donuts and visit with our colleagues.  


In these settings a bunch of official-looking people, dressed to the nines,  lined up at tables, promoting insurance policies or other hand-outs deemed important to educators. 

We'd walk around and fill our complimentary bags with important stuff that---in my case---would remain untouched inside those complimentary bags for years, only to be weeded out during epic house purging. 

Never in my career did our district sponsor authorized teacher meetings at scenic Oden Bay, complete with swimming parties.  We might have had other kinds of teacher meetings there, but not the kind I was experiencing. 


Well, the time for this teacher meeting to open for official district business was drawing nearer,  and I still didn't have my last-year assignments completed and NOW I had no idea where they had gone. 


To top it off, I suddenly noticed that the sky outside had turned black in the northwest, off in the direction of our house and I knew I must get home to put my horses into a safe place.


After all, the wild summer storms of 2014 had turned us all into believers with trees snapping off all over the place and loose items being blown into neighbors' yards.  Who knows what kind of mess we would find at our farm?


This is when things got really intense for me---the tardy teacher who could not find her assignments from the year past.  


Before exiting this teachers' meeting in haste, with my good excuse of going home and saving my horses, I HAD to find those assignments and get them done and turn in my grades from last year!

Then, thankfully, I awakened.  

As mentioned before, I awakened to a state of mental and physical exhaustion, truly feeling like I'd been dragged through a knothole backward.  

As I sat up in a semi stupor, something within my tired mind announced to me, "It was a dream."

It took me a while to believe my mind, but as the reality of a Monday morning after the scary teacher dream unfolded, I smiled.

"Thank God," I said silently as I almost pinched myself to make sure that this really was a dream and that my squeaky clean record of always finishing my work before ever being released from the school for summer vacation remains intact. 

Why I dreamed this surreal scenario almost 13 years after retiring is beyond me, but I am feeling pretty relieved this morning.

There is one possible explanation for why such a dream would occur.  We did have powerful winds blow through the area last night, in our case knocking over flower pots and chairs on the deck.  

That occurrence might explain at least a partial motive for my slumbering imagination to go into overdrive. 

I knew for sure this morning, though, that it was only a dream when I first looked out the windows. 

No way would people be swimming over at Gehring's house with the ground covered with SNOW! 

Or, would they?  After all, my friend Ann does say on her answering machine message that "I'm out water skiing . . . please leave a message and I'll call you back."  

Maybe I'd better check before I feel too confident. 

In the meantime, Happy Monday. 

2 comments:

Pamela Seekins Paulu said...

Dear Marianne~

So sorry you went through that!

Your experience sounds like the teacher's equivalent of the prototypical test-anxiety dream, of which I have had many (too many!) over the years. I'm back in high school, and I have to take an exam, usually in higher mathematics, for which I am terrifyingly unprepared. I haven't attended a class or opened a book in six weeks.

It's always an enormous relief to awaken and realize that the dream was not reality!!

(I was always a very conscientious and successful student, by the way).

I don't know why we have such dreams.

Back in 1980, when I was considering accepting an offer to teach a university course, I had the analogous dream--i.e. I had to walk into a huge lecture hall and teach a class in a subject with which I was totally unfamiliar--so I guess I can see it from the teacher's perspective, too. What a nightmare!

Anyway, you are not alone.

Sweet dreams.

Ann said...

Marianne, I laughed all the way through this (especially the meeting being at my house) I have had many such nightmares and LOVE waking up. The last (and worst one) had me being TOLD that I had to go back to teaching and it was the DAY before school was to start. I can remember IN the dream that I said: I must be dreaming. But it felt TOO real. I decided that the proof of reality would be if I could see trees out the window. If I could see trees then it was real. Alas, I saw trees and "knew" it was real. Thank God, I woke up!!!!
Ann Gehring