Vocabulary Dreams

Last night I dreamt about words. This may be because I am teaching writing for the first time in awhile, a first-year composition course. Or it may be because I have spending time with my most adorable two and half year old great-nephew, who was born in Germany and speaks mostly German. It's been funny trying to figure out what he is saying and whether he is speaking in German or English, half the time with a pacifier in his mouth.

In the first-year college composition course I am teaching, my students are actually advanced high school students, mostly seniors with a couple of juniors. They are from several different high schools around the city. This week I gave them back drafts of their first essays and they seemed stunned by the exent of my scrawlings on their papers. I then felt bad.

In my dream, which seemed to take place with these current students, in the classroom in which I teach them (although I was sitting on the other side of it), the students seemed to have forgiven me and we were all having a good time, laughing and talking. One of them asked if the word "happening" by itself could be a sentence. I was pondering that when one of the other students piped up and said that it was a sentence because it was a form of a verb and a sentence had to have a verb. I was relieved that the student had spoken up, and I said, yes, that was true. (It sounds a little dubious to me now, actually.) But then I was trying to elaborate or give them more complicated examples. I can't really remember this part too clearly but I think I was throwing some 60s slang at them, which made them laugh. Like, "What's happening, man?" Or, "This is really a happening scene." Or I was thinking about those kinds of phrases, anyway. I do remember that, with that last sentence, I just gave them part of it. I said, "What if you just had the phrase, 'happening scene, man', would that be a sentence?" I told them it would be a sentence because the listener or reader had to mentally assume the missing words "This is a . . . ." and "is" is a verb.

Hmm....

I think I am feeling daunted by the prospect of helping my students work through their writing issues. Anyway, that was a really funny part of the dream.

Then there was another part, very loosely connected, where I and two other people, who were my friends, were waiting to enter a competition of some sort, which we had had to (or were about to) take a test to enter (part of what I was thinking about, in the other part of the dream, was that I was hoping the discussion I was having with my students would help them with their SATs). The competition had something to do with shooting balloons (this goes back again to playing with my greatnephew). Anyway, these two friends and I were waiting to get into some kind of hall where this competition was to take place and then a woman came along and explained that we couldn't get in until much later (10 p.m.) and that we wouldn't have time to practice. This seemed like devastating news for some reason. Also, the woman was somewhat brusque with us. After we were shunted away from the entrance to this place, the woman who was my friend said something which I heard as, "I feel hurt," or "I am hurt." I agreed that I felt that way, too. Then I realized that she had said, "I feel hurtful." I then said, "Well, I feel hurt, but not hurtful." I added, in a joking way, "I mean, I don't want to take revenge and kill someone!" Then we went off and tried to figure out what to do until 10:00 p.m.

This part of the dream (the one I just related) is not as funny as the other part. But it seems, well, interesting and maybe hopeful.

Complaint Department

I know it's been forever, but here I am. This summer has been difficult. I am unemployed, although I still have my part-time teaching gig and am very happy about that. I have been looking for worth (hmm, I meant work--interesting typo) in both academic publishing and teaching. The teaching position I interviewed for in the beginning of the summer went to someone else. I am now waiting to hear about two jobs I interviewed for very recently in publishing, either one of which I would be thrilled to get.

I had a boyfriend, briefly, which was exciting and made me feel optimistic about myself and the future. He decamped a couple of weeks ago, not ready for a "serious" relationship, he said. I am not devastated--we hadn't known each other that long and I could see there were issues--but I am disappointed.

At the end of June, my 89-year-old father had to be hospitalized and my sister and I told the social workers at the hospital that we wanted him released to a nursing home rather than to his own home where he lived alone and had care for only part of the day. We had been working toward this anyway--he could barely walk and has other problems and the arrangement at home was not sufficient. It is better for him (and us) this way, but it has been a big adjustment for everyone. My sister and I have spent a lot of time over there (this is also the nursing home where my brother, a stroke survivor, has been living for the last seven years), visiting with both my father and my brother, accompanying my father on doctor and hospital visits, speaking to the nurses about his various problems and trying to get them attended to. We also had to dismantle and vacate the apartment where he had had been living since 1974, at first with my mother, who died in 1988, and then on his own. We have spent days and days sorting through family photos, documents, personal and official letters, and other memorabilia dating back to the 1930s and even earlier (there are documents relating to both my parents' parents also). Also shredding things--my parents saved every bill, every check they ever wrote. A lot of this has been very emotional, some of it just annoying. We didn't have a chance to go through everything--put a few cartons and bins in storage and the rest of it is distributed between our two apartments. Lots of disorder now in my apartment--more than usual. But, anyway, it is done--my sister returned the key to the apartment yesterday. I told my father this and he made a sad face--kind of a mock-crying look. But only for a minute.

Because of all this family stuff, and also my own tendency to procrastinate, I am behind where I should be on an academic project I am working on, and my coeditor is annoyed with me.

And, a final complaint: Because I have developed something called "de Quervain syndrome" in my left wrist (a cousin of carpal tunnel syndrome is how my doctor described it), I have had to stay away from yoga. This is not good for my mood. Doc plans to give me a shot of cortisone, which he says should help. First I have to get the hand x-rayed and examined sonically to make sure it is not something else. And then I have to wait until September 21st, the first available appointment for the shot.

On the up side, I have had some good times with friends this summer, a couple of really nice beach days and dinners out. And I had the beautiful vacation in New Mexico in July. And my sister and I have had a chance to bond over this whole experience with my father.

Okay, that's it. I will gladly accept sympathy, words of encouragement, jokes, etc.