Dreams

I rarely dream, or at least I rarely remember my dreams. It's usually only when I take an afternoon nap that a dream wakes me up or stays in my mind.

I just had two dreams.

The first involved my father's boat. I decided to take some friends out on Lake Michigan - as if my father would ever let me take out the boat without him - even though a storm seemed like it was approaching. Right when we hit the lake, we decided to go to a beach down the way. All of a sudden, I heard some shouts and screams, and looked back, and there was a tidal wave that looked just like the tsunami tidal wave in Thailand a year and a half ago. It rose out of the lake like a monster, and came at us. I grabbed my sister and clung on to a tree branch, but the water swept us away. The dream felt so real that even though part of my consiousness had to have known it was a dream, I still fought hard to wake myself up and wasn't quite sure if I could.

The second dream, which occurred right after first, involved the first day of school. Somehow I was placed in front of the worst group of students I have ever encountered. They started off really mean and talkative, and it just got worse. I sent out a kid for being beliggerant, and went out to talk to him to try to calm him, and he said something like, "Ain't no teacher going to tell me to calm down" and then he hit me. A girl decided to hurl insults at me for no apparent reason, laughing as she did. Kids kept talking, even after I had kicked out much of the class. Finally, the Assistant Principal came in, as well as a colleague, to tell me that this group had been especially problematic the rest of the dya and they were coming to check on me. I ended the class by having all the remaining kids write a reflection of their behavior. It was horrifying. I rarely send kids out of the room, and certainly never am treated that way.

Hmmm - a deadly tidal wave and a hellish first day of school. Think there's any connection? Think I'm feeling anxiety about this upcoming school year? Wow, that ain't the half of it.

I'm teaching two of our highest stakes classes with two curriculums brand new to me (even now, on August 16th, I have not chosen all my IB texts), as well as taking grad school courses and working a second job, and I guess I'm more nervous than I care to admit.