YOUR DIPLOMA HAS BEEN REVOKED
Due to a change in the College’s requirements for graduation we find that the degree awarded to you in 1968 was in error. You are nine credits short of graduation; your diploma has been revoked.
Sincerely,
Lafayette College
This is the start of a dream that used to recur about three times a year. In it my job is dependent on a degree. To keep my job I go back to school to earn those nine credits.
I was not a good student in college. I had too much fun and not enough smarts. I managed to barely scrape through going on and off probation right up to my final semester. My graduation was in doubt until the last hour when grades were posted and I just slipped in under the minimum grade point average wire.
Having to go back and earn nine more credits without slipping under the required grade point average is indeed a nightmare.
The only part of this dream that I ever remember when I wake up in a cold sweat is having to take my final exam in Ancient History (I know…there was no such course). In the dream I did not attend a single class or lecture. I never read a page of the required reading. I never even bought the book. Somehow I thought I could borrow the book and read it the night before the final exam. No one is willing to lend me the book. The book is not available for sale. The test is due in one hour. That is when I wake up in a cold sweat.
I have not had this dream since I retired four years ago.
I’m retired.
I don’t need my job.
I don’t need the degree.
Fuck you dream!
I love it!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! I have a dream almost exactly like that! Except for me it's math...and I'm in my senior year of high school. And math is my first period of the day, and I'm always late because I can never find the classroom. I'm always just a bit late to school, and then I wander the halls looking for the classroom, and by the time I find it, there's only 10 minutes left of class, so I walk right by it...glancing in the small window of the door as I pass by, seeing my empty chair...and I always plan on going to class FOR SURE the next day, but I know that by now half of the semester is gone and I haven't shown up since the first day of class. And I know I'm going to fail, and this always stresses me out because then I won't graduate! And it's just such an awful, stressful dream. When I wake up, I am SO relieved when I slowly realize that I'm a 42 year old stay-at-home-mom and my high school days (and college days) are well behind me.
ReplyDeleteWhat do these types of dreams mean? Someone once told me it was an "incompletion" dream. There is something in our past that we did not complete, and this dream will go on forever, haunting us, until we complete whatever it is that is. Until then, it will continue bothering our subconscious through our dreams. What do you think about that, Cranky? Is there anything you haven't completed? I can think of a few things I haven't completed (court reporting school, for one thing. I quit more than half way through because I got married and had my first child, and I did NOT want to go back to school) But for me...I'd rather live with that dream than go back and complete that school. For one thing, that school was HARD! Hard stuff. No thanks! And for another thing, there is no way I'm giving up behind an at-home mom to my little ones just to get rid of some stupid recurring dream. And last, I don't really want to be a court reporter, anyway. I never really did. I was just passing the time until Mr. Right came along :)
should read *being* an at-home mom...
ReplyDeleteAt least you're not showing up naked to graduation!
ReplyDelete