Mr. Thompson

My family and I move into a new house (actually a rather large apartment) somewhere in what appears to be Queens. Of course I feel out of place. I have trouble parking and it is always dusk outside. One night I come home and, though I go through our front door, I keep ending up in other peoples' places. I keep thinking they're all going to call the cops on me, and I can't find my apartment.

I am working for a strange food service company which, in addition to delivering food, has a restaurant, though the restaurant is a shabby-looking place in a large warehouse. I am working in the warehouse as a waiter. Everything is big and dusty and vast and I have a hard time efficiently serving the food. Someone keeps talking about "him," but I don't know who "he" is. It can't have been the owner of the business, because he, in the dream, sits atop a large armchair that looms over the entire warehouse/restaurant.

In this dream, I keep seeing people I know in my grandmother's house, people who normally would never ever be there. Everyone wants to have a big party. I go upstairs in my grandmother's house, which strangely is now a very large room with high, vaulted ceilings. It looks like a humongous attic--maybe something out of Edward Scissorhands--but everyone is partying up there. There is no fun feeling to this dream, however; in fact, it all feels odd and anxiety-inducing.

I had a great time at the conference. Being a moderator was a good experience; before the conference, I hadn't been on a stage in a long time, though I used to be on them a lot. Everybody did really well, and several professors commented to me afterwards that it was conducted very professionally. You all fielded the questions smoothly (I did my best to avoid the esoteric question-askers), and, all in all, the conference felt like the perfect culmination to two semesters' worth of work. What else is better than a public forum?

The past two semesters have afforded me the great opportunity not only to study an interesting topic, but to work with extremely intelligent people (many of whom should one day become professors), and to feel as though my work was not in vain by virtue of such things as being awarded certain honors, the successful conference, etc.

I feel we all interacted very well and in many ways have come to realize the power as well as the frustration of hard word. For those who are graduating--myself included--look back upon this two-semester course as being, probably, one of the most substantive courses you've ever experienced in college.

I'd also like to extend not only a thanks but a respectful commendation to Professor Tougaw, whose affability and doctrine of treating his students like colleagues instead of subordinates have brightened my view of academe a bit.

Thanks. God bless. Good-bye.