http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/ Dreaming... en Copyright 2007 Sat, 19 May 2007 11:34:38 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss So this morning I started putting my life back in order, which is a ritual for me as I enter the post-semester period. Only this time it's tinged with sadness, because I know that this is the very last time that I'll go through these motions. My desk is in order, my checkbook balanced, my house cleaned. Yet I'm feeling an emptiness - a resonance of the void in my life that until this week was filled by school. I'm sure that I'll get over it quickly, but even writing this feels like a sad thing to do. Blogging here has become such a regular part of life that closing it off feels like just one more box closed, one more door shut. Change is always like that, I suppose. I was a blogger before starting this blog, so it's not as though it was a new experience for me, but it was interesting to do it on assigned topics and see how a classroom full of people addressed the same subject that I did. As a writer, I really appreciated that experience. Although it's campy to say, this year has been a journey and this class has played a large part of that. Rather than just taking another three credits, we've really worked together and become friends, which is something that I'll always appreciate. Blue skies to all of you -- http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/the_closing_of_the_blogs.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/the_closing_of_the_blogs.html Sat, 19 May 2007 11:34:38 -0500 The images have mostly faded now, but I was camping out at a resort with a bunch of people from high school. We had cabins and we were assigned to different ones. We ran around and did a bunch of stuff, but then we went to this huge dining hall. Suddenly my friend Rob from high school stood up and gave a speech in Hebrew, which I somehow understood. He was still talking about a discourse on Biblical literature when I left and waited for a phone call that never came. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_27_camping_out.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_27_camping_out.html Fri, 18 May 2007 06:15:03 -0500 I'm in a cabin out in the woods with my friend and her family, from her two kids to her father, who is pretty sick. We're sitting around having a big discussion on some intellectual topic or other, when I decide that I'm going to read to the kids, who are still very young. I pull out Slaughterhouse Five and start to read to them, which they love, but then I get distracted with a concept in the passage I've just read. I start going on about communist feminist theory and the kids wander away bored. Suddenly I'm in a van with a bunch of people and we're driving around some urban landscape, which has people wandering around everywhere. It's night and it's dangerous, but I'm still going on about communist feminist theory.... http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_26_at_the_cabin.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_26_at_the_cabin.html Mon, 14 May 2007 06:12:55 -0500 I was really nervous about presenting my paper, mostly because of the subject matter. I'm basically taking three respected religious visionaries and relegating their visions to the status of dreams, which is a pretty sensitive topic. Doing so publicly is even more frightening, since I feel like I'm bound to offend someone. Still, after reading my little speech out loud in the class last week, I'm feeling a lot more confident about it. I'm not nervous about the conference at all now. I'm mostly just thinking about what I should wear to it. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/blog_27_reflection_on_upcoming.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/blog_27_reflection_on_upcoming.html Sun, 13 May 2007 21:13:01 -0500 The web project was pretty easy for me, but I enjoyed doing it. My paper was naturally "chunky" since I covered three different people in it, so dividing it up barely required any thought at all. What I really enjoyed was being able to add in some visuals to the ideas I was trying to get across. And, of course, it was fun to play with css too...I learned a couple of new things there! http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/blog_25_reflection_on_course_w.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/blog_25_reflection_on_course_w.html Sun, 13 May 2007 21:11:30 -0500 I'm in Portland, Oregon to meet my best friend (M) for a visit. I meet up with her, but her other best friend (L) and L's husband T are also there. T is an ex-boyfriend of mine from my teenaged years, so the flame is gone, but I am delighted to see him becaue it' been a long time. I walk along the street with my arm linked with his (his other arm is linked with my best friend. We're chatting, when M suddenly points out to me that L has a jealous streak and she's very pissed off that I'm talking to T. Horrified, I jump away, because I like L very much and don't want to offend her. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_23_jealousy.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_23_jealousy.html Wed, 09 May 2007 06:40:05 -0500 A bizarre dream - I dreamt that I was going on a family vacation with my (12 year old) brother. My father put my brother into my care as we were walking down the street - my brother popped into a store and my father disappeared. We went to find our hotel, but when we got to the address, it turned out to be Michael Jackson's house. In my dream, I knew this to be a very bad thing, but my brother disappeared at this point. Instead I was trapped in Michael Jackson's house and not very happy about it! I kept moving from room to room and whenever I got upset, Michael would let me go into a room where my cats were hanging out. They'd make me feel better for a time, but I was still stuck. (I saw a biography of Michael Jackson on mute while at the gym last week...I imagine that's where that came from!) http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_22_why_am_i_dreaming_abo.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_22_why_am_i_dreaming_abo.html Mon, 07 May 2007 06:11:45 -0500 We are in a large house with a number of family members. We is pretty unspecified - they seem to be family, but no one that I recognize. Upstairs are some members of the family with a frightening medical problem and I am the only one willing to deal with them. They keep venturing downstairs and terrifying the other family members and I keep having to calm everyone down. I leave the house with two people, who have suddenly become friends instead of family. We're driving to go somewhere and we come to a parking lot. The driver, my friend, goes to turn into a pay lot and I question her on it, since there's a free lot directly behind us that just requires a little more walking. She goes for that instead. We get out of the car and are walking down the street and we've lost her, even though the friend and I that are walking together are limping slowly down the street. A bus load of people are behind us and we think that maybe she's behind it, so we stop and wait. She does finally come out, but she's walking with a cane. Then the alarm goes off! http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_21_limping_from_the_inva.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/05/dream_21_limping_from_the_inva.html Wed, 02 May 2007 06:07:40 -0500 Well, my paper sure is a lot prettier with a green background. It's not really significantly different from my paper at all, since my paper was pretty chunky in its original format, but it is pretty to see it with some images. It was easy enough to do - and fun to finally play with style sheets, which I've never really worked with before. :) http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/04/blog_19_web_project_thoughts.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/04/blog_19_web_project_thoughts.html Sun, 29 Apr 2007 07:32:54 -0500 I'm at a software conference, but it's a small event with only a few people in the room. The speaker makes a big deal about me being there since I'm a woman and so few women come to these things. He talks about my knitting and I realize that I should have brought my other knitting project with me - I seem to only have the one I'm sick of working on right now. The scene changes and I know I'm getting ready for a party, but I've got these three dresses to make alterations on and I know they're not ready yet. Also, they're supposed to be small black dresses, but they're in unbleached muslin. I try one on, even though it's the one for my best friend's other best friend, who is much more petite than I am. I just barely squeeze into it. Suddenly my dream-husband shows up and asks if I'm ready and I say that of course I am, even though I'm not even close. Five more minutes, I say. I go into the next room, which is a gigantic bathroom, where the children are sleeping in their canopy bed. I tuck them into sleep and then bring my dream-husband in to look. We ahhh and leave the room, even though I know that we shouldn't be leaving, because the babysitter is a vampire. Analyze that one, if you can! http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/04/dream_20_software_conference_m.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/04/dream_20_software_conference_m.html Sun, 29 Apr 2007 07:27:45 -0500 Another stolen one, this one from Wuthering Heights: I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Josepf for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and as we floundered on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim's staff: telling me that that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text - 'Seventy Times Seven;' and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the 'First of the Seventy-First,' and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated. We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergyman's stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached - good God! what a sermon; divided into FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously. Oh, how weary I grow. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would EVER have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the 'FIRST OF THE SEVENTY-FIRST.' At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon. 'Sir,' I exclaimed, 'sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart - Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!' 'THOU ART THE MAN!' cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. 'Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage - seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul - Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such honour have all His saints!' With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez's part in the row? Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than before. This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. 'I must stop it, nevertheless!' I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in - let me in!' 'Who are you?' I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. 'Catherine Linton,' it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of LINTON? I had read EARNSHAW twenty times for Linton) - 'I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!' As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, 'Let me in!' and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear. 'How can I!' I said at length. 'Let ME go, if you want me to let you in!' The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on! 'Begone!' I shouted. 'I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.' 'It is twenty years,' mourned the voice: 'twenty years. I've been a waif for twenty years!' Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright. To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/04/dream.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/04/dream.html Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:26:03 -0500 I frequently dream about characters from novels that I've read instead of about myself. Recently I read A Rose for the Crown, which is about Richard II and his mistress Kate. In the novel, they are each other's true love, but are parted due to his responsibilities of birth when he must make a marriage alliance. In my dream, Kate and Richard and a bunch of the court were in Wisconsin across the street from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It was a huge street, with these gigantic row house mansions (like in the Circle in Bath). Everyone went into the attic of one of these houses, when there was a huge flood. The water was getting higher and people were frantic to get out, so Kate and her courtiers swam around until they found a slide (which was under the water level, but you could see it because light was being let in). Her courtiers immediately plunged out, but Kate swam back to get Richard. They all escaped down the slide and he was so grateful that he took her back and held her while they dripped dry outside in the street. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/dream_14_kate_and_richard_1.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/dream_14_kate_and_richard_1.html Sun, 25 Mar 2007 06:36:32 -0500 How was it? Not so bad. I'm not saying it was easy, but I definitely felt well prepared for it. And believe me, it would have been hard to study less for this test on my own than I did. :) I actually found the test difficult to study for - other than memorizing a few key things from different periods and the poetry terms, I found myself kind of groping at what else to learn. So, not so bad. I'm glad it's over. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/honors_exam_reaction.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/honors_exam_reaction.html Sat, 24 Mar 2007 08:58:06 -0500 American Guide British Guide ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/collation_and_hilighting.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/collation_and_hilighting.html Honors_Exam Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:21:02 -0500 I have a good friend that is transsexual and has been slowly going through the operations for transition for many years now, but has been held back for financial reasons, which is a huge frustration in her life. My friend had a dream in which she dreamt about being transgender and going through all the problems of being transsexual. But then she woke up from the "nightmare" and she was no longer transgender -- she was just a normal woman who had been born female. Since it was Christmas day, she and her family made Christmas puddings and hung out and had a grand old time. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/dream_13_another_stolen_dream.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/016/2007/03/dream_13_another_stolen_dream.html Sat, 17 Mar 2007 08:38:23 -0500