rakkauden ja epätoivon laulu

I dreamt that I was in an elementary school. There was a class of small children, and I was waiting for the teacher to come in and start the class. There is a lot of AV equipment in the room, like TVs, radios, microphone stands, amps, cables, and so forth. The teacher arrives and he shows me how to play a game with the children where the children are numbered off, and there is a frisbee with each number. He has a device that randomly launches one of the numbered frisbees, and all the kids with that number race to catch it.

After this activity, the kids go off for recess, and the teacher is talking to me like I'm his student teacher. He says I'm doing really well and that I'm getting along well with the kids. I tell him that there must have been some mistake; I didn't register myself in a practicum and I'm not even authorized to be in one. "Is that so?" he asked me. You could keep me here but there's no point, I don't want to be here and because I'm not supposed to be here there isn't going to be anybody coming in to evaluate me.

Later on a large greeting card arrives in the mail for my sister. Half of it is covered in pink polka dots. The note inside is signed with the name of the teacher...


There was also a part involving a big holiday (Christmas?) cake, which was cut apart to serve, but if you didn't make it to the table soon enough to claim your piece, it would turn into a snowball-shaped kind of cake instead.

I just had this dream involving what I think was a sort of flea market held in an old gymnasium... and we were cleaning out the place possibly to tear the building down. Outside there was a forest and while running around in the forest I stumble upon an old, hidden chest. Inside the chest there are a lot of magazines and books... and underneath some sheet music book there is... a magazine with the Octavarium cover on it. I flip through the yellowed pages and OMG it's a complete piano arrangement book. I reverently pick up both of the sheet music books (because all holy objects can't be kept visible to the eyes of the unworthy, like me) and run away with them. Back in the old gym, I run into a group of students from Turku whom I tell that I really want to return these books to them but I've got to find a way to have my own copies first...



OKAY WHOA, I just realized I totally reinterpreted the plot of the first part of 'A Canticle for Leibowitz', which I've been reading...

Bitchgirl runs into me at a mall. It takes me the usual 5 seconds after hearing what she says before I recognize her.

Bitchgirl: "There's no place for making friendships in the kitchen and office areas."

Huh, I thought. Why is she saying this to me, I don't even work there anymore.


It was just a dream.

...so alcohol isn't my weakness?!

I'm in a hospital, recovering from an unknown surgery. Meals there are like Chinese banquet style. I think my parents are there. People here watch Japanese movies on their in-room TVs.

I'm now out of the hospital and in a hostel sort of place. I know it's a hostel because instead of having separate rooms for everyone each room has about four beds in it. Lights went out at 11pm but I have a great view of the street below from my window. Across the street is a convenience store. A group of people who look suspicious enter the store, so I get out of the hostel and go investigate. I don't hear everything they are saying, but this group of people seem to be carting out quite a lot of cases of soda, and I think this just might be a robbery.

I get back out of there to the street. It's a cobblestone street, pedestrians only, very European-style. It leads out to a circular sort of open area. There's some police officers here, but I don't want to talk to them because I'm afraid I'm gonna sound stupid if all those guys were doing was buying wholesale. I walk around more on the street, then I run into my French teacher from elementary school. She doesn't remember me at all until I give my name to her. I tell her about what I saw, and I add, "but they were speaking English, so I didn't understand everything..." And the movies in the hotel are in Japanese too...

Why wasn't I speaking English in this dream!?

5:22am - I haven't really been asleep since 3 this morning. I think maybe it's because I wasn't sleeping because I was tired, but because I was so dizzy my head throbbing increased in intensity every time I shifted myself, until I fell asleep. Now that I'm awake there's the expected dull ache in my forehead and a stale feeling in the throat, and my limbs are sort of aching but numb, espeically the hands.

Of course I didn't actually get up at 3, I waited for my alarm at 5, but I didn't really fall into a deep sleep during that time. I mostly just sat up to switch CDs and fell into bed again. One notable dream, though -- I'm carrying some nice sword in its scabbard with me, and I'm in some cutlery store (that's right; things that cut). "Are you looking for something?" "No, just browsing." "You look very familiar. Are you going to U of A?" I look at the attendant, who is sitting on a chair, blonde, and wearing a gray U of A top. "Why, yes." Just then, she opens one of her files and takes out an envelope with a photo of me clipped to thefront and flashes it by me. Then for some unknown reason Mr. Graham walks in and occupies her. I don't remember what they were talking about.

Then I'm walking down an old school hallway -- it's just like the GATE hallway at QE but with stone walls and pillars. The bell rings and I'm supposed to go to class, but I can't find Mr. Jolly's class. I mean, I look up and down the halls and I can't find him in a classroom, nor a classroom with student in it, waiting for a teacher. Eventually I decide that the only classroom that could possibly be his is the empty one with the locked door right next to the main stairwell. Somehow I still have the sword with me but no one gets scared for runs away or calls a lockdown (!). Something else non-plot related happens, and then I wake up, thinking that the reason I couldn't find my class was because there was no class -- the kids that were there were there for summer school and Mr. Jolly's already back in Australia.

7:48am - Finally my sister stopped driving. It was creeping me out.

10:10am (PDT) - Creeped out in a "whoa, Viv's driving!" way, as opposed to Viv's "Aaaagh! Mildoo's driving and she's gonna go crazy!" sort of creeped out when I drove two years back. My "fuzzy" headache is finally starting to fade. The dullness seems to originate from the centre of my forehead, while the staleness is sort of coming from the back of the top of the mouth. It's not a tangible staleness, just a feeling of flavor that's combined with the dullness.

12:00am (midnight) - I found a quiet, private moment to talk with [my cousin] Anna a little earlier, so I told her what I did last night and she confirmed that my plight with the fuzzy headache and the numb arms and ache in upper left arm (this was in the morning and before and during breakfast) was probably a hangover. I don't think I'll ever really know if it truly was or not, since I personally don't really want to try that again or to go farther. Especially not farther. Yet I do not think that I could be able to successfully resist for too too long, which is particularly troubling for me since I am burdened with enough troubles already. That these troubles lower my natural defenses is also troubling, if not more so. It is truly a downward spiral from which it is so difficult to turn back, even when I keep telling myself not to go on, by day and by night. I should give up altogether (the habit, I mean), but by no means will I give it away or waste it. I am not one for waste, and I must let this go as soon as I am finished with it.

In my dream, Conservative candidate (who ended up getting re-elected anyway) Rob Anders (who had some sort of a bloc trying to get him out of office) gets voted out of office but gets replaced by Antonuk. I spent most of the dream wondering what party she'd represent, since I thought that she'd be Conservative.

Aww....Flames lost 4-1. It's just like revenge, really, since we won 4-1 last game. And Lightning hurt a bunch of our players last game, so we hurt a bunch of their players this game (hopefully).

This dream that I had last night really reminded me of some stories that I've read for class, but I can't point out an exact title or anything.

I'm sitting in the downstairs room, working on something. I have the radio in the corner of the room turned on. After a while, I hear sounds coming from outside the house, coming from the backyard. I stand up and go to the door to the garage (we have an attached garage with access from the basement, and the garage also has a door to the backyard). I open up the door to the backyard and it's blinding sunlight outside, and I see my parents playing with my sister, from a long time ago when she was still just a toddler. The colours are very yellow and musty but not monochrome, as if the scene I was witnessing came from the pages of a couple decades-old photo album. I close the door and hurry away, because I'm afraid that they will come down to the door and see me.

Then there's a part where I seem to have a walk-on part in a travelling sort of theatre production. I got to push a frilly, carnival-decorated cart across the stage. But that's kind of beside the point.

Oh right, it reminds me of the 1985 film version of Death of a Salesman starring Dustin Hoffman that I watched in English class, the parts where Willy's talking to himself and then it transitions to his memories of the past when he opens the door into the backyard.

1. So there was this weird dream last night about me, Antonuk, and an abstract art project. In my dream, apparently she and Mr. Ancelin live a couple of houses down the street where I live. Conclusion: Prediction that I'd have a close encounter with her today.

2. Mr. MacGregor, normally a very easy-going guy, sounded really angry at the beginning of today's lesson. He was like, "we are going to stop wasting class time. We're already five minutes into class and we haven't even started. Everyone get out a sheet of paper and write my new rules down." He then runs off a huge list of rules that are pretty reasonable, but harsh, while twirling his pointer stick in his hands. I figured this might have had something to do with the two students that were asked to leave the class because they wouldn't stop talking to each other.

Then he has us put our hands up if we've brought our textbook to class. "Those of you who have your homework completed and ready to stamp, stand up. Okay, sit down. Those who don't have your homework done, stand up. Now sit down. Everybody stand up. Good, sit down." (And I thought, okay......) Then he gives us a little assignment to think about and walks out of the room for a moment.

When he comes back, there is developing a very low whispering throughout the room, probably people discussing 'what the heck's going on?' or something to that effect. "I want you all to be working!"

Then he breaks it to us; it was all an act to demonstrate what life is like under a dictatorship, to introduce us to the next unit on the curriculum. We had to admit that we were totally under its spell. Now I wonder if he's ever considered acting ;)

3. Here I was again, walking to art class through crowded hallways past the Queen Ant's room, and it appeared to me that she was, at the moment, not in the room. I keep on walking by, and all of a sudden, while dodging a crowd of kids, I literally brush past her, and she says 'hi' to me, calling me by name. Naturally, as instinct to me, I return the greeting, only realizing later how strange it was to break the silence of exactly three months. I couldn't help but clasp my hands in gesture of prayer as often as I could during art class.

I can still imagine her like in an unwritten scene of my crazy screenplay ['Kill Antonuk' - an intellectual spoof of 'Kill Bill'] -- sitting at the end of a long conference table, two suits of armour with spears stand against the wall behind her as if guarding. But only to her immediate right stands a living guard -- Flukas -- who, by the order of a single hardly noticeable nod, sounds the death sentence for anyone who steps out of line of her liege's expectations. No one outside hears the shots ring out, for the room is soundproof and windowless, and has no doors save the entrance and a trapdoor to a chute where the bodies are dumped (but not without being overkilled beyond recognition for the sake of example).

Scarce lately has there been a day which I could rest early and so for the days to come.

I found myself in a dream, under cover of anonymity in shadow-black. I saith to her, "there lies no truth here, you do not speak it. Stop trying to pretend you do. Some of them here may have a radically different view of what is 'true' than yourself and let them be so without hesitation or persecution. Give them their freedoms or give me your life."