Glieuaeiel's DJ

College Medley (4:06)

On a college forum, one of the residential houses has posted something that they shouldn't have. One of the house members has edited the post to add a lot of his own text, in red font, pointing out why it was a stupid decision to post this online. I can empathize with his frustration--it's hard to stop a hundred different people from doing something stupid.

We're not sure who will be teaching our math class. Suddenly someone offers to call a professor he knows. I recognize the name--it's one of my old physics professors. He was . . . not very formal . . . when it came to math, so I'm worried at the prospect of taking a math class with him. I try to communicate this to a nearby classmate of mine, but then I realize that that classmate might not have been in physics with me. Oops.

This classmate and I take turns driving each other around. We listen to classical music while I'm driving, but when it's his turn, I can't find anything but pop on the radio. I've no idea how to make a good soundtrack with such music, so I decide to stop fiddling with the radio. Then we see a truck careening around a corner ahead of us, passing us to go back the way we came. That must be the professor arriving. We should head back.

As I'm getting out of the car, I see to my shock that there's a crocodile lying across the path in front of the car. It's too late to jump back inside, because the crocodile charges! Yes, it's as fast as I've always been warned that they are. Desperately, I try to fend it off with a chair. Eventually I scare it off by singing very loudly. I continue singing as I run down the path towards the house, knowing that the crocodile could return for another attack at any moment. Sure enough, it does.

Board Game Foul (7:07)

In excitement, I accidentally bump the game board, and pieces go sliding everywhere. Dang it, that's such a board game foul! Except somehow magically they stayed in their original configuration, they just slid off of the board. Phew. Okay, so now I just have to move them carefully back onto the board. We start giving the pieces vocal commands, and they go back to the board as if marching in formation, turning together and doing about-faces and everything. When the last piece gets back into position, though, I don't recognize the configuration. Is that really what the board looked like? Now the pieces are actual, life-size people, and I'm standing on the ground with them. Part of the configuration involves people crouched on all fours, each one with another person standing straddling them. I shout that I don't recognize the scenario, and a man shouts back that that's because we haven't played this one yet! Before I can reply, we're under attack, and everyone is moving. A woman dressed in furs brandishes a sword at me, and I figure that I'd better fight back.

Feces (7:07)

[This is my second dream about poop in recent memory. What the heck?]

Our pet dog is about to start defecating in the yard, so I'm trying to force her out through the gate to the other side of the wooden picket fence. The trouble is that I'm about to start defecating, too, and I don't know how much other poop is already lying in the yard. I could step on it at any moment, so I need to watch the ground, but I also need to focus on getting the dog out of the yard. It's an impossible situation, and gross. I wake up, sort of.

Notification of Acceptance (7:07)

I've been playing a handheld game, but the battery's almost dead. I save quickly, then shut down. The computer asks if I'm sure I want to turn it off, giving a list of files that will be deleted. Since I just saved them, I think it's safe to continue shutting down, so I do. Then I plug it in and turn it back on to check whether the files are still there. When I check in the game save location, I find an old version of the files--the most recent one wasn't saved! Then I check the other location, and the new version isn't there, either! Oh, no! Then I enter some kind of computer recovery mode, and I find a bunch of swap files (or whatever) that the text editor uses while it's in use. Some of them contain almost-up-to-date versions of the files, thank goodness.

Later, my orchestra conductor is walking around the dorm, notifying people personally that they've been accepted to the orchestra. I watch as she knocks on one door and it is opened by a pair of boys who look like they're about seven years old. The boys tell her about how they're in the middle of taking a practice SAT right now, but they don't look like they're in a big hurry. How did they get into this university at that age, and without taking the SAT? I peer into the room, and I see the practice SAT on the TV screen. It's a sort of video game. The current question has something to do with baseball, and there's a timer counting down from about two and a half minutes. I hope they don't lose the game because of this interruption. Then my alarm wakes me up, which makes me happy. No wonder both save files disappeared, and no wonder those kids were so young.

Frags:

• An old woman points out that my mother couldn't have been a cat, because then I'd be a kitten, and I'm not a kitten. Her observation has more to do with my age than my species.
• I'm watching a TV show. I notice that many (probably half) of the people in the current scene are naked. I'm glad that, here at least, the TV industry has gotten over its insistence on censoring nudity.

Roommates

I'm back at school, hanging out with my new roommates. First, we eat in the dining hall. I run into some awkwardness where I want to grab some food from a station, but there are other people trying to get around me, so I have to stand off to the side and wait.

Later, we go back to the room. There will be five of us living here, so we all try getting into the bed to see if we will fit. We won't all fit if we lie side by side, so I try putting my pillow on one end of the bed, while the four others decide to put theirs on the other. Hmmm. It's a bit awkward with our feet getting tangled in the middle, and also I think it's weird that I'm the only one on this side. I try to explain it jokingly, saying that I'm lonely over here. Someone suggests that my roommates from previous years switch sides, and I find myself hoping that my old roommate will refuse: I'm already worried that he thinks I'm attracted to him.

Later, I wander out into the halls for a while, then try to find my way back. I don't remember the room number, so I try a door at random. There are girls in this room, but also one of my roommates, so I'm not sure whether it's my room or not. I'm embarrassed to ask, too. Eventually my roommate comes to my rescue, telling me it's the next door over. As I go over to that door, I look around at the peeling paint and splintering wood in the building, and I realize that our house kind of got the raw end of the deal when we were moved over to this building.

Videobomb

Spoiler for Videobomb:

A woman tearfully tells us of a movement to capture videos of creatures with various numbers of legs. Probably she cares about it so much because it has to do with being friends with animals, or something. She tells us that there are still NO submissions about animals with seven legs, nor any for animals with eight legs. And there are barely any for six legs, either. She shows us the single submission they have for a six-legged animal. Bemused, my dad and I watch it.

A girl walks into a room with a couch. For a moment it looks like there are two other girls making out nearby, but the video quality isn't very good. "I wonder what that was about," I say. My dad grunts noncommittally. The girl is now setting up a camera aimed at a jar containing an unusual insect. It has a large, angular, black shell, about the size of a walnut. The plan is to remove the jar and try to get a good picture of the insect before it runs away. But when she takes of the jar, the insect scurries more rapidly than anticipated, and the picture she snaps isn't very clear. Her sister comes in to help her chase down the insect to get another picture. The video ends.

Then Dad and I click on a related video, where the girl explains some of the background to what she was doing. But it turns out she just says, "This is what my friend decided to wear to the video shoot," and then pans over to look at a couple of girls making out on the floor. One of them's only wearing the bottom half of her underwear. After a moment, the other girl comes all the way into the shot, and I realize she's not wearing anything at all. Perhaps it's sexy; I don't know, because I'm mortified to be seeing this at the same time as my Dad. I can't quite figure out what he thinks of it.

Gym Activities

[Warning: This dream makes no sense. Lol. I think I was half awake for most of it.]

A muscular announcer has just adopted a new stage name. He's discussing it with another announcer. They're throwing back and forth ideas for other, more awesome stage names that he could have chosen. One suggests "VenusMercury." The man admits he likes that one a lot, but he couldn't choose it because of trouble in some Chinese provinces named "Venus" and "Mercury." A map appears, showing that these provinces are at the western extreme of China. Then the video cuts to a field correspondent, hiking through the mountains in that area. She talks to the camera as she descends into a very, very deep crevasse in the earth. It's so deep that I suspect the video must be fake. Anyway, they reach the bottom, where there are two very long "flat escalators" (People Movers?) running parallel to each other in opposite directions. So you can ride them around in circles. They start doing an activity where the correspondent puts tape on the floor and the other person has to pick it up. Soon other people are playing the game, including myself. There are so many lines everywhere that it's ridiculous to imagine we'll get rid of them all. And you can't just erase them, because they're all outlined in black and you're supposed to leave the outline in place.

After a time, I try picking up another line, but the gym teacher cuffs me on the shoulder. Apparently class is over, and the basketball team needs those lines on the floor for their practice. I stop. I just watch as the team comes in and starts practicing. I contemplate practicing archery. It would be cool to be able to shoot an arrow while doing a cartwheel. There are a bunch of little kids in the room, and sometimes they get in the way of the basketball players.

I try to leave, but through the door there's just another gym. I'm not sure whether to try another door in the current gym or try another door in this new gym. I'm lost. I ask someone where the principal is, since chances are he'll be in his office, and if I walk in the opposite direction of the principal's office then I'll probably make it outside. The person points at a wall, and a green light appears. I know that the light is floating over the head of the principal. So I walk to a door on the opposite side of the gym. Now, I don't like the basketball players, so before I go, I make a bunch of bugs appear on the wall. Ten spiders, fifteen flies (to feed the spiders), and twenty bitemes. Hah! That should keep them busy. It'll probably also make the principal mad at me, but I'll be gone long before he gets here.

The door leads to the back yard of the school. There's a playground nearby, but no one's around. It's a dark, overcast day, and it's drizzling. I walk along the side of the building towards the front.

Airport

A bunch of my buds and I decided to go to the airport together. We've been delayed in various ways, so I'm relieved when one guy finally gets back with our boarding passes so we can head to our respective gates. I start speedwalking along a hallway. There's a stranger about to cut me off going around a corner (I'm squeezed between him and the wall), so I try to dart past him. The only trouble is, someone else tries to do the same on his other side, so we all end up crashing into each other and making a really awkward scene. I hurriedly apologize and start lecturing everyone about what a bad decision we both made there. The other guy apologizes also (as much to me as to the stranger, it seems), and I recognize him as a high school friend. But I'm desperate to vacate the scene, so I dash away again without saying hi. I feel bad about it, since I never got a chance to talk with him over summer break, either.

As I walk through more hallways, I see a girl a bit younger than me trying out a kind of play microphone. From what I hear as I pass by, it changes your voice so you sound like a robotic alien.

I reach a green tile ramp set into the middle of the floor; it's about twenty feet wide. I set down my things beside me and happily slide down it. There are lots of twists and turns, forking paths, and side hallways. I start to feel a bit confused about the layout of the airport. Once, I shoot off the end of a flat section and gravity doesn't work too quickly, so I crash lightly into a vertical wall a few feet farther forward. I'm frustrated that the ramp didn't work properly, but I'm not injured or anything. I continue going down. A girl comes sliding out of a side hallway, and I recognize her as a housemate right before we crash into each other. We both laugh about it. Behind me, I hear some people from the group I arrived with. They're talking about how it's later than they thought it was, and they were supposed to be at their gate quite a while ago. Upon hearing this, I realize that I'm not even sure what gate I'm supposed to be going to.

Well, that kind of takes the fun out of sliding. I get off the slide and fish my crumpled boarding pass out of my pocket. It's the smaller part, the stub that ushers usually take when you go into the theater. I hope I still have the other part. But whatever, gate information should be on this part as well. When I look for the gate, I'm horrified to see that the terminal is specified not with one but with FOUR letters, which seem to follow a complicated pattern of upper and lower case. This airport is far more confusing than I feared. I have no idea where that terminal is, much less how to get there. I'm probably going to miss my flight.

Uncomfortable Music

There's a concert coming up, and I still need to practice the music. I pull it out and start working, but it's the most uncomfortable music I've ever played. I feel like I'm engaged in spiritual battle with some demonic entity, and the music is feeding it, making it stronger. I decide to stop practicing before the music kills me.

But now it's concert time, and I still haven't practiced. This is one of those orchestras where you only get a couple rehearsals and you only get the one concert, so if I don't do a good job on this concert, I may as well not be in the orchestra at all. So while we're all sitting on stage warming up, I try to get in a bit more practice. Realistically, though, it's too little too late.

Climbing Rock

One of the main attractions in this building is its indoor climbing rock. Its surface is rough but its shape is roughly ellipsoid, and its dimensions in meters are about 15 by 20 on the base, and 3 high. It's granite, or anyway some kind of gray stone. The sides are a bit steep, so the attraction is that it's challenging to get on and off of it, but once you're on top you can run around and play games with the other victors.

I finally reach the front of the line, and I reach the top without incident. I don't have anything to do up there, though, so I just walk across to the other corner and try to find my way down. Turns out this side is much steeper than I expected. As I'm clinging to the rock, a building employee walks over and sticks something on my arm. I can't pick it up since I need my arms to hang on, so I use my forehead to try and press the thing more firmly to my arm. I'll look at it later. Anyway, I fiddle and shift around for a few minutes without making much downward progress, but then I notice that some "rungs" have been cut into this side of the rock a few feet to my right: rectangular gouges about two inches deep, spaced like the rungs of a ladder. I use them to get down, but then I start feeling like I cheated, and I start wondering whose idea it was to put rungs on the climbing rock, anyway. I see my old math TA standing nearby, so I ask him if there's a more legit way to climb down the rock in the place I had been trying to do it. He doesn't know, but during the course of the conversation I become convinced that for the sake of my own self-worth, I need to go back onto the climbing rock and try again.

The rungs on the rock go all the way down to a hallway below the floor on which the climbing rock is located. I'm not allowed to go back up the rungs, so I'll have to find some other way to the floor above. There doesn't seem to be an elevator in sight, and I begin to wonder whether this building is designed to make it difficult to get back to that floor.

I wander around for quite some time. In the process, I come across a darkened room with a bunch of merry-go-rounds or bumper cars or something spinning all over the place on the floor. I need to cross the room, but it'll be hard to do that without getting my shins severely bruised. Seriously, who thought this room was a good idea? I do some desperate dives and jumps and hops, and somehow I make it.

At another time, I see something in the wall that looks like an elevator button, and I press it without thinking. A second later, though, I see that the windows in the sliding doors on this wall are showing me an underground tunnel, not an elevator shaft. This button must call a subway train. Horizontal transport rather than vertical. Sure enough, a train soon comes roaring up to the station. Ha ha, very funny, building designer.

Finally I find some hallways populated by people, and I even recognize some of them. They're students from my university. I'm surprised to note that a lot of the girls look quite attractive. Isn't my school one of those where you're supposed to need a special pair of goggles for this kind of thing? Maybe that's not true! That would be cool. Anyway, I go into a room where some acquaintances of mine are having a baking party.

Road Rage

I accidentally drop a rubber duck behind a movie screen playing Finding Nemo. Damn it. I'm going to have to tow it out with my car. I get in and start zooming down the highway, swerving haphazardly between other cars and going just about as fast as my car can manage. Once, I start passing a car just as it starts passing the car in front of it. Meanwhile there's yet another car in the far left lane, so for a few seconds there are four of us cars driving side-by-side in a three-lane highway. I don't care. I'm angry. Eventually I decide it's time to turn around, so I pull one of those parking-brake 180s and shift gears without putting in the clutch. For a while I dodge traffic going in the opposite direction until I find myself on the right side of the highway, halfway between two lanes and tailgating both cars in front of me. One of them suddenly brakes, and I almost crash into it. That was a bit too close for my liking, so I try to give them a bit more space. But there are cars everywhere and I'm still trying to get things under control when I look up and there's a white screen with the word "Nemo" right in front of me and I swerve just enough to crash into the screen broadside, and the car comes to a halt. The rubber duck falls out, rolls behind the movie screen, and this time rolls all the way under the refrigerator as well. Damn it, now I'm never going to get it out!

Party at Alex Day's

Tonight is an orchestra rehearsal. It's the first one, but it might as well be the dress rehearsal, since we only get a couple of rehearsals before the concert. I decide I should wear concert attire, just to get used to it. I'm running late, so I resent the few minutes it takes to turn on my laptop and check my email to find the one where the conductor tells us what concert attire will be. By the time I'm dressed and outside, it's five minutes to seven. I can't remember whether rehearsal is scheduled for six or for seven, but in either case, I'm going to be late. I decide to go anyway, because even half a rehearsal is better than none when you only get two in the first place.

Unfortunately, there's some car trouble. It takes a few minutes to work out, and then Dad and some of his friends give the car (in neutral) a push down the road. I start running down the road after it, trying to reach it before the road curves and the car crashes into the fence. I barely get there in time, diving into the car to cheers from the group still standing around my driveway. I dove too far, ending up in the passenger seat, so I climb back over to the driver side. I stick in the key and twist it, the engine comes on, and I turn the steering wheel. As I drive out of the neighborhood, I try to think of what else I need to do in order to get the car under control. Maybe I should turn on the radio?

Later, I'm walking. I decide to take a shortcut through some buildings. It's a more direct route, but I'm not sure if there actually is a path all the way through. I go up some stairs, down some stairs, and through some arches. The buildings are made out of butterscotch-colored stucco (or plaster or something; I'm not sure what it's called). Suddenly I see an arch that opens onto an apartment full of people, including Alex Day and my sister! Alex invites me in, and we start talking. There's a really fun atmosphere at this party; I'm impressed. I wonder if Alex and my sister are dating. Just for fun, sometimes I answer Alex's or my sister's questions in Spanish. He invites me to stay, but I insist that I must be going: I've got places to be and work to do. My sister explains that Alex feels threatened by my productivity as a musician. Hmmm. Interesting.

I ask Alex if he knows any way though the buildings so I can finish my shortcut. He doesn't, but he tells me I should ask Kim (Nieuwenhuis). "Her apartment's just upstairs," he says. "I spent a couple of days up there a while ago. It's one of the happiest places I've ever been." Well then. I guess I should go up there.

Just then, a group of girls run past in the hallway outside. They're laughing and running upstairs, and I think I recognize Kim among them. "Kim!" I call, hurrying to the doorway. But either it wasn't her, or she didn't hear me. No one turns around.

In any case, I think I remember this place. I think I've been here before. If memory serves, I should be able to go down this hall and around a corner and--yes! I'm outside! It should be easy to get to the concert hall from here. But then I realize that I've left my viola in Alex's apartment, so I have to go back for that. Somehow I start watching a new video of his that's based on a pun on his name: Alex Day vs. Alex Night, or something. There's a bouncing ball that turns into a bounding dog that turns into two smaller balls that Alex throws that turn into one bigger bouncing ball again, and so forth.

Frags:

• Watching an online advertisement for a cosmetic skin product
• Posting on the DV forums. I was glad when I realized I was doing this, because that meant I was actually participating in the forums beyond just my introduction thread.

Tight-Rope

A large group of students slowly makes its way across campus, myself among them. I wish we were moving faster, but my heavy backpack makes it difficult for me to pass anyone. Fortunately, when we reach the courtyard outside of our destination building, a lot of the group stops to socialize--they're not actually committed enough to go all the way up to the destination room. I'm able to pull in front and lead the dozen or so of us who are left.

As we start ascending the stairs, I realize that I don't remember which floor we're going to. It's been a while since this group last met, you see. I ask the people behind me, but they don't remember, either. On a landing halfway between the fourth and fifth floors, the stairs stop, and we'll have to ascend the rest of the way on a tight-rope, with just one other rope at about chest height to hold onto. Then I remember that our floor is the first possible floor above this point. But it's not the fifth floor, because there's a message printed along the bottom of the wall up there that says something like "This is a false door." So we won't be able to go through that one. That means we have a floor and a half of tight-rope walking to do, which is a bit scary but not impossible.

I head out onto the rope, and the group follows me. Halfway to the fifth floor, the girl behind me slips, screams, and throws her arms around me from behind to catch onto the rope in front of me. Her feet are dangling in midair. I just try to hold on as solidly as possible so she can depend upon me for support. She sounds very scared, so I also try to reassure her that it's not very far to the sixth floor, and I start to walk her through getting her feet back under herself. She gets her feet back on the rope, but she needs to get her hands back behind me as well in order for us to advance. I tell her to do it one arm at a time, but it turns out that we're actually holding onto a vertical rope which I'll first need to move behind my own body. So I have to do some balancing of my own, but eventually we manage it and continue on up.

Starting at the fifth floor, there's a four-inch-wide strip of wood running along the walls that we can use to stand on, rather than standing on the tight-rope. It's much easier that way, and without further incident, we arrive in the room on the sixth floor. A couple of old women are waiting for us inside.

Orange Soda

When I open my locker at the gym, I'm surprised to find it stuffed full of soda pop and food. I remember I left that stuff in there a while ago, and since this is only about the second time I've used my gym locker this term, I guess I haven't had time to remove it yet, or even had a chance to remember that it was there. In any case, it's time to start taking this stuff home. My backpack can't fit it all at once, so this will take at least three visits: one for the orange soda, one for the root beer, and one for all the food. In addition to the orange soda, this time I also pack my dream journal. I'm a bit confused that it's there--I've been using it recently, haven't I?--until I remember that I've been carting it back and forth daily using my gym bag. It's high time I took it home permanently.

Suddenly I look around to discover that all of the lights are off. I've been here so long that by now it's after hours and all of the employees are gone. Part of me thinks that this is cool, but another part wonders if an axe murderer hasn't also sneaked in after hours to kill me on my way out the door.

I make it back to my house and announce to Mom that I've brought home a lot of orange soda. We both sit around the coffee table and I start taking it out. The first one I remove is open and half empty. "I forgot some of them were open!" I say. I really hope I haven't spilled soda all over my school things. "I guess all of them were open," I observe, as I take out the rest of the cans. There are several wet spots on my binder from spilled soda, but none larger than a dime.

Under Construction

Taking a shortcut through the math department, I see a giant pile of dirt in one of the hallways. Apparently part of the building is under construction. I follow Prof. S up and down a short staircase that goes around the dirt. Prof. S walks into a classroom. I'm curious what he's doing this late in the evening, so I peek in the windows. It looks like there are a lot of professors and older students in the room--must be some kind of advanced seminar. I decide it's time to get moving again.

[I must have woken up after just about every REM cycle last night. Not sure how I pulled that one off.]

Soiree

Some of my cousins arrive for a function my family is hosting. They brought cupcakes--chocolate and one other flavor. They ask which flavor I prefer, because somehow the arrangement of cupcakes in the baking tin will reflect the seating chart for the event. I reply, "Probably chocolate."

I've agreed to contribute to the evening's entertainment by playing a short (two page) piano solo by Gershwin. I know I haven't played piano in ages, but everything on those two pages looked sightreadable when I glanced over it a while ago. However, when Dad discovers my plan, inexplicably he freaks out. I guess he's really concerned that I'll embarrass myself in front of the relatives. It's annoying, though. In fact, Dad's been annoying me a lot lately. For instance, he's recently gotten it into his head that he should learn to play piano himself, and he expects me to sit down with him to prepare piano duets. That does not sound like fun at all.

The previous group finishes performing, and now it's my turn. I figure the crowd is busy socializing, and they won't mind if I take a minute to look at some of the tougher chords. But to my horror, I open the music and discover a third page. What I thought was the end of the music is just a thin double bar! The third page isn't unplayable, but it has a lot of fast arpeggios over several octaves which will be very, very difficult to sightread. I probably should have taken a closer look at this. I start to feel uncomfortable about the amount of time I've delayed, now; the audience is probably getting impatient.

John Green the Sponsor

I've just finished TAing for today for a two-week class for math teachers in primary education. I and the teacher for the class spend a few moments calculating in percentages how close we are to finishing the class. It's towards the end of the second week.

It's dark outside as I walk through the quadrangles on my way home. On the way, I pass someone who looks exactly like John Green! I didn't know he was in Chicago! But I pass him without getting the courage to ask for an autograph. Mere steps later I consider turning around to chase after him, but I don't.

Inside a building, I run into one of my students from a previous summer math program. We talk for a bit, but we both have to be getting somewhere, so he leads the way out of the building. The building's door is rather heavy, and I feel bad that he tries to hold it for me. The pathway outside is narrow. I follow it into a smallish quad that's packed with people. I learn that it's called "Jones Quad," and it's a popular after-hours gathering place for students. I also know that I've been this way before. A girl from my house waves at me from inside a pack of her friends. I wave back--rather saucily, to my own surprise (namely, by lifting my left hand and repeatedly bending and unbending the last two knuckles of each finger simultaneously). Someone else waves at me, but I don't recognize her, and she makes a disappointed grimace. I run into someone else from my house and we remark upon how many housemates seem to be on campus tonight, despite the fact that it's the middle of summer.

It occurs to me that the John Green I saw might just have been a very close look-alike to the famed vlogbrother. I decide that I should go find him again and look more closely. As I wander around, something weird happens with the lights and the music in the building, and I guess that must mean it's about to close down for the night. No one seems in a hurry to leave, though. When I come back a few minutes later, everyone's still there, though they leave soon thereafter.

Back outside, I walk around a street corner and see a pizza place across the street. On a screen above the building, an advertisement plays. It's this same John Green guy. He's basically sponsoring the pizza place. I guess the pizza company must have heard about the Pizza John shirt and decided to capitalize on it. I still can't decide if the guy is actually John Green, though. It seems unlikely that he would do something so commercial.

Locker Checkout

It's the Saturday after finals week, and I'm trying to do my last bit of packing before going home. I've been storing some stuff in a locker on campus, so I head over to the building to pick it up. To my dismay, the building is locked. Apparently Friday was the last day to remove your belongings from this building. I spend a few minutes mentally cursing the idiot who thought that was a good idea, but then I decide I'd better try to do something about the situation. Using cleverness, I'm able to reach the first of my two lockers, which contains a fairly new car battery. I've been switching this one in and out with my car's old battery. Only, it seems like doing the swap would be a fairly complicated operation, and I can't remember ever having done it before. Oh, well. I must have known how at some point, and it's just been so long that it's slipped my mind temporarily. It'll come back, I'm sure. I put the battery in my backpack.

Unfortunately, the second locker is definitely unreachable. I check the building's hours, and unfortunately it won't open again until long after I've left town. By that time, they'll probably have thrown out my stuff. "My stuff" includes my Tae Kwon Do uniform, so I definitely don't want this to happen. Then I suddenly notice a sign on the window proclaiming the location and hours of this department's interim office. It's open today! Until 4:00! I hurry in that direction, checking the time. It's 4:11. Just my luck. Well, maybe there will still be someone around. My mom hurries to follow me.

I enter my target building to find a stark concrete entryway with stairs going both up and down, and hallways going in a few different directions. For a moment I'm disoriented, until I remember that the interim office is in a basement room. I go down the stairs, which twist and turn a few times before depositing me in a hallway only slightly more furnished than the original one. Along the wall to my right, dozens of cardboard boxes have been haphazardly stacked. Incredulous at my good fortune, I run down the row of boxes until I find one that's been labeled with my initials: last initial first, then first. Opening the box, I find my Tae Kwon Do uniform, along with everything else that's supposed to be there. Well, that's a relief. But I should probably talk to someone before taking it, else they'll think I stole it, and I'll be in trouble when I come back next term.

I continue down the hallway into the interim meeting room, which is actually a concert hall. That's kind of funny, but unfortunately I don't see anyone in the room except a female custodian up on stage setting up the ghost light. I turn back and try searching the hall in the other direction. I manage to flag down a dark-haired woman just on her way out the door. She seems to know me from somewhere, and it turns out she's coincidentally the one who's been answering my questions over email about Study Abroad. She tells me she's not the one to talk to about locker checkout. Fortunately, she says that the right woman to talk to is still in her office; it's right back there in the direction I've been going.

Wading

It's the day after finals week, but some of us are still hanging around to hang out. A girl from my high school class invites me to visit the forest with a group of friends.

"What forest?" I ask. You'd think I'd know the forests around here by now, so I'm a bit embarrassed by my question. Oh well.

She replies with the name of the forest, which I don't recognize. I agree to come anyway, and we head out. Soon after, we enter a restaurant on the outskirts of campus. While we eat, some housemates start planning what they're going to do to earn points for a big school competition which started today. For instance, apparently this restaurant (or the hotel it's a part of) is a sponsor for the event, so you get a points multiplier for eating here. I wonder why it was decided to hold the event after the end of Autumn Quarter, when there are so few people around. Vaguely I recall that it has to do with avoiding conflict with a big Study Abroad event happening in the middle of Spring Quarter, but that still doesn't explain why they didn't decide to do it during Winter. Oh well.

We leave the restaurant. Most of the group is heading back to campus from here, but I take a different path, one that leads toward the forest. At some point, I'll have to cut across the grass. But the grass is actually flooded quite deeply with water. The water's clear, but due to refraction it's difficult for me to tell quite how deep it is. Would this be an okay place to wade across? Tentatively, I start lowering my foot into the water. But even by the time the water reaches the top of my knee-high waterproof boots, I still haven't touched bottom. I retract my foot.

My friends are calling to me from across the water, telling me to go around the way they did. Yeah, their way was probably smarter. Meanwhile a boy from the group that decided to stay on campus is trying to tell me not to wade across anywhere, because it's all too deep. But I don't listen to him, and when I try the route my other friends suggested, the water's only about a foot deep.

All three of us are in werewolf form (from Skyrim) with the silver pelt and claws of an Ancient Behemoth (from Heroes III). I splash up to them and I attempt a growl. It is rather feeble, and one of the girls giggles. I introduce myself to her, and she shakes my hand, although she points out that she thinks we've met before. "No doubt we have," I reply.

Jumping Ahead

My dad and I have been taking turns playing a 3-D platform game while one of my high school friends watches. The gameplay of this game is a lot like rock climbing. You have to move each arm or leg individually, trying not to put too much strain on any one of them for more than a split second. We're trying to get to the top of an outcrop that has a sort of half-enclosed tunnel zigzagging up its vertical face. There's this one tricky spot where you have to jump over a gap, but one of the most attractive handholds actually attaches to a section of rock that swings down on a hinge. It can really upset your balance if you're not careful. Also, in order to get enough height, you need this section of rock to stay in its upright position.

I try it for a while without much luck, then hand it over to Dad. My friend points out that we don't actually have to go up this way; there's an easier place to ascend a little bit farther along this switchback. But I'm kind of stubborn, and I'd just like to prove that it can be done this way, even if it's not what the game's designers intended. Unfortunately, it proves to be a bit too much for Dad, and he falls off the edge to his (cartoon-style) death. That means we have to start over from the beginning of the level, which is frustrating, because I really thought I would get past that section on my next try.

But Dad's bored of this level, so he jumps way ahead in the game to the last level he did on his own. That's his style: don't bother with continuity; as long as you finish all the levels eventually, you're golden. Oh, well. The level selection screen is itself a 3-D environment, and the levels are yellow dots lined up in a path laid out along the ground. He realizes that he needs to buy a new "computer," since he lost the old one when he fell. When he does, the dots change to yellow rings, rather than filled circles. Also, two new "assistants" run in from the side of the screen, get a powerup of some kind from his character, then run off again.

He selects the level he wants. A bunch of enemies start running at him from all sides, so he starts beating them up using combos. Somehow he discovers a new combo--something like "knee in the face, punch, power kick"--which sends the unfortunate recipient flying backwards for about fifty meters. He encourages me to try it, but I have trouble until I realize that I'm doing a regular kick. For a power kick you need to hold down R1 at the same time. I feel a bit overwhelmed, but it's kind of fun once you figure it out. The animation's also cool because my character looks like a Star Wars bounty hunter.

Later, we're part of a larger party in the middle of a battle, trying to help the weaker members level up. This involves passing around 5-foot playing cards from character to character, which we all hug to our sides using our arms. The cards also double as protection from enemy characters, so there's some strategy involved in how you distribute your cards. Unfortunately, I'm running low on cards right now, and a thickset, bald thug is advancing on me in a rather intimidating manner.

Frags:

• dictating to my dream diary in Spanish
• other various false-awakening-dream-journal-writing

Atomic Scale

I'm playing a game similar to Heroes III, except sometimes when you hover over certain places on the map, it will tell you that there's progress in the story to be found if you visit that location. I notice I've almost missed one of these, so I go back and visit it. To my surprise, a new area starts loading (like in Skyrim). Once we're inside, the game is in real-time 3D rendering and I'm traveling with a party (like in Baldur's Gate). We're inside. A male voice echoes through the stone rooms, telling us that for our next test, we have been shrunken down to the atomic level, and we must investigate the experiments happening here. It points out a small, cartoonish worm in a hat over by one corner, which is somehow responsible for the orderly functioning of the universe.

The voice also points out an object on the wall, and warns it not to touch it--but we already have. The voice explains that if we do (which we have), water will start attacking a specific member of my party (which it does), trying to cause him to slip into one of the bottomless pits scattered here and there around the building. Certainly, the water makes things difficult for us as we try to make our way down the hallway. I consider re-loading the game, now that I know better than to touch that object. However, in the spirit of role-playing, I decide to try to tough it out. There are other people down here with us, carrying out experiments in side rooms off of the main hallway. I'm not sure whether or not the game is trying to teach us about real-life science.

College Ceremonies

All the students in my year and my house at my school are gathered in a room for a traditional ceremony. Everyone starts by sitting down in desks, but gradually we get up to start dancing at the front of the room. Some people are too embarrassed to join in. Eventually the RHs try to command them to join, but that doesn't really work and it just makes things more awkward. So instead these students are told to get down on all fours and stick their heads inside of a half-scale cardboard model of a car, and start making "moo" noises. That seems ridiculously humiliating to me--hopefully it will make more sense in the context of the larger ceremony. But still, I think certain events have been done out of order. (The female RH seems to agree with me; she looks very uncomfortable right now.) Meanwhile the rest of us (myself included) are given pink roses. We're supposed to crowd around this car as well, so they can take a picture.

Somehow I get confused and lost. I end up in an outer hallway, alone. It takes me a bit to find my way back to the original room, since there are some big windows between rooms that make it unclear where the actual doors are. Once I'm back, I spot a friend sitting at a table, but everyone from my year is gone.

"Are you . . . privy to the plans of the RHs?" I ask her, hesitantly.

She says yes, so I ask her what I'm supposed to be doing right now. She says something about ceremonially dropping the petals of the rose, and suddenly I'm overwhelmed by the symbolism of it all. Without a word, I walk straight back into the hallway, and sit in fetal position, leaning against the left wall. People I don't know are walking past me, but I don't care. After a few moments, I hear my friend come out and sit down next to me. I feel a bit ashamed to realize that that's exactly what I wanted to happen. She asks what's wrong, and I start moaning about not knowing the point of this ceremony or of life in general. I know I should try to be more mature, but I guess I just hope she'll solve all my problems for me. But no, she refuses to be cast in that role. Without a word, she gets up and walks back into the room. I notice that she somehow walks through one of those glass windows that confused me so much before. I walk up to the window and test it for myself. It turns out there's not a window there at all. Weird.

Mock Warm-Up

I'm warming up with an athletics club. The instructor is leading us in dynamic exercises back and forth across a stretch of lawn outside. He asks us now to go the entire distance in just two one-legged hops. Bit of an absurd request, but we do it anyway, no problem. Somehow this particular stretch is a parody of a recent Olympic sprinter who thinks a bit too much about himself. We laugh. Later, we're given a rather complicated series of exercises that we're supposed to repeat for a while on our own count, though we're still supposed to stay together as a group. Somehow I notice that I've gotten ahead of one of the two other guys still exercising, so I wait with the third guy while the second catches up. This exercise will be more impressive if we do it together.