This morning I woke up from a dream that I was driving to school1 and suddenly realized that I had forgotten my lunchbox at home. Apparently that was enough of a jolt to wake me up.2

Which got me to thinking on the topic of recurring dreams — or rather, one in particular that still dogs me every now and then. Every time I mention this one around friends — particularly, friends in my approximate age group that are working jobs and are long done with school — invariably a bunch of them chime in with “OMG I GET THAT ONE TOO!”

It goes something like this:

Like, what the heck IS that?4 I suppose you could try psycho-analyzing it to say maybe we’re anxious about being unprepared for the next stage of our lives? Or that we feel like our lives are moving too fast? Or that maybe we’re forgetting something really important? Sigh.5 6

Interestingly, a friend pointed out that a bunch of the folks in our circle of friends who seem to share in this recurring dream are graduates of the College of Engineering at The University of Texas (at Austin).

Which — if you’ve been there — would actually explain a lot. :)

1. given that it’s my 5th day of summer vacay, this immediately classifies it as a nightmare [↩]
2. Hashtag, teacher problems. [↩]
3. A couple of variations on the same theme that I’ve had: I have a final exam (as a student) and for some reason, I can’t find the classroom that I’m supposed to go to… or it’s the first day of school (as a teacher) and I can’t figure out which bus route to take to school. Yes, bus route. I can’t explain it either. [↩]
4. And according to Reddit, me and my friends are not nearly the only ones… [↩]
5. Okay, so a quick Google search says this has something to do with midlife career change anxiety. Hmmmm. [↩]
6. Here’s another link that — more or less — nails it. [↩]

Here’s the usual drill: Teachers come back for one day of work after graduation, and that’s it. We’re done, sayonara, hasta la vista, baby.

And today would’ve been it… were it not for ice-pocalypse.

As it is, we have two more days of professional development1 standing between us and freedom.

I can’t even begin to describe how difficult it is to get up in the morning for these days,2 especially when your mind & body have slipped into semi-hibernating summer vacay mode.

I also cannot even begin to describe how much stuff I have accumulated in my classroom3 over the years. The plastic container pictured above used to be enough to fit all of my belongings for the first few years.4

A few years back, I refused to buy a refrigerator for my classroom5 because I felt like that would’ve been the ultimate sign of surrendering any semblance of a life outside of that room. But had I known that I would have settled in and accumulated so much junk6 in my classroom anyway, I would’ve just bought the fridge and been happy. Oh well.

Under “normal” circumstances, I’d be able to at least drive this stuff over to my new campus and dump it somewhere… but with the renovations going on over yonder, I can’t even do that. So there will be boxes piled up in a corner of my living space until around August, which is when I usually start to slowly hit the defrost button on my brain anyway, so I guess that works out.

If you were about to get kicked out of your room7 and had 10 seconds to choose three items to take with you, what would you pick?

Yes, these are the kinds of you ask yourself8 when you spend an entire day of packing up and cleaning out your working quarters. On an absolute knee-jerk, I think I would pick:

1. My golden horseshoes9
2. My coffee maker
3. My chair

Well, due to size and practicality issues, I’m not taking my chair, and I’m probably not taking the coffee maker either.10

So then I got to thinking — what would I substitute out for items 2 and 3?11 And I think both would be objects that have been in my classroom since Season 1.12

• One would be a piece of “furniture” that… I won’t talk about.13
• The second, strangely, is something that could so easily be replaced, but one that I am rather fond of:

1. and I think I have so many issues with the use of that phrase, but I may save that discussion for another lifetime [↩]
2. But I’ll try anyway! If you were a performing musician or comedian… I’d imagine its a bit like coming back out on stage for an encore… AFTER everyone in the audience has gone home… and then staying out on stage for another half-hour ANYWAY. It feels a bit pointless. [↩]
3. which has moved three times in the past 6 seasons [↩]
4. I lived pretty lean… until about the time I bought a coffee maker for my classroom. Hmmm. [↩]
5. Even though I had already bought a coffee-maker and a microwave [↩]
6. Well… I use the term “junk” in an endearing fashion… although a lot of the stuff truly is junk. [↩]
7. think: either your bedroom or your office [↩]
8. Or maybe it’s just me. [↩]
9. Only two, as one of my math department co-workers will forever point out. Okay so this is technically TWO objects. I don’t care. [↩]
10. Gasp!!! But I don’t know if I’ll have running water in my new classroom, and besides, it might be time to upgrade anyway [↩]
11. That is to say, in this imaginary game where I am somehow limited to only 3 objects… [↩]
12. That have moved with me each time I moved classrooms [↩]
13. Maybe because it’s not my property to take… but if you’ve been through my class, think about where I always put handouts for the taking… [↩]