An oldie but a goodie

On Saturday morning, I woke up from a dream of the type I hadn't had in a while. I dreamt that I was enrolled in a class, but I hadn't been in a while, came in late one day, had to sit in the middle of the classroom, by the time I got settled, I realized I hadn't done any work in the class in weeks, had missed a test, and really had no idea what the teacher was talking about. Boom, the alarm went off. (I don't use the alarm all that much anymore...)

I haven't had this type of dream in a long time. It took about 6 months or so after I graduated to stop having these types of dreams. They were bad back in the day, because I would have the dream, and I would wake up not really knowing at first if that was something that just happened to me, something that was about to happen, or just a warning. The problem was that this happened to me a lot when I was in school. Maybe not the part about missing tests, but pretty much the rest of it. I did miss tests from time to time, but not all that much. It seemed like every semester, about 1/2 way in, I was trying to figure out what I had missed so far, if there was some project I should have done, and trying to figure out if the professor would let me turn all the homework in late. (Math professors usually did... I think it was from all the graduate students that didn't do any work in their classes until the last 2 weeks. By graduate students, I mean Earl.)

For a long time, I had a dream that I had been in a class for the first couple of classes, then didn't come back for a month, when I did, they were talking about the big projects they turned in the week before, and how much of their grade it was worth. I wouldn't remember the big project being on the syllabus. Occasionally, they would be reviewing the test from the week before, which I would have missed.

I guess I deserve it. I was not a good student. I don't think getting a full time job and going down to 1 class at a time helped any. Last week, while working monitoring the performance of the registration system, I loaded my transcript. There I am, still on academic probation. I don't think too many people pull off graduating on probation, but I did.

Things I pulled, which I don't necessarily endorse for the girls when they get to college:

• Took a final 3 weeks into the next semester - this was my Freshman year, when I had hand surgery. By the time I got around to taking the final, the questions on it were vaguely familiar, but slightly foreign. I got a C in that class.
• Sent homework in by proxy. My freshman year I had a bunch of classes as other people in the dorms. I sent my Chemistry homework in with the guy across the hall. (This is a class I missed an exam in.) Got a D in that class, but it counted. I enrolled in an American Heritage class with Rob that year, I think I went twice. Rob used to get frustrated that I wouldn't go to class, or read the assignments, or do the work, I think. I got a D in that one also, which counted, but I'm not really sure how I got the D. The final was essay style, there were several questions I just completely and totally made stuff up on. Maybe the D came from humoring the tutors who were grading the thing. If it's a consolation to Rob, I did read a bunch of the stuff later in life...
• Took an exam from Indiana. This was when Grandpa Oaks died. I somehow talked the professor into giving me the exam sealed in an envelope, and letting me take it from Indiana, and fax it back to him. This was a Math professor. I don't remember exactly which calls this was, but I got all C's and C+'s in my Math classes (that counted) but 3 of them. (A 'D', a 'B+', and a 'B')
• Doing just enough work to get the C, and no more. This probably caused the frequency of those dreams to occur. If I had been doing everything, it wouldn't have pricked my subconscious nearly as bad.
• Getting kicked out of school. They don't like it so much when you have multiple really bad semesters in a row...
• Taking classes in the spring or summer terms. This should get you done sooner, but I always wished I was outside instead of in class. Then I would be outside instead of in class.
  
• Graduating on a horse trade. I took a Number Theory class for my last class. This was ok, I got bored with it when they took 5 days to explain cryptography because half the class just wasn't getting it. This class was during the spring term, which I've already talked about. We were also trying to get moved from the old computer room to the new Data Center at night, so I was moonlighting at work. This was the semester I broke my ankle and ended up in a wheelchair. (It was at the very end of the semester. I actually did it just at the end of the semester.) I found myself trying to get done with the Data Center move, the Math department was getting our old Data Center for a Math lab. Sorrel brought the head of the Math department in one day, while I was still in the wheelchair and explained that I was working day and night as hard as I could to maneuver our move so they could have their math lab open for the start of the Fall semester. He then started talking about how I had a problem, I got a D in the Number Theory class, and I didn't really have enough time to finish the Data Center move and take the class over during the Summer term. The head of the math department asked me if I had counted any other Math classes as D's for graduation, which I hadn't, so he said he would take care of it for me. I graduated, they got their math lab in time for Fall semester, everyone was happy all around. It was nice, but you don't always have that kind of leverage to use.
• I'm sure there are plenty of other points, I'm also sure that Rob will point them out.

Long story short, these funny dreams stopped about 5 years ago or so. What made me have one Friday night? Maybe it was something I ate... Sometime I will have to write the story of my college years. Those were good times...