So, I woke up in a panic in the middle of the night. I had a dream that my house was being attacked and I had to run for my life and catch a boat to the other side of the world. Perhaps I should not read my student's work before bed.
My students are refugees. I love them very much. Sometimes they write about things like their lovely, pristine, happy villages getting attacked in the night and having to run for it only to find relative safety in a camp where soldiers come in the night and do horrible things. Other times they write about feasts they make for various religious holidays (deep fried bat, anyone?) and we look up pictures on the internet. Other times they write made up stories about, say, a tiger and a frog where the tiger tries to eat the frog, and the frog tells the tiger that if the tiger can beat him in a race, he can eat him. Then they race, and at the last minute the frog jumps on the tiger's tail and when the tail flips up the frog is thrown over the finish line. Other times they write about computer programming, the meringue, political uprisings, and their PhD in engineering. Some of them write about America, and how they threw up the first time they saw moving traffic, and how they thought some of our machines were dragons. Quite a variety, I must say.
I'm very thankful that I live in a pretty safe place. I'm also thankful that my students all made it to a pretty safe place.
So, I got up for a while just to double check that the doors were locked and then tried to read a mediocre story to get the dream out of my head, and to get the obnoxious Billy Joel song I heard at Lund's out of my head, too. And when I fell back asleep, I dreamt I was on the boat getting ready to leave home forever, and all the girls I used to waitress with in high school were on the boat with me. And Jamie M. still had on the cropped shirt she used to wear in high school that made all the boys nickname her "Schwing," but it was nice to at least see someone I knew, because I was rather freaked out about the whole boat-with-unidentified-destination thing.
6 comments:
Which Billy Joel song? Uptown Girl? The Longest Time? River of Dreams? Piano Man? Scenes from an Italian Restaurant? This Night? Goodnight Saigon? We Didn't Start the Fire? An Innocent Man? Tell Her About it? She's Always A Woman to Me? My Life?
It was River of Dreams. Wasn't it?
oh, thanks, now i have them ALL stuck in my head. good one, bri.
Aren't you glad to have a friend like him? He torments me incessantly.
I always liked the song Uptown Girl, because I had a crush on Christie Brinkley when that video came out.
Oh -- wait, am I allowed to talk about that here? Wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. . .
Actually, Michele, now that all the boom-shaka-laka is verboten on your site, I thought we'd bring all the dirty talk here.
Anybody mind?
bring it on! (although i don't see how this will change the comments from you much, brian.)
michele: you may write comments on my blog about roux virgins, what a "good catholic girl" you are and your dirty lover, millicent. naughty naughty schoolmarm you are!
Um.
And what...off-color comments have I made here thus far? One or two remarks, with good humored intent, at Chez Voix de DeSade, yes. But here?
I think this is an unfair appraisal of my ability to behave.
Now kindly get bent.
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