"Wake up!"

Friday, May 1, 2009
5:06 pm Free time??? Really???

I had the worst nightmare yesterday. I had this dream that I had to meet with this professor to go over my commencement speech. The day before I'm supposed to meet him, I get this email from him asking me to come earlier and to a different classroom. So I go to this classroom (I'm looking stunning, by the way), and I walk in and see all these older students, and I realize it's a graduate oral presentation class. I sit down off to the side, and everyone's looking at me, wondering who I am. Then the professor says, "This is Tara, the undergraduate speaker for COM." And everyone claps. I smile. Then he says, "She's going to give us her speech, and we're going to critique her."

Oh. Sweet. Jesus.

I start to panic. I haven't read this speech in weeks! Slowly and shakily, I go to the front of the room and begin to give the speech. I'm sweating and my hands are shaking. Wake up, wake up. In the middle of it, the professor cuts me off, "Okay, slow down." I can feel myself getting hot, my face is red. Everyone's staring at me. I finish, and they critique me. "You're going too fast." "You need to enunciate." "Don't lose your energy." Oh, please wake up. And just when I think I'm about to wake up, the professor says, "Okay, do it again." I can feel myself sweating through my shirt, my hair sticking to my neck. I give the speech again, much better this time, but I still get critiqued. I feel my ears going red. Wake up!!! PLEASE!!! Finally, he lets me go. I grab my bag and run out of the classroom, down the hallway, and out of COM, flip-flops thwacking.

I stand outside in the sunlight, squinting up at the COM building.

Please wake up. Please wake up. Please wake up.

But I never woke up.

It wasn't a dream.

It was just Thursday.

Love,
Tara