What dreams may instill

So I guess a new post is in order, to keep people from freaking out about me. My husband and my sister made me feel a lot better about life after they read my last entry.

What also helped was a dream I had Friday night. I dreamed that I went to my interview, and it wasn't a job interview, it was a college interview, for an alternative college like Hampshire. I didn't tell the girl interviewing me that I had been to Hampshire already, cause I guess I wanted to start my BA over again. The interview was really free-form; basically she didn't ask any questions, just sat there and waited for me to talk, like a Lacanian psychoanalyst. After a long period of silence, she told me the interview was over and she'd get back to me (but I knew I'd done poorly; I was expected to just talk without being asked to). I was not discouraged; I was angry! I gave her a piece of my mind, letting her know that not only had I done interviews for an alternative school, and done them a hell of a lot better than she was doing, I had graduated from an alternative school, and did really well there. I told her that her interview style was going to filter out a lot of really good students who just weren't big talkers, and she should be more inclusive of shy people.

I woke up feeling validated and confident. The weather on Saturday helped a lot, too. It was beautiful, sunny and warm. I dressed in my new suit and a pair of heels and we set off to Astoria for my interview (Anthony and the baby came along). The feeling of confidence from my dream stayed with me. The interview went really well. The woman interviewing me was very nice, and really only asked me a couple of questions (which I answered with no hesitation, since I had practiced what I would say beforehand) before telling me about the next step in the process. I start training at the end of the month. She also said that usually she asks more questions, but I seemed so qualified that she didn't need to bother. So that was a nice little confidence boost.

We celebrated by going straight to Manhattan, to check out Barnes and Noble, walk around a bit, and eat some Indian food, which I've been craving for months. I really gotta learn how to make that stuff, cause I'm still craving it.

Thinking over my dream again, I realize that it had another meaning for me, outside of giving me some much-needed confidence. It's very telling that in the dream I was interviewing to go back to college. Lately I've been feeling very nostalgic about my college days. I know that makes it sound like college was many moons ago, and it wasn't really. A mere two years ago, I was still working on my Div III (read: thesis, for those who didn't attend Hampshire). But it certainly was in another life, or another chapter of my life. And sometimes I miss those days.

This nostalgia annoys me in some ways, because I know it wasn't as fun at the time as it seems like it was looking back on it. I had a lot of fun in college, but I spent just as much time being miserable. I feel like I started college off on the wrong foot, and did a lot of things I wish I hadn't, and didn't do a lot of things I wish I had. I wish I'd been more involved in activities and less involved in relationships. I had my heart broken my first semester, and spent the rest of my college career breaking other people's hearts. I wish I'd had the balls to take up blacksmithing or study abroad or, I don't know, a million other things.

Things I did do in college that I am proud of:

• Had really good working relationships with several different professors, and learned LOTS from them.
  
• Wrote a Div III, among other things, that I am really proud of, even to this day.
• TAed a couple of classes. I even led a class one day when the professor was gone. ME LEADING A CLASS, HOLY CRAP. I also gave a lesson on Lacan's graph of desire, and did a damn good job of it.
  
• Made attempts to explore my spirituality. I went to meditation groups a few times, studied Buddhism, and attended a Buddism convention.
  
• Got into piercing/tattoo culture. At one time I really had a lot of piercings, most of which I have since taken out. I sometimes miss all the money I spent on piercings that I later removed, and often I miss the piercings themselves. I regret nothing about getting them, though.
  
• Started working at Capacidad. At first I hated that job, and had no f-ing clue what I was doing. But it grew on me and I ended up staying there for almost three years. I worked there until the day before I went into labor. I came back to visit several times with Téa. I miss that job a lot.
  
• Worked at the Social Science office for about three years. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent at the copier, doing the bidding of the faculty. I learned a lot about the S.S. department though, and got to listen in on a lot of gossip.
  
• Kept a journal basically the whole way through college.
  
• Attended a few meetings of a feminist group of some kind, I forget the name of it. But I got to learn about cloth pads and Diva cups and all sorts of neat stuff. Nuff said on that, lest I delve into TMI.
  

There's probably more that I'm not remembering, but all in all, that's a lot to be proud of. Still though, part of me does wish I could start all over. I'm proud of the things I did academically, but not so much socially. I think I could have done a lot better if not for the asshole who broke my tender freshman heart my first semester, but that's a story I'd rather not tell.

This is not to say that I'm unhappy with my current life. I'm glad I'm married to Anthony and very glad, despite the various inconveniences, that I had my daughter. Even though she's teething right now, which I know is going to be trying.

I'll end this entry with a note about my renewed zest for reading. I finished Name All the Animals and Love in the Time of Cholera, which I absolutely hated the ending of, and Anthony laughed at my ranting about it. After that I had to read Jane Austen's Persuasion, because although good ole Jane can be dry, at least her endings are always extremely satisfying. I felt much better at the end of Persuasion when all the loose ends were tied up nicely, although slightly predictably. And then I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which I've had hanging around since we inexplicably found it on the shelf at Capacidad. It was nice and readable and short. A good little break before the book I'm now tackling, Roots by Alex Haley, a 700-page bohemoth which has been sitting in its intimidating, dense way for months. I'm 30 pages in. So far so good. This should consume the next 2-3 weeks of my life.

So that's where I stand on my New Year's Resolution of reading. I'm keeping track of what I read on goodreads.com. One of my little reading goals is to read more of Time's 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to present. I've read 21 of them, which isn't too bad. Roots isn't on there though, so I guess that goal is on hold for the moment.

Anyway, I should sum up so I have a little time to read before the baby wakes up. I'm a little annoyed that my blog entries of late have deviated from Lacanian theory and become more tl;dr about my life, but oh well. I'm going with it.