I am at, what looks like, a hotel with the family and we are searching for the restaurant inside. I mostly remember Dad and my sister, Campbell, but I'm sure Mom and my brothers are there. We walk around through wide hallways trying to find a place to eat or an employee to talk to. There are many stairwells and doors and random people walking around. The doors become college dorm rooms, with stickers and whiteboards and names all over them. College students meander about the doors, some of them talking and laughing loudly (typical experience walking around a college dorm). We stop to talk a few times but these moments are fuzzy in my memory. I do remember Campbell saying something about food scarcity and I say, “there is no such thing as food scarcity, it’s a myth!!” There is also a moment where I say “restaurant menus are elitist!”
Then, I am actually in school and hurrying to my middle school math class with Mr. Z (a teacher who openly disliked me). It’s passing period and I feel anxious about getting to class on time. I know there is some important thing I have to get there for and if I miss it, I’m screwed. I get to class, on time, and my classmates are already busy and excited about the ‘important thing’ going on. Russell Brand is a guest speaker for the class and has already given everyone paper discs the size of plates. The discs are different colors and have ornaments and notes taped or stapled to them, obviously each students’ own work. They remind me of the wood-cookies we make at Outdoor School in Oregon, like totems unique to the person who created it. I try to ask Mr. Z about getting one, since I technically wasn’t late for class, but he dismisses me like dirt, saying I missed it and have to suffer the consequences and that I am going to fail the class now. There are a couple other students in the same situation, sitting alone in desks in the corners of the room and looking defeated. All I can do is sit like them and watch Russell Brand interact with the rest of the class, whom are all happy and boisterous. Mr. Z makes rounds of the room while looking like a pleased, arrogant jerk. I quickly become angry at the injustice of it all. I stand up from my desk, look at Mr. Z, and say, “this isn’t fair! It’s physically impossible for some of us to get here during passing period! You can’t fail us for that!”
Scene change and now I’m on a city bus with someone familiar. We sit at the back of the bus where there’s a huge window and we sit facing it. The familiar person looks most like my friend Alex, but he feels more like a good acquaintance, like a classmate, than a friend. My iPhone rings and I see the screen says Jose, a friend from high school. I answer and Jose has already been speaking. It’s obvious he is upset and crying. I try to catch what he’s saying without interrupting. He mentions someone named Julian and says that his son has been taken by social workers because this Julian person wasn’t following Covid-19 quarantine and social distancing orders. I feel his sadness and start to cry on the bus. The Alex-looking classmate looks at me, surprised, and then I wake up.
I am no longer a student (at least not in any official capacity), but dreams involving school are consistently either extreme-anxiety inducing or about having a puppy crush on someone. I'm either obsessing over a cute boy and the setting happens to be school or I'm anxious/desperate from missing/being late for class or failing a big test or being verbally abused by a teacher.
Russell Brand appeared in my dream because I happen to see his face on a Youtube video thumbnail yesterday, haha.
