dream_job e_o_i I almost forgot this one. Three or four nights ago, I was a linguistics researcher. My department was doing a sort of comedy roast for my birthday, as linguistic departments do. "I don't know why she's so afraid of eternity," one man grinned, raising his glass. "She's ALWAYS asking for more time." I must admit, that was a pretty good one. And, in my dream, a triple_entendre: not only did I keep asking for extensions on projects, but I was also studying long vowels in German. The word "dauernd" - always or constantly - was in my head when I woke up. 230427 ... epitome of incomprehensibility (You have to appreciate colleagues who've kept tabs on your past existential crises.) 230427 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Night before yesterday. I'm reading my coursepack for RELI 331 and this turns into a story about when I was a reporter in my early twenties, back in 2001. (I was 12-13 in my early twenties, then. Dream timeline.) The story: there's an old German woman I'm interviewing in her retirement home. To get there, I go through a small straight path through a garden. She researched Australian aboriginal languages years ago, so I need to say the word "Bokal" to her. This means "Is this a person?" and it was crucial to her relating to the people she was studying. But when I say it to her she starts crying because she was tortured in a concentration camp, apparently for her job researching Australian aboriginal languages. (This wouldn't likely happen, but. Dream logic.) Well, I didn't do enough research, I didn't know this particular word would remind her of that. I feel horrible. (The part about being a person or not relates to a class reading, but not one in the coursepack.) 240226 ... raze every once in a great while, i'll have a dream that i've somehow ended up back at the place i used to work when i was eighteen, schlepping appointments where salesmen would try to sell adjustable beds to people who didn't want them. i'm always trying to figure out how i can sneak out or quit altogether without calling attention to myself. in one of those dreams, my former boss got all choked up and told me i could have been the greatest telemarketer of all time if i'd really applied myself. that was a pretty strange thing to hear coming from someone who chewed me out more than once for ignoring the script we were given and refusing to bully people in an effort to get them to cave when they said they weren't interested. 240227 ... e_o_i I just found book_work (thanks to raze's two_out_of_three_words) 240527 ... e_o_i "Congratulations, you have the job," the man tells me. We're in what looks like a staff room at a school, a large table in the middle and then smaller tables on the wall. These have snacks for some sort of Christmas party. Immediately I know that I'm hired to be an SLP. It comes to my mind as an acronym. In real_life, I_joined_a_band_of_musical_pirates and one pirate is this: a speech/language pathologist. "But I didn't study that sort of linguistics," I stammer, thinking (just after I say this) that I shouldn't sound so hesitant: I want this job, don't I? "Well, you're not the main SLP," he says, "more of an assistant." Now the children are coming in for the Christmas party, newly released from class. I was wrong - it's not just the staff. One boy in fifth or six grade makes a beeline for boxes of some powdered drink and, before I think to react, rips the tops off all five or six of them. He picks one of them up and is about to dump the powder on the ground. "No," I say, grabbing it. "You can't have this if you make a mess. Wait in line." Wait in line to make a mess? But it makes sense in the dream: wait in line to have a drink. I'll mix it for you. I turn to the man, who's observing. I didn't stop the boy from ripping the tops off these cardboard boxes, but I prevented further damage; I balanced strictness and permission. I think. And now I see what my assistant role will entail. "A maid of all work," I laugh to him, unconsciously quoting Ruth in Pirates_of_Penzance. 241211 ... e_o_i edits *smaller tables along the wall (not "on"; not tables balanced Escher-like on the wall; not even like the growing and shrinking table in dream_Tunisia) 241211 what's it to you? who go blather from