Applications, Visits, and Date Prep

I am applying to Teach For America and am really stressed about finishing some aspect of the presentation.

It is a gift-giving holiday (Valentine's Day?) and my sister, not able to find a present she wants to give me, builds complex, Rube Goldberg type apology gifts out of cardboard boxes, promising to get me something better later.

I start helping Mark prepare for some sort of presentation by holding cards he is putting together as visual aids. I accidentally bend one with my thumb and apologize. He seems sort of irritated with me, but not because of the dent in his card. Then I notice that the cards I am helping with are actually rough drafts and he has another set almost completely prepared. I look through these cards and discover that his presentation is for a later stage in the Teach For America application.

I am at an apartment complex where I used to live. I go up to a friend's apartment for a drink of water, but there is some major remodeling going on and I can't find a sink or water fountain. My friend who lives in this apartment directs me to the water fountain, which is in the entryway to a bedroom with three queen-size beds in it. As I'm getting my drink, someone wakes up and jumps out of the far bed. She seems to be upset to see somebody invading her bedroom. I then recognize this girl as Amanda.

Amanda enlists me to help her get ready for her big date with Chandler, a boy who only exists in this dream. Chandler was apparently part of my main social circle when I lived there. Amanda is planning to wear a fancy dress. I ask if this date is to a dance, and although I don't remember being answered, I understand that it really is. Amanda appears to be very smitten with and in a serious relationship with Chandler, judging by the way she gushes about him, her level of excitement, and the fact that he calls her and she immediately falls into calling him by rather obnoxious and sickening pet names.

At some point during this, I get the sash of the dress I'm wearing (a black with blue flowers dress, appropriate for church) caught on something, which unties it.

When she gets off the phone, I look at the dress she plans to wear. It is cut a bit low in the front, and I don't like the color, but I feel that she loves the dress and is committed to wearing it, so I try to sound like I approve.

Then we get to talking about Chandler again, and I now know that he is best friends with Dan. Amanda starts questioning whether she really wants to be going with Chandler tonight, realizing that she might like Dan better. Then she says that's alright, because she has a date with Dan in a day or two.

Knowing that Dan lives in a different state now, I say, "Now I'm confused," about to question whether she was really talking about Dan, figuring that I had missed some turn in the conversation. Then Dan steps around the corner and into view. So I say, "Now I'm less confused," while wondering if I really am, because now I wonder why Dan is here. Then I notice I am laying on the floor in my bathing suit, and I say, "And now I'm wondering when I took off my dress. Is this a dream? Because this would make sense in a dream."

I open my eyes and wake up.

Nerf War, Fundraiser, and Cotton Soccer

I am in Africa, fighting on the wrong side of a war with Nerf weapons. I also have a Buzz Lightyear suit. The good guys win. And at some point, I turn into a black man.

I reform and join an African tribe that I was trying to oppress. They give me face paints and face studs that I hope will hide my identity so all the good guys won't see me and think of me as evil. We come across a group of the good guys, and one of them comments that I look familiar. So I'm disappointed that the decorations aren't working as well as I'd hoped and worried that he'll figure out where he recognizes me from.

Then I'm going to some sort of fundraiser dinner with my family. I am back to being myself, except that I am still the reformed oppressor of Africans. One of the good guys from the group we ran into earlier is there in line with us waiting to go in - it might be the one who thought I looked familiar. He is wearing a blue, green, and white plaid shirt - a small, conservative pattern. It looks really nice. Anyway, I fall deeply in like with him. But Rachel talks to him and they go aside to get their picture taken together. I am very jealous.

Inside the fundraiser, I know that I will end up with good guy in the end. But for the time being, I am still jealous of Rachel. I start playing soccer with a cotton ball, the goal being a garbage can. I kick the ball up and it isn't quite going to make it into the goal, but a teenage boy nearby nudges it a bit and it goes in. He cheers and I pump my fist in the air.