Fear the Crab

I registered for fall session today. It was a bit of a nail biter, because I woke up at 1030 hours to check the availability of ICS 211 and there was only 1 seat left open. My registration appointment was at 1330, so I had 3 hours to wait on the edge of my seat hoping that class wouldn’t close. I did have another section open to me, but it would have been on a different day at a different time, and I didn’t want to go to campus more than I needed to. Thankfully, that 1 remaining seat stayed open until it was my turn, and so I nailed that sucker with double-stick tape and a big sign stating “MINE!” That was a huge relief, especially after stressing about the class for the past week (the second class, ICS 241, had stayed open the entire registration process, so no worries there).

After registration I drove to campus to pay my tuition ($1135.30) and renew my ID card. Then I walked to the bookstore to buy what I needed, which only turned out to be one book ($75) because the materials for ICS 241 remained the same as the one I had for 141. Since I had saved a bit of money on that, I decided to splurge those monies into getting a wireless internet PC card. I’ve already installed it, but I can’t configure the card until I actually return to campus and talk to the IT department (and also to be in range of their wireless servers). In the meantime, I can take the rest of the week to enjoy the last days of summer vacation.

I took a two hour nap and I must have been exhausted, because the moment my head hit the pillow I was out like a digested green apple. Perhaps that wasn’t the correct metaphor to use, but given the experiences of today, I don’t care because I’m happy and content. Maile and I took Titan to the nearby school in the evening to walk him, and he had tons of fun running around the big field. It seems he has happy memories of that place, because when he was younger Maile would take him to that very same field and he’d run amok. I guess when he’s at the dog park he’s not too familiar with the area, so he prefers to stand around, drool, and mooch attention from the other owners. We plan to go to the park on Thursday, if nothing else interrupts.

I was back at the U of Puget Sound, in the basement of the Student Union Building. I was in some office, for reasons which I do not know, and I was actually not supposed to be there. I was sneaking into this office as a favor to someone else, who required a paper or file from the back rooms. I felt highly paranoid as I conducted my business, but I was able to leave without being stopped.

As I left the building, a professor came up to me and said I needed to come with him to the Fiscal Office. The reason was because he had forgotten to tell them that I was now living in a special house-dorm with a few of my friends, and we needed to correct it if I wanted to remain there. As we were walking to the office, I noticed that the professor was accompanied by a few other faculty members, and I came to realize that they were all sycophants and hung around him merely to leech off his fame. I could overhear their whispers, and they said amongst themselves that I was the teacher’s pet, though I had no recollection of even taking that professor’s classes.

On the way to the office, I received a phone call from Jumi. We engaged in idle talk, and then she made mention that she was still working at the sheriff’s department. That conversation seemed to twist the dream into a “daydream” within the dream, because I was then thinking about a fictional time when I worked at a television station, helping their broadcasts by positioning lights, and I even began to think about the fictional time that I had to apply make-up to these actors and actresses.

My dream returned to “normal,” and we made it to the fiscal office, which turned out to be a mock-up of the Customer Service Counter at DFS. The line was long because the person working the counter was slow and did not do things in a timely manner. I realized that after we had all approached the counter, we would have another wait for the fiscal office cashier’s window, and I began to worry that I wouldn’t have time to get my next class. Yet I couldn’t leave, because I needed the professor’s help in telling the office where I was living and why I was living there (I think he had to vouch for me and sign some papers). I remember thinking that maybe if I at least made it past the CR counter, I could skip out and go to my next class. A foolish thought, but it was the last one I had before I woke up.