SUBJECT DATE TIME ROOM MAN301A Dec. 10 (Thu) 11:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. 203 HPN301A Dec. 10 (Thu) 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. 205 JFX301A Dec. 11 (Fri) 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. 203 SES275A Dec. 11 (Fri) 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. 203 MDD301A Dec. 14 (Mon) 12:00 noon to 2:30 p.m. 205 PLC301A Dec. 14 (Mon) 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. 101 MTH301A Dec. 15 (Tue) 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. 205
I was on some sort of boat, with the ex-girlfriends of a French guy. For some reason my mother was there and I bemoaned the fact that there were no snacks on the boat. We stopped and got off at some bilingual port and I got mustard-flavoured ice cream, as well as amaretto. The mustard-flavoured ice cream was called 'Hope'. They also had ale-flavoured ice cream and it was called 'Snow White'.
Neither of the flavours I got tasted anything like what they were supposed to.
A young girl pointed at me and said I was Indian. I started cursing her in French and said that I was born in England and threw my headband at her. I chased her out of the kiosk.
We boarded the boat again. My father gave me a newspaper, in French. He wanted me to do work experience in some Contiki-like camp. I was annoyed, as that wasn't anything like the work I wanted to do.
* * *
I'm at a library outside B53, my first high school classroom. We've got a list of what books I had to have read for this English exam. I found all the books in the library and they were all in French, meaning they'd take a little longer for me to read.
I saw my former best friend in primary school who snubbed me. I did not attempt to help her find the books.
Then there was a funeral procession through school. The coffins were all made of steel. I went to my locker and found lots of chocolate bars. Next to my locker there were some rotting loaves of bread.
* * *
My workmate Dan was helping me fix my laptop. My partner was over at my house and I was going to get him to leave because my ex was supposed to visit me. I decided not to bother calling my ex as my mobile phone was dead.
This dream contains concepts that some might find distressing. If you think this applies to you, please stop reading now.
I am finally able to open my high school locker and get out the book I need to read in its entirety for my English exam. Unusually, I can't remember where my locker is as I've not used it in some time.
My schoolfriend Liz shows me and someone else opens it for me to show how useless the locks are on it.
I get my book and go.
I am heading to my current boyfriend's house. He's not there so I am allowed to sleep a while in a spare room. It looks nothing like his actual house. When I wake up and pack, my ex's brother is out there with friends. We don't talk and as I can't find my boyfriend's father to say goodbye and thank you, I leave.
I can't find my car. I walk around for a while. It's like my memories before I napped have been stolen from me. My car is very different from my actual one in real life. I don't find it and am apparently wandering around Clifton Hill. I then end up at university and am told that my application has been lost and it's like I didn't actually apply.
I buy some Japanese sweets off a stall and keep walking. I get taken in by a group of Japanese people. We all sit down and they make some delicious Japanese noodle dishes but not for me, because I am gaijin. They know my Japanese ex. I tell them that he is a rapist. They say they know because he is in the habit of filming people he anally rapes and then uploads the clips onto the internet. I am worried that I might be in one such clip. A girl laughs at me and says, yes, I've seen you.
People around us begin to fall dead to the ground. We begin to lay sheets over them. Other people begin to flock to one other male in the group, praying that he will heal them. I begin to smack people out of the way with a heavy cloth. Another man, Asian and unknown to me, comes up to me and says that he is my intended true love. I say that I cannot feel the same way about him.
Again, I was going to fail some English exam in high school. I'm supposed to have read the same book I haven't finished reading in all the dreams I've had recently. I think it's a non-fiction book, and I've missed a lot of class in the second semester.
I try to call this horrible person I was semi-seeing last year. He changes his number without telling me. I call the old number and get a very angry woman instead. She is mad at this guy too - he used to live as her housemate and has left her suddenly without giving appropriate funds. I am staying in this beautiful mansion. My family are there - and because the house is so large, I don't get to see them much. My mother has booked some sort of compulsory family holiday while I'm supposed to have my English exam which I know I shall fail. It takes me quite some wrangling to get out of going. I find out that my brother is cheating on his wife - he's found a girlfriend. I'm furious. I voice these misgivings with my mother who says that all men are supposed to stray after a while. I say, what, even though his wife is expecting a child? Mum says especially so. I am disgusted with my brother and decide I don't ever want to see him again. I say that I will be out of this mansion as soon as my exams are over. My brother decides I am too degenerate to sleep on this special mattress he paid money for. The mattress is made of foam and is breaking up. I accuse my brother of being a fucking hipster and say fine, I don't want anything to do with you. * * *In high school again, doing a mock-exam in class. My teacher is my old French teacher in high school, Mrs Gorey - except for some reason her mousy brown hair is dark brown curls. She's given us photocopies of material we're supposed to have read - it resembles a uni course reader, there's so much material.
For some reason, I'm obsessed with not making any handwritten mistakes on this mock exam. Every time I make a mistake, I scratch it out and then get another piece of looseleaf and start again.
As a result, there is only an hour of the exam to go and I haven't even started the essay I'm supposed to have written. This is unusual - normally I would have at least twenty minutes of a mock exam to check over my essay. I start to panic.
Time is up and I've got nothing. I stay back in class and wonder if my teacher will let me do the mock exam another time. I tell her I'm going to apply for special consideration because I had a lot of trouble concentrating.
I'm in some weird version of high school. For English, we're given a pile of books to read. What I don't realise is that the teacher has chosen two of these books for us and those will be the ones the final exam is on. I'm panicking because I don't know what books I'm supposed to have read, and there's no way I can read seven novels by the exam which is in a week.
Thankfully, I've read the correct ones and am not going to fail. One is a novel and the other is a Shakespeare play.
(It's funny, I didn't think I remembered my dream today, and then my mother came home and as soon as I saw her, some of it came back to me.)
Mum wanted to take me to the Philippines on a holiday. I said that while I didn't mind going, I hated that I had no freedom and wasn't allowed to go out and roam.
* * *
Myself and my mother were at an old family friend's. Mum was making all sorts of wonderful things in the oven of her friend's whereas our family friend was making greasy, dry things. This family friend lives a few streets away from my Australian parental home and there were a few of us occupying the bedrooms.
Things then moved to a classroom. My old high school. We were in our year 9 classrooms but for some reason had to be moved up to our year 10 ones early. There was much confusion. Lately, this seems to be a recurring dream of mine, where despite having completed a university degree, I'm made to go back and do my final high school year and I somehow know that I'm going to fail all my final exams and am trying to find a way to break it to my parents gently.
