I Dreamed a Dream

I've gotten a few steps closer to my study abroad application today. My advisor finished the recommendation form (that I dropped off yesterday, crazy productive man) and I ordered my official transcript. With each step it becomes a little bit more real, and a little bit scarier. I'm somewhat adventurous, but admittedly taking off for a foreign country where I somewhat know the language for two months and I'll be more or less on my own is stretching my sense of adventure. Okay, I realize I'm not actually in the program yet, it's only for two months, and I'll have ages to prepare, but still! Really! It's not exactly something I've ever done before. It's exciting and sounds amazing, but still somewhat frighting.

Speaking of things that are somewhat frightening, my dream last night was one of those incredibly vivid ones that are intense to the point of being tiring. But it was also nice because there were a few aspects that I wish would happen (and are physically possible of happening) in real life so I was a little sad to wake up. Then again I was also Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (but I was still me and living my life) which was the stressful and intense part. Really, I'd never want to actually be her. Have her crazy awesome slayer powers? Maybe. Deal with the demons and the undead and the apocalypse every single year? I'll pass. This might be an indicator that I've been watching too much Buffy, but I haven't watched a single episode since last Monday, I swear! Despite the fact that both the people I told this dream to today had the same almost instant reaction that I've been watching the show too much, I'm sticking with my assertion that I don't have a problem...

Back on the topic of dreams, I think dreams like this are interesting because, despite the fantastic dream-like qualities to them, they feel more like real life than other dreams. Dreams like this blur the lines between reality and dream. What is the dream and what isn't? Did that conversation you distinctly remember having with you mom last week happen in real life? Or in the dream? There are some parts in Gravity's Rainbow that slip into and back out of a dream again, and if you're not careful you can completely miss the shift. If you've seen Inception there's that part where Leonardo DiCaprio's character is explaining to Ellen Page's character that dreams feel real when we're in them, and it isn't until we wake up that we realize something wasn't quite right.

Anyway, I just hope tonight's dreams are a little less intense so I don't feel so tired when I wake up. Being the Slayer is tough- even when it was only a dream.

Oh Snap!

I feel like there's some law in the universe that prevents me from reading Gravity's Rainbow before 9:00 at night. I got home around 5 PM, which honestly should have given me plenty of time to start the reading I have to have done by tomorrow. Yet, like the past two times, I found excellent ways to waste four hours of my life before finally starting on it. I realize that doing something three times in a row doesn't necessarily mean it's a law, but I definitely think it's at least a pattern.

But I was tired! I slept horribly last night AND I went to a pilates class today. So I ended up watching youtube videos for an hour, then I took an hour long nap, then I attempted to get Pokemon Snap to work on an emulator for another hour, then the fourth hour was taken up by people getting home and me trying very hard to (not) start my homework.

And you know the worst part? I didn't get Pokemon Snap to work. Fail.

Seriously though, I have so many good childhood memories about that game. I just thought it was the most BRILLIANT IDEA EVER for you to get points for taking pictures of pokemon. Then it had that awesome level at the end where (spoilers! haha, no not really) you take ten million pictures of Mew for the boss level. Except you can't get to the boss level at all on emulators, and you have to do a lot of special modifications to get other parts of the game to work. So, my current plan is to see if my old N64 works next time I go home. That or, you know, play games that came out in the recent decade.

WTWA: While Pokemon Snap didn't work, I did play a Japanese version of Green on an emulator for a while. Due to the fact there's like no kanji (since the reading level is aimed at kids) it was pretty easy to understand. Especially since I've started about a million Pokemon games and the intro is more or less the same in all of them. Still, Japanese comprehension for the win!