Responsibility Toward The Students
Level of Lucidity: N/A Level of Cohesiveness:
Lucid Intent? No
This dream has been viewed 4200 times.
Muddled and kind of vague now.
I was at what was supposed to be college--only it was taking place in first the high school, then the elementary school. Weird, I know. It was between classes and I needed to find my locker so I could put my books away and get ready for the next class.
I was on my way toward one of the hallways which was the equivalent of the lower hall in elementary school. On my way past where the courtyard would have been, I was accosted by--Eric V.! (See "Eric's Last Chance" for the explanation on him.) :O Oddly, he was dressed nicely and seemed to be doing well. I think of the color red so maybe he was wearing a red jacket? He was better looking too. He was holding a paper in his hand and he said to me under his breath, in an accusing voice, "What does this letter you wrote mean?"
I knew immediately what he was talking about. I had written a letter to him, and I was probably not friendly in it. The only thing is--I remembered that I had never MAILED that letter! I'd just written it to myself to get it out of my system! So how had he gotten hold of it?? I was mortified that he would have read about how upset he'd made me--so I took the only approach I knew. I ignored him (after that initial stop to allow him to talk to me, because I was so surprised), and went walking on my way as if I hadn't even heard. I wanted him to know that he wasn't worth my time and I wasn't even going to bother answering him.
Now I had TWO goals in mind--to find my locker, AND to avoid running into Eric again! I was walking really fast now and studying the lockers minutely so I wouldn't show any obvious signs of trying to avoid Eric. I didn't know for SURE if he was still following me, but I didn't want to stop to see lest he catch up! Anyway, there were other students in this hall all visiting their lockers. I remembered that my locker number was in the 700s, and was something like 755. Yet I looked and looked along the righthand side, where this number should have been, and saw no 755. At first I thought I was looking at the higher numbers and they got lower as I neared the end of the hall, but then it seemed to be the opposite so I doubled back to look again. Nope, still no 755. The numbers kept alternating their order and lots of numbers were just plain missing; I thought it might be like street numbers, you know, even numbers being on one side and odds on the other, but my number was supposed to be here, yet it wasn't. :(
I thought, well, maybe my number is supposed to be 765? So I started looking for that. I don't think I found it either. Nuts! And now I was even wondering if I was right on my number at all?? Come to think of it, my memory was hazy and I couldn't be sure. Afraid that I was going to run late, I sought somebody out--probably a teacher--and asked what my locker number was. (For some reason they carried lists of all the numbers.) I was now informed that my number was in the 800s instead, so I went looking for that number. I believe I at last found it--on the right side of the hall. The lockers were really small, like the size of large shoeboxes or file cabinet drawers. Mine was up a little higher than I would have liked, but I could barely reach it, so I opened it up. (I believe they had locks but nobody used combinations or anything, we just left them shut but unlocked--it was really like that throughout most of high school.) There were pictures and such on the outsides of a few of the lockers--including a figure of a person, cut out, on one, maybe it was a football player--and I thought, "I know that pictures on the outside of lockers were disallowed a while back, but it looks like they've slacked off on enforcing that. I should put something on the outside of my locker so I can identify it easier!" Then I thought, nah, why tempt fate; I could always just put a little something on the inside door of my locker and then when I opened it I'd be sure it was mine. I would have to remember that.
Well, I opened up my little tiny locker and--it was occupied already! It was stuffed to the top with OLD SHOES! They were simple canvas tennis shoes, like the ones I often wear, all pressed flat and COATED with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs and such. They were SO old and filthy! Repelled, I nonetheless stared at them in confusion. What were these doing in my locker?? :/ My first thought was that someone else had mistakenly used my locker for their own stuff--but the sheer dusty state of the shoes was proof that they had been in there for a very long time, years probably. (The fact that I had probably used my locker earlier this year didn't occur to me; at least, there was no cognitive dissonance involved.) Resigned, I started pulling them out a few at a time so I could clear out my locker, dust it a bit, and put in my own books--but then I stopped because I was just so disgusted by it all. There was no way I would use a locker in such poor shape. I decided that I would just use the locker below it, if it was empty; there were lots of unused lockers and surely no one would mind if I used another one, as long as it wasn't already in use. I did have second thoughts about what would happen if I took such a locker, and then at some later time somebody ELSE would come along and see that somebody else's stuff was in their locker, just like what was happening with me right now!--but I guess I decided not to worry about it overmuch. So I opened the next locker down--which I preferred, as it was lower and easier to reach.
No luck--this one had old dusty items in it too, in this case, stacks of old audiocassette tapes. Ick! It's like I saw into a few other lockers in the area and there were more cassette tapes. Everything was very old and dusty. Just utterly bewildered now--I had nowhere to put my own stuff, and I was obviously running late for class by now--I decided to seek out the principal and take up the matter with him, seeing as I couldn't solve the problem on my own. I was getting quite upset that a student couldn't even expect a decent locker of their own!
The dream gets hazy at this point. I made my way to the principal's office, which was in the same location as that in the elementary school. Again, even though this was college, the principal himself was associated with elementary school because I knew that Mr. Stowe, my real-life elementary school principal, had retired, so there would be a new one I hadn't met yet. I hoped he would be as friendly and personable as Mr. Stowe. :/ I reached the office, which was busy, and there was the principal seated at a desk to the right. (In real life I believe the secretary sat in the foreroom and the principal in a room beyond that, but my memory is faint.) It was a man, and I believe he had salt-and-pepper hair, kind of close cropped but flat to his head, and glasses and a mustache. Maybe in his fifties or sixties, wearing a suit. He seemed friendly enough, to my immense relief, and I told him about the locker situation.
I was again relieved to find him amenable to my complaint and he promised to look into it.
I know that much time passed with me waiting in his office, but it's like the dream phased out and picked up again after a passage of time because, all of a sudden, I realized that I'd been waiting here for AGES and nothing whatsoever was being done! And what's more--the principal and a bunch of other school authorities were throwing some kind of party or something right here in the office! O_o There were all these festivities and shouting and laughing going on all around me! Flustered and beyond irritated, I stood up--I knew I must be late for my class by now, and that bothered me, despite the fact that I knew the teacher wouldn't care much (which is how I know I was supposed to be in college)--and went to the principal to take the matter up with him AGAIN.
It's like he wasn't really willing to listen to me as he was too busy with his party. It wasn't that he was IGNORING me outright, it was more like he was kind of putting me off and putting me off, promising to see to things later. This is where the dream gets haziest, unfortunately. It started to seem like a roleplaying thing too. I do know that I got so upset and frustrated that I somehow physically attacked the principal and tried to stab him or slash him or something, maybe with a ballpoint pen. I believe everyone else fled the office and only the two of us remained. He wasn't killed, but he was badly injured, and definitely scared. I stood in front of him and started on this huge angry harangue about his responsibility toward the students and how he was neglecting it.
"I was promised a locker and when I go to it I find that it's already in use!" I exclaimed. "I have nowhere to put my books and so I'm late for my next class. I come here to get you to try to take responsibility for the situation like you're supposed to and all you guys can do is have a PARTY! What about your responsibility to the students? How are we supposed to achieve anything under circumstances like this? Why aren't you doing anything?"
I just went off on him with this big yelling lecture, it went on for a bit. I was then thinking of fleeing the scene, as everyone else had fled and I knew that the police would be coming in soon to arrest me for assault, but then I thought, I should just stay here and take responsibility myself. I'd attacked him, it was true; somehow, running away would make my argument seem null or trivial, while staying behind would make it seem more important. So I resignedly sat down in the office to wait for the police to come and arrest me. That was the way the dream as I remember it ended.
It only just now occurs to me that my attack on the principal, and the principal seeing that students had proper lockers, were both matters of taking responsibility. In the dream, I just knew, without connecting the two, that my own arguments would hold no water if I fled the scene. The thought of "taking responsibility" didn't really occur to me; it just seemed like the proper thing to do.
