Dreams

Last week seemed to drag on. It was only four days but there were many classes to teach. Although we are here to teach English, sometimes I feel teaching is really just a bother. I would rather just travel and live! I suppose that's the way life is - work to live, live on the weekends? Which reminds me of a very disturbing dream I had two nights ago...

It was just after graduation and all the college students were at this temple type thing saying goodbye to their familes. Shawn and I were there, but our families weren't. At the temple there were voluntary executions going on for people who just graduated. According to this dream, colelge was the best time of our lives so after it's finished, there is no reason to keep on going. It seemed a social norm - like the thing most people do. I saw people from high school there, also just graduated, hanging their heads walking to meet their end. This idea really didn't sit well with me in the dream, so as we searched for a phone to call our families and say goodbye, in a rebelious, revolutionary-type way, I said to Shawn, "What if we just don't do it?" He answered, like he had never thought of it before, "What do you mean?" I answered, "What if we don't go to execution? Let's get out of here, I'm sure it gets better. We can make life better, let's just try. And besides, if this is what everyone does, how do people ever old? What about our parents? We wouldn't even be here if our parents had done this like everyone else!" After that, we leftm while our friends, depressed at what life had to offer them, marched to their executions.

Then I woke up. I can't remembering ever having dreams as poignant and full of metaphor as this one. Of course, there is the uncertainty of graduating college...I won't elaborate on this obvious interpretation. But a friend of mine offered that it's about Shawn and I coming to Japan, but none of our friends are here. More of a symbolic leaving everyone else for something we think is a better option?

Anyway...the dream was a tad depressing, especially because recently we have been thinking: what's next? I have tried to not think too much about life after JET only because we just got here! Not two months into the program and I'm already thinking about it ending? I have always been this way - planning the next big thing, plans plans plans. But I really wanted to break myself of that habit and just enjoy the here and now, without looking at it as a stepping stone for the 'next big thing.' It's not a bad thing to plan, I suppose...

All that aside, this weekend we went to Hita where Phil lives. If you don't remember, Phils is our friend from Willamette and the other half of Shawn's musical pair. I'll post pictures and stories from this weekend tomorrow. Right now I'm feeling drained from an entire weekend of terrible allergies. We are going to watch Robin Hood and call it an early night. The melodramatic Prince of Theives one, Shawn has never seen it! Can you believe it? It's pretty much a classic... School tomorrow...boo.