I had a dream…

February 27, 2014 meisajDaily Life

IV Lego

Of New York City. How strange is that?

And it wasn’t last night. Last night was this big gap of nothingness. No dreams, nothing to recall.

But a few nights ago I dreamt of New York City. Of meeting friends at club there. A club in some warehouse area that I walked to. But had a skateboard. And the people there weren’t really friends, but more old classmates. Seriously, Matt Thompson, we didn’t hang out in high school. I’m sure you’re a daper guy, but I haven’t thought about you since we graduated. Maybe even before that. But at this club, Matt Thompson, Chris Rabideau (have no idea how to spell his last name without a yearbook), Jen Olden, and some other person I recognized but couldn’t recall their name (maybe someone named Katie or Jamie…. Jamie Glen-something… I don’t know). All in this club doing whatever people do in clubs. I’m not sure about that either. There wasn’t music. It was dark and there was a bar and weird flashy lights. And a coatroom. I remember the coatroom very well. Cause I checked in my skateboard. That makes it a club right?

So yeah…. my friends from back when… Colin, Shane, Yousey, Kevin, and Reg. You ditched me in my dreams. You bastards.

Dreams of Old

December 13, 2013 meisajDaily Life

For the last week or so all of my dreams have somehow involved people from Queensbury. Maybe it is because I’m heading home for a week (in a week!), but they’ve been interesting to say the least.

Last night’s dream involved a camping trip. But it was more like “Going to Camp” than actually camping. Cabins in the woods and such. Shane, Reggie, Colin, Yousey (sorry dan, I just struggle to refer to you by your first name for some reason) and even Kevin. It was bizarre. We all were sitting around a round table in the main cabin talking about all the things we would do in the woods. Hiking, boating, and general bullshitting about this and that.

I got up and went to the bathroom, which was on the second floor of the cabin. It had a bathroom very reminiscent of a bar in Buffalo. In other words it had trough as the urinals. No ice though!

On the way back down the maintenance man had removed the bottom half of the stairs and I had to leap to the floor off the second floor. By the time I got back to the table it had started to get dark outside and it had started raining. When I sat back down there was about 5 more people sitting with us. Colin had apparently made friends with some people sitting next to us and pushed the tables together. There was a crack of lightning outside the cabin and the windows glowed bright for a second. Shane immediately suggested we go wandering outside in the rainstorm. No one objected and we got up to go.

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That’s where it ended. Like I said, I’ve probably had five dreams involving people from Queensbury in the last week.

Just… strange.

That Dream

October 23, 2013October 23, 2013 meisajDaily Life

I had a high school dream last night.

It wasn’t so much about high school as it involved high school people.

Well not even that, but Shane, Reggie, Colin and Yousey (why I continually refer to him as Yousey instead of Dan I’ll never know).

And they weren’t so much involved in the dream as people on the side.

It did start off in my high school parking lot. I was trying to drive home but my car was stalled. Colin and Reggie drove by, with Reggie in the passenger seat. He unrolled his window like he was going to say something to me but instead drove by laughing (maybe Colin was laughing, he was driving).

Yousey was in the parking lot somewhere. With no ride I started walking home through the Potter Road Woods. But really it was the woods up on the mountain below Shane’s house. I did have my cell phone with me and decided to call Shane for a ride. He informed me he was too busy reading a book to come get me. In my dream…. that made absolutely perfect sense and I didn’t argue with him.

I think it started to rain and turned to night immediately after I talked to Shane. I just kept on walking. Its one of those parts I can picture in my head but can’t remember from the dream. I think my brain is trying to fill in gaps.

Anyways, I walked til there was snow overlooking a lake, or maybe it was one of the reservoirs up on the mountain. I don’t know. But I got there, and it was snow covered but clear night. And I sat down. But it wasn’t cold.

And then I woke up.

Wasn’t a bad dream. Kind of nice in that nostalgic sort of way.

High School Memories

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 meisajDaily Life

Coach Hoek was the cross country coach when I was in high school. At least for three years. He also taught English class. My Senior year he went from a teacher I looked up to to someone I really wish I never took a class from.

In my Senior year he taught a Senior writing and speaking class. One of the assignments was to give a presentation in front of the class with the goal of teaching something to everyone. One of the more popular choices was “how to make brownies.” I don’t think anyone prepared for this, someone did ‘How to play guitar” but he started his lesson by saying “I’m not going to teach you how to play guitar, go get lessons if you want to learn. I’m just going to play for ten minutes,” and he did. And he got an A. One person was going to teach us how to change a car stereo but didn’t bring a stereo in, or wires or do any drawings. Just talked us through it. He got a B+. Colin, I’ll admit, did a pretty good job with a presentation of “How to sneak out of school without getting caught.”

I didn’t prepare much for my presentation. But I had decided to do a lesson on drawing stick figures, and how to use it as a stress reliever. I drew a lot at that time, and at one point thought about becoming a political cartoonist. But that was aside from the point, I drew my stick figures on the board, showed how you only need one unique feature for each stick figure to make it stand out. I drew short comic strips, drew out some frustrations, and other such randomness. I’m sure it wasn’t great, but then again, other than Colin’s, no one’s was great and mine was no worse or better than theirs.

I got a C. Scoring was 50/50 on this project. Students got to grade and rate each others; giving it a grade and then ranking what they thought were the best presentations. The other 50% came from Mr. Hoek. So when I got my grade back and saw that students had given me an ‘A’, and Mr. Hoek had given me a D-. His
The guy who played guitar. He finally did the presentation three weeks after it was due. And he got a better grade than I did. I actually confronted Mr. Hoek after finding out what he gave that student. Mr. Hoek’s words to me were along the lines of “An A means more to him than it does to you. He needed that grade more than I did. Never mind that he didn’t actually do any of the requirements of the presentation other than sit up in front of the class for ten minutes.explanation that went along with my grade was that he felt he didn’t learn anything from my presentation. The guy who played guitar for ten minutes without explaining anything, that guy deserved a better grade than I did. The people who read instructions off of a Brownies Mix box. Deserved a better grade than I did. The guy who put his feet on the table and tried to explain how to put a car stereo in without pictures or examples. Yeah…. he deserved a better grade than I did. Apparently he learned things from all of them.

It stands out in my mind as just awful teaching. Yes I could have and probably should have done more for my presentation, but as a teacher you can’t just arbitrarily hand out grades. And that’s what Mr. Hoek did. He felt others deserved or needed or earned better grades doing the same or less than I did.

I don’t know why I thought about this today, but I did. It irks me still, and I’m 16 years removed from High School. I think I did well in the class regardless of that presentation, but man it still irks me.

Well, I’ll never see Mr. Hoek again so that’s that. I think he still teaches at QHS. And I’m sure in the last 16 years I have built this story up more than it should be. All those grades probably weren’t ‘A’s’, but they sure as hell were better than what he gave me.