A bizarre dream

I slept for about twenty hours yesterday. I woke up as normal and managed to stagger to Greek, but mostly spent that hour-and-a-half waiting for it to be over so I could go and pass out in bed again. It wasn't so much that I blew off my other classes in favor of sleep; it was that all going to class would accomplish would be the spread of my germs all over, and I'd be miserable.

So, anyway, I spent almost all of yesterday alternatively miserable, or dead to the world, doped up on (amongst other things) Benadryl. Technically, it's Wal-Mart brand and not literally Benadryl, because the generic is the exact same drug, but about three bucks cheaper. In addition to drastically reducing the chance of choking to death on my own bodily excretions (a serious threat in my state yesterday, not as severe today), it also tends to put me to sleep.

At some point last night - I think it was night, though it might have been mid-afternoon for all I know - I dreamt. I was back at West, still in my senior year, and we were taking IB exams. We were in the cafeteria, and it was pre-repainting, so all the murals were still there.

I had finished whatever exam I'd been taking, and one of my good friends and I were on our way out. My science teacher from freshman year stopped me, brandishing a stack of papers at me. "Your philosophy exam is seventeen pages long!" she admonished. "Everyone else's is only five!" My friend turned and gave me a look, which I was often on the receiving end of when handing in essays in high school. My former teacher continued: "You've got to fix this! You won't get a good grade with seventeen pages of philosophy!"

"Why?" I asked. She didn't respond, just tried to give me the papers back. Finally, she sighed, exasperated, and said, "The examiners won't like this. It's too American. Look, you even drew an American flag." And, sure enough, I had sketched a wee American flag on the cover sheet.

"But will they grade it at all?" I asked.

"Yes, but you'll get a terrible grade. The French won't like it at all."

I looked at the clock, and it was five-thirty. "But I need to leave by six," I said. "I don't really care. I never took French." My friend smacked me in the arm, said her boyfriend was waiting for her, and we left.

That's all I remember clearly - there's something vague about walking down the hall with a can of paint, which was most likely radioactive tangerine colored (and anyone from West could probably figure out that much). I don't know. It was strange.