Nilbus' Dreams

Goodnight for now

2008-08-17T17:56:00.004-04:00

This was fun, but now it's done;
another semester has begun.

And though it seems I've lost my dreams,
I'm lacking the time is all it means.

Lunch lockdown

2008-06-29T23:11:00.002-04:00

I snuck out of high school during lunch to eat off campus on a rainy day. When I got back, I found that all the entrances were locked down with Taiwanese style roll-up metal doors - all except thee entrance where they were checking for lunch passes, which I didn't have. So strange... it wasn't like this last time. As I walked over the peak of the main bridge, I saw the silhouette of man at the main entrance looking at me So, I looked for a way to sneak in.

Finally I found a small door that was locked on the outside, but had people going out occasionally. So I stood outside the door and waited for someone to come out. They came out, and I went in before the door closed. Unfortunately the door went into the back of the gym, where I wouldn't be able to leave easily without being noticed. I figured if I was holding my umbrella and wearing my street clothes, walking like I knew what I was doing, the gym teacher might assume I was doing something I was supposed to be doing. I used a secret passageway in the locker room to get to the other side of the gym.

Underground hackers

2008-06-18T13:27:00.002-04:00

I'm standing on a ledge, talking to an old Taiwanese man. Suddenly I find that I'm losing my balance, slowly falling backward into the abyss behind me. I reach forward for something to grab, but it's all out of reach. The bricks I'm standing on are breaking away from the wall. The Taiwanese man watches me helplessly as I fall. The wall in front of me is covered in books, lots and lots of stacked books, which I reach out and grab onto when they're closer to me. The stacks of books just collapse and fall, only serving to slow me down. After falling for what seemed like a minute, I finally caught myself, stopping only a meter from the ground.

Looking around, I see that I am very far underground now. I crawl over the books on the ground to a doorway to my right. It's open, and I go in. A man and a woman are playing some sort of poker game with playing cards at a game table. I ask them what they're playing, and they respond with a name that I've never heard of before. "Watch, and you'll pick it up," he says. "Do you want to play next game?" "Sure," I respond. I pick up a news paper near me and glance at it. There's an add that boats about its illegal internet servers that can't be found or shut down by authorities, along with a call for hackers to join the group. Its location is listed as far, far below a catholic church on a street in New York City, which was located above us.

Klondike boat ticket

2008-06-15T23:07:00.004-04:00

Walking back to my old BMW in the rain with my friend, I notice a yellow card on the hood. It's a $400 ticket parking in a spot that requires a permit. :( That's not good. I'm not particularly upset, but that's still going to put a good hurt on my finances. I can't afford to have this happen again.

We go off to do a live action role play with Megan, Emily, and a large group of other people. We set off on boats going down a river. Megan is somewhat obnoxious, so Emily ties her to the mast of the boat. She can't get out, but realizes that being tied the boat doesn't put any restrictions on what she can say or sing. So she immediately goes back to her normal self. Eventually we finish, and she's let free. I wasn't on the same boat as her, so in the dressing room, she tells me all about it.

We join the main group of actors. I start searching for my klondike bar in the toy box. I can't find it, but spot a Toblerone bar and reach for it instead. Can't reach. But then the girl behind me yells, "I found it!" She hands it to me. It's cold, but starting to melt. I ask her "妳先要吃一口嗎 (do you want a bite)?" She takes a bite of the corner. I take a bite out of another corner. It is the Most Delicious Thing EVER. My eyes roll up and my legs almost give out from under me. So good. "這個我要冰 (I've got to put this in the freezer)", I tell everyone, but feel bad for just giving one person a bite, when there were lots of other people in the room watching me. "Does anyone else want a bite?" One after another, they all say yes. At the end, not much of the klondike bar is left.

Staying to babysit

2008-06-09T23:03:00.003-04:00

Lynette and I were just leaving my 5 story house that I rent out to Taiwanese students. We walked down the flights of concrete stairs that formed triangles on the way down. My house is so trashy looking... all concrete, dirty, un-patched holes in the walls, rotting wooden doors, peeling paint, tenants' names spray painted and crossed out above the doors, etc. A few tenants are standing outside their doors, looking very pretty. Some of them who are part of a team have painted their team name in sparkly blue paint with a stencil above their door. The two young kids I'm babysitting are running around.

We reach the bottom, walk through the dark front room, and push open the rickety screen door, stepping out into the night. The breeze and fresh air are wonderful. We hold each other, not wanting to go. "Maybe I'll just stay here tonight and help you babysit the kids," she says to me. I respond enthusiastically and give her a big hug. "I would love that!" We walk back inside together, happy as can be.

Dream train

2008-06-08T21:27:00.005-04:00

Lynette and I are in the subway, except this time the subway is different. Every subway stop leads into to a different dream of mine, some fun, some scary. I look at the map on the wall and see the animated pictures of the different dreams that are playing out at each stop. I consider the possibility of sending her into a scary dream, just for fun, but decide against that. I'm going to let her decide where she wants to go.

Locked up little girl

2008-06-05T22:51:00.000-04:00

I'm a cute little girl with wavy blond hair in a light purple dress, around 8 years old. While exploring one day, I touch an object that transports me into a different world where animals and humans can talk. I'm not welcome here. I'm quickly caught by this nasty old lady who locks me inside a room inside her house. It's a sitting room of sorts, located on the side of the house with a gigantic glass pane window. I watch the old lady outside as she prowls the grounds, using a spy glass to look for intruders or other people to capture. A rabbit wearing glasses is by her side, who is also on the lookout.

I decide to find a way to break out. I can't go through the door - it's magically sealed. I feel around the room in case there's a magic spot that will transport me out, like the one that took me into this world in the first place. After searching for several minutes, I touch a spot on the wall that transports me to the other side of the glass window. Now I'm outside, feeling somewhat vulnerable. I try to sneak around the other side of the house, but a black bird sees me and starts squawking like mad. The old lady arrives only seconds later, grabs me by the arm, and slams me back into the room where I was before.

After a few minutes, I decide to try again. I touch the magic spot on the wall and am transported back outside. I'm spotted by a hare walking on its hind legs, who immediately lunges for me. "Oh no," I thought to myself, "not again." However, to my surprise, the hare held me and quietly said, "come with me." He pulled me into the house through the door next to the glass window. "My gosh, what are you doing?!" the hare asked me, then saying "you need to be more careful! Let's get you out of here."

Suddenly several little Taiwanese girls entered the hallway through the same entrance, all wearing the same red school uniform. I immediately hid my head behind a curtain that was hanging over a window looking into the next room. The girls were of course infinitely curious about who this person was hiding behind the curtain. They pulled at the curtain, but I held on tight. I very much did not want to be seen, because they would know who I was and would probably tattle. Several Girls flooded into the opposite room, and I knew they could see my face. The girls on my end finally got the curtain free from my grip, and I buried my face deeper into the corner near the window. I knew they could see me anyway. But for some reason they didn't react. I look in the reflection and see that I seem to have temporarily, for that instance, turned into a tall, thin white guy. Weird. The hare said, "alright girls, clear out," and they each left, one by one.

The hare started discussing with me the escape plan. He used a magic eye to show me around the front of the house. It looked and seemed like we were really out in front of the house, but our bodies were still inside. "There is a ledge out front that you would think you could crawl below and stay out of sight, but with that magic spy glass of hers, she'll see you anyway." He told me a lot, but in the end, he just instructed me just to stay with him. We left. Sneaking and running through this way and that, he led me through a maze of different paths that all seemed a blur to me. At last, we arrived in a small grassy clearing behind the house at a tea table. He instructed me, "here just touch this, and you'll be back home." I put both my hands around the tea kettle, and sure enough, it happened. I was back in my own home, reflecting on what had just happened.

Casting a patronus

2008-06-05T17:30:00.000-04:00

I'm a new student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The school isn't quite the same as was described in the books, but still has similar characteristics.

I'm on the top of a tower, having a long conversation with a girl walking around doing errands down in the town below. As long as she stays in sight range, we can hear each other loud and clear. She skips around as she moves like she couldn't be happier. She eventually moves out of range. I can't talk to her anymore, but I still have an important message to tell her! Then it comes to me... I'll use a patronus! I remember from reading Harry Potter's book that they would sometimes get a message from members of the order using a patronus. I decided to give it a try. I tried to remember the things that I had read from when Dumbledore's Army was practicing, and gave it a shot. I pointed my wand forward and yelled expecto patronum! Nothing happened. Hmm, maybe my thought wasn't happy enough. I raked my mind for something happier to think about, but not much came to mind. expecto patronum! Still nothing. I probably said it too fast, was holding my wand wrong, didn't wave it right, or didn't have a happy enough thought. Or all of the above. I adjusted how I held my wand, this time extending my pointer finger down the length of the wand. My wand was weird in that it has a knob... an egg-shaped piece of wood on the end where you hold it. I try several more times. Finally, a wispy blue mist emits from the tip of my wand. -sigh- How frustrating. I realize what a novice I am at magic.

Suddenly someone else's bright blue patronus appears by my side in the shape of an overly-large male human head. The amount of detail is incredible. I can even see the whiskers on his face. "You can't speak for yourself, can you," I ask it. It jerks back for a moment, as if thinking, and then changes into the form of a female professor. In the professor's voice and words, the patronus explains to me how it can only relay messages that have been previously been uttered. Oh, so thats why you can use it to send messages... it can repeat what you tell it.

I keep attempting to cast a patronus. Now other students are around too. The center of the marble column to my right vanishes, and I point my wand at the student behind it, which scares her. "那看起來很黑 (that looks really dark)," a voice says from behind me. I turn around to see a Hermione-looking girl behind me. I quickly put my wand down. A tall, thin professor behind me says in his deep voice, "yes, now is the time when all students are choosing to be light or dark." I know that they mean good or evil. I run to look for my best friend. I want him to be on the white side too, like I am.

The girl comes with me, and I continue conversing with her in Chinese. I start noticing that no one is wearing robes, but instead they are wearing sweaters of different colors. Where I had been, everyone had been mostly wearing white or black. I look down at my chest and see that I'm wearing a deep red colored sweater. As we walk out through the wide entrance of the building, I see for the first time several girls wearing sweaters with a mix of black and neon green. We leave the building and come to the top of a ledge. Looking over the rail, I see the next building over has four lines of students entering the building, one line for each sweater color, black, white, green, and blue. The blue line is shortest and is moving the fastest. It's probably lunch time. Instinctively I know that the blue line is mine, and I'm pleased that I won't have to wait so long.

Jenny's birthday

2008-06-03T19:20:00.002-04:00

I'm in a gray mist; nothing is visible. Suddenly, a female voice calls out, "Erik!"

I'm at Jenny Jump's birthday party. It's being held in the front room of a nice house. The room is crowded, completely full of people, many of whom we don't know but just came with Jenny's friends. There is food and decoration spread out everywhere. Jenny and I are standing on opposite ends of the room.

We all start singing Happy Birthday to her, and just like always, everyone is horribly off key. The loudest and worst of them all is Miles. His obnoxious singing calls my attention to him, and I notice that he's standing behind Jenny, rubbing up against her. It's obvious that she doesn't like it and is trying to get away, but the crowd is so tight that she can't. Finally a few of her friends notice and give him a few hard shoves. He backs off, but doesn't take the huge grin off his face. The song finally ends, and Jenny is able to break away. When she moves out of the way, I can see that Miles is very aroused. :(

Jenny makes her way over to where I'm standing. We talk for a bit while watching Jenny's mom and her mom's friend bring more and more absolutely delicious looking deserts out. "Hey, this should be great practice for your wedding reception," I tell her. "Lots of people, delicious food. We can invite all these people to come. Well, minus all the ones you don't know," I say with a grin. She smiles. I look over at a cake that Tennyson just dug into. It's so moist that it practically just fell onto his plate as he sliced it. "Wow, that cake looks delicious. I'm going to get some," I tell Jenny as I turn around to take a slice.

Bathroom stall adventures

2008-06-03T19:00:00.000-04:00

Sitting on a toilet in a dirty public restroom, I practically fill the whole bowl before I'm finished. While I was sitting, a man kept calling my cell, asking me questions about an upcoming anime convention that I signed up for. He got a bunch of info from me, then hung up. Then he immediately called me back twice, once for my email, and then again for my skype username. After he finished, I saw on my laptop screen that he had installed some windows software on my linux laptop that claims to improve the performance and efficiency of my computer, like by turning off power to the hard drives when they're not in use. haha, yeah right. The icons it uses makes it look like it was written in 1998, and how would windows software know how to do power management on my linux laptop? I leave my stall to find that there are no sinks to wash my hands in. So instead I go to another stall across the room. They're all equipped with hose spigots, so I use that to wash. The hot water that comes out surprises me.

I go home and find my two brothers there. Nathan is working on a project, and he's using a series of papers I wrote during college as a reference. I want to look at the first paper in the series, but he can't find it. I go in his room to look. His room is a mess. I see a second copy of my second paper, but not the one I'm looking for. I notice a copy of LOTR - Fellowship of the Ring lying on the floor with 3 bookmarks in it, two near the end, and one just barely into the book.

Family breakfast @ market

2008-06-03T18:15:00.001-04:00

I'm buying veggies in the outdoor market in Taiwan. After buying a few things, I take my bag back to my family's round, wooden table, which is also in the market. It's covered with cereal boxes of every kind, and lots of other snacks. Most of the boxes of the same have been set together, so I take the initiative to distribute things around the table more evenly. My family arrives. Dad tells me, "we have to hurry. We're going to go help another family move soon." I pour a bowl of Cheerios, and we all start to eat. Since there's practically no room on the table, mom moves all the cereal boxes on to the long, wooden desk at the side of the table. John is eating Doritos cereal, and dad says, "you shouldn't eat that every time, John."

Breaking in

2008-06-03T18:00:00.000-04:00

Jorge, Chii, and I are in a dark alley behind what looks like an old abandoned building. I excitedly tell them, "here, let me show you how to get in." There's a balcony on the 2nd floor with stairs leading to the ground. There's an outer door on the balocony that is locked, but instead I walk under the balcony and lift myself up through a hole that has broken though the floor. The others follow suit, and we're soon in the building. We then walk through mazes of empty building.

Eventually we find ourselves in a busy church building in Cary. Tons of people crowd the halls, and it's obvious that there is a lot going on. I crack open a door to the main chapel and see a lady in a cream colored dress with blond hair speaking for the baptism that is currently in progress. Jenny, who is out in the hall, starts going on and on, fretting about how the speaker is going to ramble on forever and go over time. We walk down the hall, and into the bathroom, where I show the others how to sneak into the baptismal font through a secret passage way in the ceiling. However, since there is a baptism going on right now, so we can't use it.

Signing the lease

2008-06-02T21:15:00.005-04:00

I'm signing for a new apartment in an old apartment complex I used to live. Wayne, my old manager from the pizza place, is the apartment manager. He hands me the lease, and I sign it. After signing the lease, I quickly realize that I don't know anything about this place yet, and that I probably shouldn't have signed for it yet! I hold on to the lease paper and start asking him questions. "What floor is it on this time?" I ask him. "The 10th," he replies. Oh... I was hoping I could be on the 3rd floor again this time, or maybe even the second. I guess that rules out the possibility of being able to use the stairs very often. I haven't even seen this apartment. My dad goes outside and starts pulling my luggage out of the van. There's a green chalk board on the wall that has my monthly rent fee written on it - $650. "Wow, that's $10 more than last time." I justify it by reminding myself of how the prices of everything are going up these days, and it's only $10. The 5 is written poorly and could be mistaken for a 6. I draw over the 5 until it looks like a man's face with spiked hair pointing straight forward, so that it looks like a 5.

Waiting to see Alex

2008-06-02T17:00:00.003-04:00

Alex is back in town, so I give him a call and tell him that we're going to head over to his place. Right now I'm at my grandparents' house at the top of the stairs, waiting for another friend to come over, because we're going to go together. Waiting and waiting, so bored... I find a 3-ring binder that is supposed to fit on me some how, but it doesn't quite work. I call Alex and tell him we're going to probably be an hour late, and then he comes over instead.

Germans take over blog

2008-06-02T16:21:00.002-04:00

Today I'm writing in my dream blog, but the interface has totally changed. The interface looks like it has digressed 10 years, and is all in German. Very web 1.0 with oldschool forms, tons of radio buttons, and no styling except for a light brown background. Yuck

Paint matching

2008-06-01T20:00:00.008-04:00

I'm at the mall with several friends, standing at entrance to a store similar to Target. They're handing out free flowers to everyone who comes into store. Perhaps the occasion is Mother's day, but isn't that already past? I pin it to my shirt with a toothpick, but doesn't stay up very well. Jenny needs me to get paint colors matched, because she's going to paint her apartment. She's given me a baby toy ball with colors to match from it. I split off from the rest of the group and find the paint section.

There are a few people at the counter when I arrive, but apparently they've just finished with whatever they needed and are just waiting now. The lady at the desk looks at me. "I need to get paint in these colors," I say, pointing to the ball. She leaves to the back, and I take a closer look at the colors on the ball. Each color is bright with silvery specks in it, obviously designed to attract a baby's attention. There's a shade of green, yellow, orange, and purple. I wonder how one could stand living in a room with these colors. The lady comes back with a match for the sparkly green, but it's a shade or two too dark. Still pretty good for having only relied on her memory. She heads back into the dimly lit back room, and this time I say, "I'll go back with you and bring this ball." She walks off through rows of shelves, all stacked with cans of paint, and I follow her in. She's a way off in front of me, but I can see that she is now being accompanied by Chii.

"Chii is here, huh?" I think to myself. I keep following at a distance, not quite sure how to react. I call out her name a few times, but she doesn't hear. I follow behind them through several more isles as they look for paint. Chii eventually breaks away from the paint lady and stops at the back counter. I walk up and talk to her. I really don't feel anything special as I see her, other than a little weird. We talk for a little, and then I leave. My sister Jennie is sitting nearby, and I walk up to her. I tell her, "Happy mothers day, or whatever it is today," and hand her my flower after wrapping it in some green paper.

Shark bite

2008-06-01T19:21:00.005-04:00

"I heard you got bitten by a shark," I tell my friend Lance, a missionary in Taiwan. Everyone had been making a huge deal about it, but Lance kept saying "oh it was nothing." So, I decide to go and see what it was actually like. I enter his memory in my own body. Suddenly, I'm wading through the water in the ocean near the shore, with the beach at my right. The sea floor is incredibly steep, almost a 45 degree angle. A friend is ahead of me. The water is very clear, and I can see the line to my left where the sand turns purple, covered with seaweed, starfish, and other sea life.

I see the silhouette of a shark not far away from me, so I immediately call out to my friend, "Hey, there are sharks in here! Watch out!" It gets nearer and nearer, and finally latches onto my ankle. It doesn't hurt, but it's definitely attached to me. I move closer to the shore, hoping that if I get in a shallow enough area, it'll just let go. It doesn't work, so I start punching it. It doesn't budge, but I keep hitting it. Finally, I throw myself on the shore and tear my foot out of its mouth.

We're indoors again, and Lance is in front of me. I take a look at where the shark had bitten me. There is a small scratch down below my ankle, and... that was it. "He didn't even break the skin!" I complain. He gives me a look that says, "yes he did," and I take a closer look. Indeed, it was cut, but I respond, "it's not even bleeding! Why is everyone making such a big deal about this?" He replies, "I told you it was nothing."

Duct tape & shaving cream

2008-05-31T19:41:00.005-04:00

"Do you want to help me with a prank?" Lynette asks me with a grin on her face.
"Um, sure... what's going on?"
"Well, it involves shaving cream, duct tape, and a door jam."
"Alright, I'm in," I reply, terribly curious about who this prank is going to be on and what exactly I just got myself into.

Biking off a cliff

2008-05-30T21:24:00.000-04:00

I'm a missionary again, after having already gone home. Now I'm back in Taiwan for the second time. I'm trying to get to a house of a church member, using the subway to get there. After boarding the train, I review the way I need to get there in my head. I know roughly where their house is and roughly where the subway station I'm heading to is in relation to their house. But then I remember that they told me to get off at a particular subway station, which is in the opposite direction that I'm traveling. I have no idea why they want me to get off there... maybe it connects somehow or I remembered the location wrong. crap. Well, at least my subway card gets charged based where you enter and exit the subway, not which trains you get on or how far you go.

I get off at the next stop and get off the train. Conveniently, the train heading in the opposite direction has just arrived, so I board it. After some time, I realize that I have no idea what stop I need to get off at. I get off at the next stop to ask an attendant where I need to be going. I see a custodian and ask him. He explains that I need to get off at the Kaohsiung main station, and change over to the other subway that is at a higher level in the ground than this one. It has an entrance that is roughly ten minutes by foot away from the Kaohsiung main station.

I finally arrive at the Kaohsiung main station and see my two new companions who are there waiting for me. They have three bikes with them, one for me. I lead the way since I've lived here before and know the ares. I take us on a shortcut that goes through the mountain forest. Riding quickly through the forest path lined with small shacks and houses, I see a very steep hill up ahead that goes straight down for maybe 100 meters. I remember last time I was here, years ago, I rode my bike down this hill safely, so I go over the edge of the hill without even slowing down. I definitely should have slowed down. As my bike leaves the ground, I realize that this hill looks much more like a mountain cliff now, and that even going slowly down that hill would be quite frightening and dangerous. After soaring through the air for several seconds, my bike lands forcefully on the ground. While I should probably be dead on a destroyed bike, instead I landed painlessly on the ground on both wheels, still sitting securely on my bike. I watch my tires slowly deflate. When my companions make it down the cliff, I rotate my tires to let them see. The rubber had melted from the heat and force of the impact.

I remember from when I lived here before that there was a bike shop at the top of the cliff. I go back up the cliff, somehow effortlessly, leaving my companions behind. This is a breach of protocol, but for some reason since this is my second time, I feel like I should be allowed to go off by myself this time.

I arrive at the shack which once was the bike shop. The bike repair man is still there but has posted a sign on his door saying, "Temporarily closed down, if not for good." He's outside doing yard work, so I talk to him and ask, "你可以幫我修這個破掉的輪胎嗎？ (Can you help me fix my flat tire?)" He replies to me in Spanish, saying that he doesn't do this anymore. I reply, "哦, 生意不好嗎？ (oh, was business not going so well?)" After a long pause, I continue, "不然我可以走路到哪裡去修我的輪胎？ (Well then where can I walk to to get my tires fixed?)" I specifically say 走路 (walking), hoping for some pity and that he still has the tools and parts to fix it for me anyway, because I know the nearest place has to be pretty far from us.

Subway corpses

2008-05-30T19:30:00.002-04:00

I'm in the Kaohsiung subway station at the Ecological District stop, talking to a Taiwanese girl, trying to explain how the subway's payment system works. It's very complicated and convoluted.

Eventually I leave to the lower level to wait for the train. Downstairs, there are tons of body bags piled up, to be drug onto the train when it arrives. The body bags are completely clear, and the bodies inside are not normal. Each body is the same, in the fetal position, skin very peach colored, fingers not very well defined, almost as if this is an adult-sized embryo that is still forming.

Riding through decorations

2008-05-27T18:30:00.001-04:00

I'm learning how to ride a scooter, riding through American residential neighborhoods. It's pretty easy - I just have to work on remembering not to let up on the gas unless I'm slowing down. Turing the opposite direction to steer is working well, better than shifting my weight, though I still feel like I can't make a very sharp turn.

In the neighborhood I'm riding through, nearly everyone has set all their huge decorations out to the curb to be trashed - inflatable houses, santas, penguins, large gift boxes, etc., all still fully erect and inflated. I ride around some of them, looking more closely. I examine a giant-sized turkey I stop next to. My dad is standing on the curb looking at me. I tell him, "yeah, it's probably time we should get rid of this, isn't it." "Yeah," he agrees, "the electrical stuff on it is bad."

Dinner party

2008-05-27T16:22:00.002-04:00

We're at my grandparents' house, and my mom is preparing dinner for several people, including some of my friends - Krishnan, Stephen, and Ling. My friends are already there, and we're waiting as my mom is setting out some delicious looking food dishes on the table. They look like traditional Chinese food. There's about enough for the 8 or so people who are eating. Two more people come in the front door, so we pull two more chairs up to the table for them. Then the missionaries come in and sit down too. More and more people keep arriving. I go to the front door and hold it open for the guests who are coming in. After holding the door for a good while, I start thinking to myself, "wow, are they never going to stop coming? There are so many!" There is obviously not going to be enough food for everyone.

Finally, the stream of newcomers finally ends, and I close the front door, not wanting to hold it for whoever was going to come next. I walk back into the adjoining dining room and find that my mother has cut up the food into small chunks and inserted toothpicks so that everyone can snack. There is also now stadium seating with comfortable movie theater style chairs surrounding the small dining room table.

A new stream of people has entered the house and are now walking by me. A girl who I like walks by me and finds a seat in the second row of the blue stadium seats. She is followed by several other people, including Lindsay, who I also have a crush on. How awkward, to have two people I like right next to each other in the same room. Who will I spend my time with? As she walks by me, I notice that Lindsay has gotten really fat, almost as if her whole body had an allergic reaction to something she ate. Somehow I knew it was only temporary, and because of her crohns disease. After she passes me, a bratty little kid makes fun of her weight. I don't yell at him, but am pretty mad at the kid for teasing her. She and the people around her also take their seats on the second row.

I look for a seat next to one of the two girls, but they're both occupied on both sides. So instead I take an empty seat between the both of them. I say hi to the guy next to Lindsay, and he haughtily replies, "I don't talk to people who hang out on IRC." wow. Did he really just say that? I got the distinct impression that he was calling me a freak.

I decide to get some food while there's still some left and head for the table. Some of the original guests who were there first had taken plates full of food back to their seats in the stadium, but I could see that there was definitely not enough food for me to do the same. I get some rice and a few things to go on it.

I go into the kitchen. Somehow I knock down a dozen of eggs, but I catch it before it hits the floor. Even so, the sheer force of the fall causes all the eggs to crack open inside the clear, plastic carton. One of the eggs falls out, but the rest are contained safely as an eggy mess inside the carton. My grandma walks in the back door, carrying groceries. She sees the carton of eggs that I still have in my hands, which apparently she had misplaced, and said, "thank goodness! That's one less dozen of eggs I'll have to buy in this lifetime."

Lindsay's blog

2008-05-24T23:21:00.003-04:00

I opened my friend Lindsay's blog. It started by saying, "Ed is in Taiwan now, and..." I was happy to see that she blogged about me, and was excited to keep reading what she wrote.

Concert behind curtains

2008-05-24T17:25:00.000-04:00

I'm with a group of people running and hiding from an enemy, just like in Harry Potter. We're relocating to a new house, because our security was breached at the old location. As we run over a stone bridge, I call to a man behind me and start talking about how we're going to improve the security of our data. We'll put measures in place so that we can erase our data, destroying it permanently in the case that we're discovered and need to leave immediately. This time we had not left under ideal conditions, but we did the best we could considering the circumstances.

Later, we all go to a big name rock concert, which is being held in a large arena. I'm up with the performers on stage in the center of the arena. I find it somewhat strange that there are large, red cloth curtains hanging in different places on stage so that the band members are completely blocked from the view of the audience. They were able to listen but not watch. I wonder what sort of circumstances could cause a band to have to play anonymously like this.

My friend Jorge is one of the band members, with other people I don't know, including at least 3 singers who do harmony. Jenny is also on stage, but only as a guest. After performing a song into the curtains and getting a large applause, the band talks to the audience. Somehow the notion of Jenny singing comes up, and they ask her if she will. "Only if you want to hear some really bad singing," she says. The audience cheers her on. So they start a new song, and she sings.

Afterward, they decide to entertain the audience a bit. Jorge and another guy decide to spar on stage, outside of the curtains. They start, and Jorge immediately takes control. He beats his opponent across the stage until Jorge practically straddles the guy on the hand rail for the stairs that go off the stage. The winner is pretty clear, so they stop. The audience cheers. A baby starts crawling around on stage, and somehow we know that it is a duplicate!

Coco deal

2008-05-23T16:27:00.004-04:00

I'm walking my bike through a very hilly apartment complex. There are lots of college-age kids all over outside. I watch as a group of huge black guys, looking real tough, walk up to an old, red car with an open window. There are two white guys in the car, both wearing bluetooth ear pieces. The driver is wearing a dark red tshirt. The leader of the group yells at the driver and tells him that he better not screw anything up. The driver says, "you just give us the coco, and we'll give you your money." The driver hands the man several Taiwanese hundred dollar bills (100NT = $3.33 US), and gets a bag of something in return.

I just witnessed a drug deal. I considered calling the cops, but definitely not here in front of everyone where I might be seen. I keep walking up the hill, and near the apartment where I'm heading. I see my highschool friend Thomas a the top of the hill. He says hi. As I get closer to him, I hear another person call my name from behind me. I look back, and it's Joe, another guy I knew from highschool. "Wow, this is almost like a highschool reunion," I tell Thomas. There's another girl standing by him who I'm not sure I know.

The witch in the walls

2008-05-23T15:54:00.003-04:00

My sister Jennie got a packet in the mail from someone in the (high)school system. She opens it and finds a request for her to come to a meeting and discuss something about her classes for the next semester. The packet also contains a congratulations letter printed on green paper, thanking her for accepting whatever they are going to propose. Maybe that was an accident.

We arrive at the office. It's a mess. There's a front room and a back room. The front room has 2 desks, and things piled up around the room everywhere. Two men with very curly hair are in the room at their desks. The boss of the two seems rather eccentric. His secretary has platters of food out on his desk and is eating.

We walk past these two into the next room, where an eccentric old lady is waiting for us. To me, she looks like a witch. She sits us down around a table, me facing the wall near the table, and Jennie facing the center of the room. She disappears into the walls, which are made of loose, pliable plastic panels. I say, "hey, she went into the walls!" but before my sister could turn her head all the way around, she popped back out of the wall, with a sinister giggle. I've seen her do this before. She disappears back into the walls as Jennie turns her head back toward me, but I point back again. The witch comes in and out, in and out. In a lame attempt to show me that what she's doing is actually normal, she pulls open a panel to the right of the ones she goes in and out of and shows us part of a closet, saying that she's just been getting stuff from the closet. Yeah, sure... like I believe that.

She finally sits down and explains the situation to Jennie. They have a teacher who has been on personal leave because of "family issues" for nearly 15 years now. They were forcing him to come back and teach now, or get fired. However, there weren't enough people taking his class for him to be able to teach. She shows us some charts that show how apparently if this class isn't held, it'll screw up a bunch of people's semesters, and they won't be able to get the credits they need. Basically, they need Jennie to take the class, or this man gets fired, and lots of people's classes get messed up. She agrees to do it, and the woman cackles again. She hands Jennie a green slip of paper with a congratulatory note on it, just like the one that was mailed to her. She laughs, saying "thanks, even though I already have one."

We head back out of the office, and the secretary is still eating. I pick up a plate and grab some of the food from the platters on his desk, spilling a handful of egg-potato salad on my black shirt. I just leave it there, ignoring that it happened, until it starts to roll off. I catch it in my hand and eat it.

Meteor crash

2008-05-23T15:37:00.003-04:00

I'm friends with an old lady who I like to talk to. She also has a twin who looks very similar, but is very mentally handicapped. After seeing her, I go off for a bit and walk around the building complex that we're in. Someone screams, "there's a fireball coming from the sky!" I run back to the windowed door that leads to the courtyard, and sure enough, a meteor is flying through the sky, heading toward the earth. I basically only see a streak of fire going horizontally across the sky, which quickly goes out of view. There's a loud boom, and the ground shakes. Everyone comes out of their rooms and starts talking. Many people are walking around in wonder, looking at the fire in the distance that has started up.

I go outside with everyone else. The biggest thing that bugs me about all this, is that the sky is pixelated! It looks so weird. I see my sister Jennie and tell her, "hey the sky is pixelated, look!" She laughs at me and tells me that it's not. "It looks just fine. Nothing is pixelated here," she says. She points at a statue of President Hinckley and says, "see, you can even see the emerald on the statue." I squint and look over, and do indeed see the emerald. I tell her, "yeah, but that's huge!" Finally I determine that my color depth must be set lower than everyone else's to be having this problem.

I look for my old lady friend in the courtyard. I see her, but she's actively engaged in a conversation with a friend next to her. I can't get her attention, so I look away for a second. When I look back, she's gone. I keep searching, and bump into her crazy twin. She's being pushed on a hand-truck by another man. She has whiter hair, and is wearing a pink sweater instead of the brown one her sister is wearing. They hit a bump, and she falls forward out of the hand-truck onto the ground, which wakes me up. I fall asleep again, and it happens again.

Emergency baby exit

2008-05-23T15:28:00.006-04:00

I'm driving down the road, and the green van in front of me makes a wild swerve onto the off-ramp for an exit. I seriously wonder if there is anything wrong, so I pull over to the side of the road into a parking lot and call the man in the green van. Somehow I don't need his number. He says he's fine, but he had to take the exit immediately, because his wife just started to go into labor. After getting off the phone, I realize that the man on the phone was my dad. It was his green van. My sister pulls up in her black car behind me and asks me what's up? "Mom is having a baby," I tell her. Another car pulls up and parks in front of mine. A lady gets out, who informs me she is having car troubles. While I stopped in the first place to help someone who might be broken down, I didn't want to stay and help right now - my mom was going to have a baby now! We wanted to go see her. I asked the lady if she needed any help. She said no, so we left.

Fairy foot leeches

2008-05-23T15:11:00.004-04:00

My class is being held at the lake. We're all in the lake swimming, listening to the professor lecture. I'm not really paying attention to what he's saying. He finally wraps up the lecture and says that we can go. When I move to start swimming toward the edge of the lake, I end up on my back to change positions. These glowing fuzzy white leeches with long, silvery strands of hair as tails all attack my right foot which stuck out of the water. It hurts!! They sink their tiny little teeth it, and it's almost like they're electrocuting me. I've been here and felt this before. The pain shoots up my nerves. I swim over to the shore, where the professor is. He gives me tennis ball-looking things that have absorbed some sort of antidote. With 2 or 3 dobs on the heads of these things, they fall right off. They all come off, and pain goes away.

I wake up and fall asleep. Now I'm at the inside the beach office by the shore. The Taiwanese girl inside the shop calls me on the phone and tells me (in English) how she had heard that I wanted to wake up after my dream so that I could write it down, and that she called because she didn't think my mind would do it on its own.

I woke up again, and my cell phone rang.

Pop-tarts & Jesus

2008-05-22T20:14:00.012-04:00

Years ago (in dreams previous), I had entered a contest at school. My entry was a gigantic pop-tart. It was roughly the size of a crib mattress, thicker than a normal pop-tart. Only one end of it was frosted, like where a pillow would go on a mattress or a toenail on a foot, though I wasn't thinking that at the time. My pop-tart treat only got 4th place, which I didn't consider to be anything noteworthy at all. So, I ate it. Wow, it was sooo delicious! Despite its unusually large size, I had no problem handling it or fitting it in my mouth. It was sweet, soft, and moist, just as if I had baked it hours earlier (as opposed to the months or years it had really been). It had a consistency like Taiwanese pineapple pastries (鳳梨酥). I enjoyed my pop-tart, walking around the classroom amongst other students. Class was over.

My friend Michael and his friend were going to a town far away and wanted me to come. I didn't know what we were going for, but also didn't find it important at the time. I felt like if I went, it might be kind of inconvenient for me, but I told them that if there was a bus that could take me back afterward I would go. I didn't have a car. Michael was dressed in his usual goth attire.

Now the classroom I'm in is part of a church building, and there are several people selling different pieces of art and furniture. My friend Chris has a framed painting of Jesus Christ that he wants to sell me, and he's pushing pretty hard. We take it out of its cardboard box and its packing and set it up on the wall. In this painting, He's standing, wearing a light blue robe. I look at it for several minutes, sizing it up, deciding if I like it enough to buy or not. There's a small, black button on the frame. I pick up the frame with ease - it's almost weightless. The painting isn't bad, but upon pressing the button, it turns into a hooded, hunched over Jesus with a nasty look on his face. It seriously looked like the grim reaper, except instead with a shepherds hook. After pressing the button to flip back and forth several times, it finally sinks in how creepy and wrong this really is. I totally don't like it, so I pack it back up and put it in the box where I got it. Chris finally sees that I had put it away, and starts trying to convince me to buy it again. He's very persuasive, and I convince myself that maybe I just don't need to press that button, and it will be okay. He wants $140 for it, which is more than I want to pay for a piece of art anyway, so I prepare mentally to bargain the price down, looking at what other things in the room are selling for.

The box it's in falls heavily on the floor as we go back to open it. We open the box to find that there are also hymn books and other heavy things inside, all of which got heavily damaged by the fall. I take out one of the books and examine it. The binding and everything got heavily wrinkled. Perhaps it took the fall so that the art didn't have to. The next piece of padding I pull out is a piece of shrubbery. The painting is no longer in the box, but upon seeing the shrubbery, I don't even notice. I pull it out and find that the shrub/tree didn't get damaged at all. "That's good," I think to myself.

I'm outside now, in an american-style driveway in front of a house with a well-groomed lawn. Brother Huang from church in Taiwan walks up and says hi. He's friendly as always. We plant the shrub on the corner of his lawn, where it instantly starts reaching out. It has differnet types of branches, including ones with short pine-like needles, and some especially long, thin, purple cactus branches that reach out farther than the rest. The cactus branches are the most beautiful, and we admire them together. It blows in the wind, and reaches out farther and farther, like it's growing at the same time too. A navy blue mini-van pulls up into the driveway and parks. The cactus reaches out and brushes the tires as it goes by. Sister Huang and her two amazingly cute kids pile out of the van. Brother Huang asks me if I would like to stay for lunch, and I accept.

Superstar in Taiwan

2008-05-22T14:35:00.004-04:00

I'm in Taiwan, and am some sort of superstar. Why there are millions of Taiwanese people looking up to me, I'm not sure, but they all think that my way is the best now. I see silver stars shapes flying around me like they would on a TV show. I tried to figure out why I was famous, and my mind came up with some logic behind it.

Second mission

2008-05-21T15:07:00.006-04:00

So I'm getting ready for a second mission to Taiwan, packing up all my stuff. I'm at my grandparents house in the bonus room and have several suitcases out that I'm packing. Suddenly the lights go dim. There's a girl lying on the ground to my left in an inviting position, so I lie down with her. I ask, "do you mind me being here like this?" and she says no. She lifts her head and starts kissing me. It's nice, but somewhat awkward. After making out for a few minutes, she stops. She starts telling about how much she wishes she could remember this trick she used to be able to do with her tongue that was really awesome or something. I don't really care so much about that.

The door to the room swings open, and we separate from each other. My grandpa walks in and says, "shouldn't you be packing?" I point out that I have one packed already, pointing, and he walks away. The suitcase I pointed to is cracked open, so I look inside. It's mostly empty. I had better get to work, because my plane takes off tomorrow for Salt Lake. I start going through a closet that doesn't exist in real life, sorting through ties and things, deciding what I am going to take.

The next day comes, and I'm outside, riding my bikes with another guy who I think is going on a mission too. We're riding through an area with lots of low-hanging trees and obstacles to avoid. I just ride around them as not to hit them, but the guy with me is doing all these matrix-style moves, riding in a straight line with his bike but moving his body wildly around to dodge tree limbs. I give it a try, with limited success. One of the limbs is too low, and it knocks me off my bike. Amazingly, no matter what I do, my bike stays standing and moves forward on its own. I get back on my bike. My friend has a long, thin bamboo pole that he's playing with too. He's riding to my left, and the bamboo pole hits a large tree. The pole is stuck and can't move forward, but I keep going, thus forcing his end of the stick forward. Somehow it smacks his foot, and he screams loudly. He jumps off of his bike and hops on one foot. His right foot is extremely swollen and red. I think he broke something. We had just rounded the curve on the street heading to my grandparents' house. My neighbor, who saw what happened while watering his lawn, came down and started yelling at my friend, saying "you know what? I'm glad you hurt your foot!" He started going on and on about even though it hurt now, it would teach him a good lesson that he needed to learn. My neighbor kept chewing him out, and it seemed like he was not going to stop anytime soon. So, I told my friend, "have fun!," and ran off toward the house.

Job interview

2008-05-19T18:32:00.000-04:00

It's early Friday afternoon, and I'm interviewing for a job at a software company related to Google. On my way in, I hear this one lady going on about how she's so excited about this new dumpster outside - its contents get recycled using new in calorie-saving methods that are good for the environment.

I meet my interviewer, a man around 30 years old with black hair. He leads me up to a glass-enclosed meeting room on the 2nd floor with a long table down the middle. The table has white dry-erase boards on it. He asks me questions, and answer, like any standard interview. A the end, he asks, "do you have any questions?" I didn't have any in mind, so I asked him, "what's the most challenging part of this job?" He replies that the hardest part is googling through blogspaces. How trivial! Can he be serious? It's over, and I don't feel especially good or bad about the interview, but tell him anyway that I'm really excited to work there, and that this kind of work is right up my alley. He peels off a thin layer off of one whiteboard and gives it to me. It has some diagrams and drawings on it that I had drawn to illustrate concepts to him. He peels a layer off the other whiteboard with my essay on it (which he had commented was a little too long) rolls it up in a tube, and keeps for himself. I try to keep a casual appearance around him and talk to him like a friend after the interview. I ask him what he's doing for the rest of the day, and he says, "going home!" That must be pretty nice... it's 2pm on a Friday afternoon.

When I go back outside, I bring all the recycling and trash with me. There are too many bags, including some which are ripped, to handle non-awkardly, but I manage to get it all anyway. The woman is back and is soo excited about using the new recycling. We get outside on the lawn were there are 6 dumpsters, each for different purposes. I throw a bag into the first dumpster, only afterward realizing that I wasted a bag on the oldskool recycling method. I take my trash to the trash dumpster, noticing on the way past the new recycling dumpster that the bike I borrowed from the missionaries in Taiwan is suspended in the air.

Love note

2008-05-19T15:51:00.004-04:00

I'm with a girl who I'm close to in the bonus room of grandpa's house, set up like it was when I lived there. She hands me a note that's written in light blue ink on a page in a scrap notebook I use. I told her that it's a good thing she told me about it, or I might not have ever seen it. She told me that it the note was about how cute and awesome I am, like a love note. I am sitting on her lap so I hugged/put my arm around her and told her how sweet that was. I almost went in to kiss her on the cheek, but the position was awkward. I felt like I'd kissed her once before like it was Lindsay, but this wasn't anyone I know from real life. The light was dim, so I couldn't read the note. Chii is sitting on my shoulders/behind me and jumped over me to turn on the light. The light bulb was so dark and dim that it didn't help at all. I said, "is that all you've got?" She messed with it more, but it didn't help. My mother warned that we shouldn't sit like that because it could hurt my neck.