It Takes A Dream To Wake Up To Reality

I woke up this morning with my heart pounding in my chest. Thank goodness I woke up when I did too because I might have had a heart attack in my sleep if I hadn't.

I dreamt it was finals. When I got to my school I saw that my mom was one of the test administrators. I was supposed to take an ethics for lawyers test. I hadn't studied for the test at all, I hadn't even read the book. I thought it would be ok because I wasn't registered to the take the test until the afternoon so that I had the whole morning to study. Then my mom came up to me and told me to get into the exam room NOW because I had to take the test at 7am. OMG, I was freaking out. I grabbed a pencil and sat down in my assigned desk.

Our professor instructed us to read through the exam together, as a class. The students took turns reading the questions out loud. My mom came in and sat at my desk with me, she was taking the test as well just for fun- and I could see all her answers. One of the questions was "who is allowed to take birth control bills." Possible answers included: "young Maidens," "anyone with a vagina," "married couples," and "single women with children." I was completely stumped.

It was my turn to read the next question. It was made up of a picture with animals and animal foot prints. I had no idea how to read the picture out loud. I remember thinking wtf? What kind of question is that? So I tried to read the picture outloud by saying, "Elephant, Cat, Elephant, Puppy, Dinosaur?" then the professor came up to me and gave me a really dirty look. He said, "We just covered this question in class two weeks ago, so I expect you all to remember it!"

Then it dawned on me. I hadn't attended a single day of class for this ethics for lawyers course. In fact, I don't even remember registering for the class. Why was I even taking this test? I felt dumb asking the professor if I could leave because I hadn't registered for the course. I felt trapped. I was faced will all kinds of questions that I was totally unfamiliar with. If I didn't do anything, I would fail law school. Worse yet, my mom would do better than me! But I didn't know what to do! Should I copy her answers? Could she even get them right?

That's right when I woke up. Breathing hard and heart pounding. Unfortunately the reality of finals is actually coming upon me. And much like my dream, I haven't read the books for my classes and, for some courses, I have missed more class than I have attended.