Strawberry Cake

I've had this strawberry cake fixation today. My students are doing presentations on Wednesday, the last day of class, and last night I had a typical anxiety dream. In the dream, I was on my way to campus to attend their presentations, and I was overcome with a craving for strawberry cake. All of a sudden I was transported to Florence (AL, my hometown), to Seven Points Shopping Center, which in real life is an unremarkable, even rundown place; in the dream, though, it was baroque, almost like the set of Moulin Rouge. There were nightclubs as well as stores. There was this bridal shop so many stories tall that I had to bend my neck way back to see the top, at which there was a sign that said, "STRAWBERRY WEDDING CAKE." Then it had a picture of the enormous pink cake. I counted the twenty tiers slowly, enthralled. Then I snapped out of it and thought, "well, I'm not getting married, so they wouldn't let me have that cake."

So I continued walking around the shopping center and went into an area that was kind of like a little festival, with dancing and booths where art and jewelry were being sold. They had one booth that had tea and strawberry cupcakes. They weren't fancy, just cake from a mix:

But they were fresh and delicious, and I was ecstatic. I devoured several cupcakes, eating each one in two bites. Then I saw three people I know, all of whom are friendly acquaintances, but I didn't want to get stuck in a conversation with them just then. I tried to dodge them, but they spotted me. At that time I realized I was missing my students' presentations and freaked out. I ended up having to talk to those people for a little while, and by the time I finally got to the classroom, everyone was gone.

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Darn you

Now I want storebought mix strawberry cake.

You know, I once *did* miss a class I was supposed to be teaching. I had gotten up really early to finish grading, and so my regular morning routine was thrown off. And I had one of those modern clocks that doesn't have numbers. So somehow I looked at the clock when I was done grading and thought, "wow, I still have two hours before class, it really does pay to get up earlier." And I toddled off to shower, and then fixed myself a nice leisurely breakfast, puttered about for a while, and grabbed the bus to campus.

As I was walking up campus I thought I passed one of my students heading the other way. "Huh," I thought, "was that X? Guess he's skipping class." I cut through the library on my way to the classroom and looked at the clock and...

class had started 45 minutes earlier.

Needless to say, when I got to the classroom, no one was there.

True story. And you know what? It wasn't that huge a deal. On the next class day, I told the students what had happened and said, "you know how you have the anxiety dreams about missing an exam? Well, professors have the anxiety dreams about missing a class we're supposed to teach. And I guess my nightmare actually came true on Tuesday." They thought it was funny.

Bitch. Ph.D.

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