Well, most of you know I attend Armstrong Atlantic State University at the moment and I'm doing very well. "Last night" (Really, it was early this morning after Scooter woke me up to cuddle and kiss me. He's a sweetheart!), I had a dream I was attempting to attend Georgia Tech. If you don't know by now, I was accepted and all ready to go to Tech in 1997 but I had a change in heart that summer and just couldn't leave my family in Savannah.

My dream to moving to Atlanta has never faded. It's something I've had as a child living in Augusta. Growing up in Georgia in the '80s and mid-'90s, Atlanta WAS the place to go for anything. It's the culture center for the state. Why wouldn't I develop a sense to move there? And as I stated before, Tech was something I knew as a kid. So I can't blame my high school self for trying to go totally.

Back to the dream I'm off to discuss. I went to the Tech campus in Atlanta for one day to see if I like it. I was placed in a Freshman class group that was required to take a English 101 and a Calculus 101 in a block. It took place in a lecture room like my Psychology class but larger. The English professor was nice to me and understood I shouldn't have been in that class. The Calc. professor had no clue who I was. She was having a test on derivatives and it was one question. I was panicking because: 1) I shouldn't have been in a class but just observing and 2) I don't remember derivatives. And for the lunch break in between the course, I was my same old, shy Shawn. I was afraid to socialize with anyone for fear of being made fun. It was like I was 18 again, not 25! At the end of the dream, I kept running around an area of campus, like a headless chicken, looking for my mother to pick me up and just bolt. At the same time, I was like, "I could do this. I can do this. I'm just as good as the others here."

When I woke up, it sounded like a rehash, sort of, of the weekend I spent at Tech for Freshman Orientation. I was shy, awkward, and afraid of other people. In fact, the only people I really did talk with were a girl named Bonnie I was in 9^th grade literature with until she transferred to Windsor Forest and Tiffany, someone that I wish I had known better in high school. I spent lunch with Bonnie that weekend and watched a comedian with Tiffany and probably the rest of H.V. Jenkins that night. That night after the comedian, there was a social at the Olympic pool. I didn't want to swim and I couldn't find anything in common to discuss with the other girls at the social. I'm just awkward. When it was time to sleep for the night (it was spent in a dorm), I didn't say much to my roommate. Oh, and I hate admitting it, but I didn't shower the next morning because I felt so awkward and unsure of myself. I waited until the orientation was over that mid-afternoon and my father took me back to the family hotel.

I wish I could understand what this dream was telling me. Was I stupid for not going in the first place? Or am I stupid for thinking maybe one day in the future, I can get that Tech degree? I wish I knew. Why did the memories of that Freshman Orientation come back to haunt me this morning?

[Listening to: "Come Clean" - Hilary Duff on Q100.5 (Atlanta)]

Posted by Shawn at March 17, 2004 11:36 AM in Dreams.