Bad dream time
Dream took place at Arisia, only they'd expanded with little notice to this HUUUUGE suburban hotel. Big enough to hold Arisia, for once, and with this second building even more like a huge ziggurat than the actual Cambridge Hyatt.
There was some fairly unrelated stuff with having to stay and hang out with a batch of younger bouncier girls who I didn't know, and feeling alienated and exhausted.
For some reason, I'd volunteered to do two presentations on Sunday--y'know, small side-track programming, and I think I'd been assigned the topics. One was on the mythology of the Hulk, which I was semi-prepared for, despite not actually knowing that much about the Hulk. I had notes, but I was planning to ditch them and just do poetic descriptions of archetypes, doodles on the blackboard, start some discussion. I think it would have gone vaguely okay.
I'd also gotten some confusion and started writing a presentation on the protagonist of my novel, which was most of my prep work (this was a very last minute thing, like during the con), and which I couldn't use.
But the other thing I was doing--it was short, part of a three or four person thing, only like fifteen minutes, on Abraham Lincoln. I'd done a smidge of work, dug up some stuff on his early political career which I found interesting. (Parallels to a game I'd played in at some point, though I'm not saying which one due to spoilers.) And I was kinda ready to present on that.
But. Sunday morning. I go to the ziggurat-building where the presentations are, and there's this big train-station board which has all the schedule on it. And I'm late. It's like halfway through the morning slot. And I see the description on the board--and it specifically says, that as part of a panel on conversative politics or something, I'm supposed to be presenting on Lincoln's assassination. In like five minutes.
And that's when I just crack from the stress and nerves. Just screaming sobbing nervous fit in a corner, and nobody notices. And I'm hyperventilating and I can't do it. I just can't. I'm supposed to make this presentation and I can't, and all the other stress and insecurity in my life is boiling through the crack that made, and I'm just breaking down.
Then it's three o'clock, and I'm supposed to be presenting on the Hulk, and I'm riding the long diagonal elevator down the side of the ziggurat, the glass elevator where you can see the tracks all the way down the building, and crumpled on the floor clinging to the knees of some guy in a suit who ignores me and wailing, softly, because I have no voice. (This is kind of a recurring thing in dreams or nightmares--I try to scream or somesuch, and nothing comes out, or it's just not loud enough. Which is kind of odd, because I'm loud in real life, and I think if I had to I could scream like hell. But.)
And then I wake up and my alarm hasn't gone off, and I was supposed to be at work an hour ago.
If I get there and find I'm supposed to present on something...aiii.
It's funny, though. If I ever do have a freaking nervous breakdown, it probably will be because of something stupid like that.
There was some fairly unrelated stuff with having to stay and hang out with a batch of younger bouncier girls who I didn't know, and feeling alienated and exhausted.
For some reason, I'd volunteered to do two presentations on Sunday--y'know, small side-track programming, and I think I'd been assigned the topics. One was on the mythology of the Hulk, which I was semi-prepared for, despite not actually knowing that much about the Hulk. I had notes, but I was planning to ditch them and just do poetic descriptions of archetypes, doodles on the blackboard, start some discussion. I think it would have gone vaguely okay.
I'd also gotten some confusion and started writing a presentation on the protagonist of my novel, which was most of my prep work (this was a very last minute thing, like during the con), and which I couldn't use.
But the other thing I was doing--it was short, part of a three or four person thing, only like fifteen minutes, on Abraham Lincoln. I'd done a smidge of work, dug up some stuff on his early political career which I found interesting. (Parallels to a game I'd played in at some point, though I'm not saying which one due to spoilers.) And I was kinda ready to present on that.
But. Sunday morning. I go to the ziggurat-building where the presentations are, and there's this big train-station board which has all the schedule on it. And I'm late. It's like halfway through the morning slot. And I see the description on the board--and it specifically says, that as part of a panel on conversative politics or something, I'm supposed to be presenting on Lincoln's assassination. In like five minutes.
And that's when I just crack from the stress and nerves. Just screaming sobbing nervous fit in a corner, and nobody notices. And I'm hyperventilating and I can't do it. I just can't. I'm supposed to make this presentation and I can't, and all the other stress and insecurity in my life is boiling through the crack that made, and I'm just breaking down.
Then it's three o'clock, and I'm supposed to be presenting on the Hulk, and I'm riding the long diagonal elevator down the side of the ziggurat, the glass elevator where you can see the tracks all the way down the building, and crumpled on the floor clinging to the knees of some guy in a suit who ignores me and wailing, softly, because I have no voice. (This is kind of a recurring thing in dreams or nightmares--I try to scream or somesuch, and nothing comes out, or it's just not loud enough. Which is kind of odd, because I'm loud in real life, and I think if I had to I could scream like hell. But.)
And then I wake up and my alarm hasn't gone off, and I was supposed to be at work an hour ago.
If I get there and find I'm supposed to present on something...aiii.
It's funny, though. If I ever do have a freaking nervous breakdown, it probably will be because of something stupid like that.