Dreams I've had recently

So, two nights ago, I dreamed that my father had a new table saw that he was showing me, that was so sharp that you could cut pieces of wood thin enough that they were translucent. He was very happy with this new table saw.

Last night I can remember two dreams. One was that Alan Rickman was giving a reading from Harry Potter book Seven on a beach somewhere in England. Or maybe Marblehead -- it wasn't clear. The whole beach was packed with families listening to the reading, and Lis and I were in a hotel room or something overlooking the beach.

I was the only person who noticed the huge wave coming in, and I tried to scream a warning, but there was no time. Hundreds of people were washed out to sea, although, since the wave didn't crest or anything, there was no crushing -- but the undertow picked up hundreds of people. I ran down to the beach to swim out and see if I could rescue people -- because of how the wave hit, I expected that everybody would be conscious, and anyone who could swim could get back, but there were a LOT of people, including a lot of children, and even infants. And Alan Rickman was wearing his Snape costume, which would NOT be good to swim in. . . Then I woke up.

The other dream I had was more useful. I dreamed that it was the first day of class at Hebrew school, and I was teaching Lesson One of my Jewish History curriculum that I've been working on all summer. And it did NOT go well. I just couldn't get the kids' attention, I couldn't get them to behave, I couldn't hold their interest.

Then I had the dream again, and tried different things, and it worked better. Still not perfect, but it gave me some insights into how I should teach specific students. (I had the 5th/6th grade class twice before, when they were the 3rd/4th grade, and when they were the 1st/2nd -- so I've taught these kids every other year since I've been teaching at TBB. This means that, even while asleep, I've got a pretty good idea how various students will react to things.)

Also, I saw "Snakes on a Plane" yesterday

It was fun. It was a bad movie, and I enjoyed it.

Still, I think I'm too empathic for horror movies. You're not supposed to care about the 50+ nameless people who got killed by snakes who didn't get any screen time. (I think you only see a dozen or so, but they mention in the dialogue that there are fifty dead, and that's after the FIRST wave of attacks.) They're just supposed to be gross background material. Doesn't work for me. I can't watch car chase scenes in movies without thinking about the neck and back injuries of the drivers and passengers in the other cars that are just supposed to be obstacles for the heroes and villains to driver over, around, and through. That, incidentally, is why I so much loved The Bourne Identity -- because, in the car chase scene, while they DID crash into other cars and so forth, the way it was filmed made if feel like those were REAL crashes -- like the characters -- and writer and director -- were aware that other people existed and were potentially getting injured -- and that the good guys even cared about that fact.

Most of today was good, except for the part where I broke one of my most important rules

See, I have this rule which is, "Cause no unnecessary pain." And it also goes along with another rule which is "Cause no unintentional pain."

That second one is less fundamental than the first one, because, well, no matter how good you are at living your life, you're always going to cause SOME accidental pain. But the rule says that you should kind of try to be aware of that, and don't be a total moron about it.

And the first rule says that, well, when you're living your life, sometimes you're going to hurt people, but you should do it as little as possible, and only when there's really no better way -- that avoiding hurting someone would cause more hurt later, or more hurt to more people. Or, y'know, some other reason -- maybe there's issues of honor, or trust, or something involved that mean that you've got no option except hurting someone. That's "necessary pain", and it's not GOOD, but, well, it's necessary.

So, what's the absolute worst kind of pain to cause? Stuff that's totally unnecessary and totally unintentional, but not really ACCIDENTAL. Like, you realize afterward, or, more often, right in the middle of it, that you are being an absolute total fuckwit moron, and it's hurting someone.

Things I learned today:
1. Just because you feel comfortable joking with someone about their OWN death doesn't mean that you should assume that it's a good idea to joke about OTHER people's deaths.

2. I can be a total fuckwit moron. (Actually, that's not news; I knew that before.)

3. Sometimes, you kind of wish that you could just agree with someone to pretend that something you said just absolutely never happened and you will all Never Speak Of This Again.

Um. The rest of the day was good, though.