Lately my upcoming trip to China has infiltrated my dreams.

Two nights ago, I dreamed that Adam and I were traveling in Laos.  All of a sudden I said to him, "When are we going to China?  I'm so excited!"
He replied, "Ali, we just left China.  We lived there for a year!"
Confused, I said, "What do you mean we already went to China?!  I don't remember it!  We lived there for a year?!  Did my students like me?  Did I have a good time?"
Adam said, "Yeah, we had a great time!  Now we're traveling around southeast Asia like we planned."

The next thing I know, we were in Iraq walking down an alleyway surrounded by several angry looking Iraqi citizens.  I said, "We gotta get outta here!" and we went to the airport to buy tickets back to America.

At the airport, my brother picked us up.  He had in his hands a copy of my brain scan.  He told me that the doctor told him that the reason I didn't remember having spent a year in China was because I had a tumor in the "memory sector" of my brain.

When I woke up, I remember being very relieved that I had not actually missed my trip to China.  Maybe I'm having some underlying anxieties about going overseas to a country that is vastly different from what I'm used to and where I don't speak the language?  Hmmmm....


Then, last night I had another dream.

In this dream, Adam and I were about to leave for China.  Adam was out of town somewhere, so we were going to fly in separate planes and meet each other in Shanghai.  The plane I was on was one of those huge Boeing 747 planes with two aisles and tons of seating.  However, there were only about twelve people on the plane with me, and they all wanted to pit stop in Michigan.  Before we took off, I called Adam from my seat to tell him about the new plans and to complain because I wanted to go to China, not Michigan.  Before we could finish our conversation, though, the pilot announced that all electronic devices needed to be turned off so they wouldn't interfere with the operations of the aircraft.  I told Adam I had to go and would call him with I got to Michigan.

When we arrived, everyone who was on the plane begged the pilot to stay in Michigan with them for the next week.  He agreed, so there was no one who could take me to China.  Everyone wanted to stay in Michigan because one of the girls from the plane was graduating from college and her family had planned a graduation party for her on the following weekend.  I tried to explain to her that if she knew about this party in MICHIGAN, she shouldn't have gotten on a plane to CHINA, but to no avail.  I called Adam, who informed me that he was going to be on his way to Michigan because he was planning a graduation party for his friend Chris for the next day (while I was talking to him, he was at CVS picking out a card for Chris's mother.  The card said something completely inappropriate for a mother and was more like something that would be funny only to a drunk, spoiled frat boy, so I persuaded him to choose a different one).  Adam tried to convince me to get a hotel room for the next week so we could go to Chris's party and possibly to the girl from the plane's party as well.  Again, I found myself frustrated at the notion of planning a party and expecting to attend it the day AFTER we were supposed to be in China.


Then I woke up, once again relieved that we still have two and a half months until we leave.  We will go straight to Shanghai, and I will remember the entire year.