Remember that paper I turned in? Well, there were actually two components to the assignment. 1) The paper and 2) an oral argument against a classmate in front of the teacher, who poses as the judge. The oral part is strictly pass/fail, which eases the pressure, but it’s still nerve-racking and it gave me a really weird dream the night before I was set to go.

I dreamt I got a 100 on the paper. That was the good part. The bad part was when I overslept and missed the oral argument. My teacher called me from school asking where I was and said he and my opponent were waiting. Then, when I got there, my allergies started acting up, my nose got all stuffy, I could hardly breathe, and I totally bombed.

That probably doesn’t seem like much of a bad dream to a lot of you. But when you’re already freaking out about 1) flunking the paper and 2) sounding like you don’t know anything in front of your teacher, it’s not a good way to wake up the morning of your oral argument.