I am living in a huge apartment with three or four other girls. One of them, I later realise after mentioning my former roommate, is one of her friends. I say something about the former roommate being Chinese, but then I look at her friend and remember that they are Vietnamese.

I am lost in the apartment. I don’t know where the bathroom(s) is, and I don’t know where I am staying. It’s a huge, old, maze of a place. I find an unmade bed that has a centipede on it. Then I find another centipede. I catch them but can’t kill them. Every time I go out the door to dispose of them.

Every time I return through the door, I find little teal and white pieces of paper that I don’t pay much attention to, and I do something with them, but I’m not sure that I throw them out. I will not be able to find them later. After a few trips I discover that we’re really living in a hotel, and they are meal tickets. I confess to my mother, who has suddenly appeared, that I’ve gotten rid of the meal tickets somehow.

I am here to complete my last year of college, only it suddenly occurs to me that I already have and that there’s no need for me to be here. I wonder how I planned to pay for it and realise that I don’t have a job, I don’t have a grant, I don’t have a scholarship; I have only my savings and investments, and I don’t want to spend those. Then, in a panic, I notice that I don’t have a computer (or even a typewriter), a camera, or a few other possessions that would be vital to a college student.

I discuss with a knowledgeable friend what I should be getting a degree in (possibly a graduate degree at this point), and we dismiss Catholicism, but agree that the history of the Church or of science might suit me. I am somewhat aware that this is a dream and don’t know why I’d be dreaming again about a year of college that is unnecessary.

I find myself sitting next to a man I am attracted to in the dream and find out that he is my boyfriend; we appear to be at a parade or possibly a game of some kind. He is in some pain, having strained something that had not quite healed. It hits me that I want to marry this man and that I can’t because he’s my cousin. But then I debate with myself whether it would be all right if there aren’t any children, and the only real obstacle I can come up with is that it might cause strife in the family. Meanwhile, I avoid his eyes by gazing into his beard.

When I wake up, I wonder how I worked so much improbability and anxiety into one dream. Even the man the dream, who in appearance is a real person that I recognised, is not a cousin, but an acquaintance of no relation.

And my B.A. is framed.