Last night I dreamed I was at the Fairfield Mall food court and out in the open was a meat counter and the butcher, who was a woman, started handing me large pieces of meat. Real choice cuts. I remember holding this rack of beef and also a whole body of lamb. It wasn’t bloody or messy. I looked down into the cavity of the carcass and recognized this was fresh quality meat; but I wondered where I would be able to store it and if I had the know-how to cook it properly. I didn’t want all this free food going to waste. (Also during the meat giveaway there was some mention about the butcher being a lesbian and having problems with her girlfriend.)
I spent the day at home arranging books on my new bookshelves and straightening up around the house while waiting for an important phone call. Yesterday I stopped by the Transition Center and dropped off what should be the last of the necessary paperwork needed to determine if the state will fund my career training and extend my unemployment benefits while I attend classes. My case was supposed to be voted on today, but I guess I won’t hear about the outcome until Monday.
Anyway, I came across an old book about dream symbolism and looked to see if anything listed matched any part of my dream. I didn’t find anything about raw meat, but according to the book a sheep represents non-thinking innocent trust and giving responsibility for oneself to others. Sheep can also represent developing awareness of the higher self within. Food symbolizes physical, mental, emotional or spiritual nourishment. A butcher symbolizes aggression or chopping up the self into parts rather than achieving wholeness.
After some thought I believe the dream was my subconscious’s way of sorting through weeks of mounting frustrations. The mall food court probably symbolizes my searching for information and ways to improve my career future through education. The butcher was probably a woman because the people I’ve dealt with at the Transition Center as well as the admissions and financial aid representatives at the school I want to attend have all been female. (The background information about the butcher and her girlfriend might represent how some offices of both institutions–the Center and the school–haven’t communicated or shared necessary information at times.) A whole sheep might symbolize the trust I’ve had to give these organizations concerning my future. But because I’m given the food to prepare myself and because it’s lamb (or mutton), and a whole one at that, could represent a generous gift based on trust (state funds). However, my worries about not knowing where to store or how to prepare the food could be my worries about going back to school and succeeding.
Then again, maybe I’m just weird.
Not everyone I know has been trying to go back to school. I bumped into a former coworker a couple days ago who’s been at the Transition Center everyday for the last month. I was quietly surprised when he told me that he’d never used a personal computer or logged onto the internet before he’d started applying for jobs online in the computer lab. He hasn’t heard anything back yet. But the day before another former coworker told him about a factory south of town that makes hybrid batteries. Demand is so great the plant runs seven days a week and all shifts. Other people who’ve been laid off from our old factory have found work there. The pay tops off at $16.50 per hour but it starts off at nine dollars. The case workers have been trying to steer people away from manufacturing positions, but he’s married, in his fifties and both he and his wife have medical bills, so he’s willing to work overtime seven days a week because it’s the one place he believes will hire him. He also knows come July there’ll be even more laid off workers–younger workers–looking for those jobs too. I do hope he gets it.
If I don’t get approved for my associate’s degree program then I’ll apply to another school in town that has a one year certificate program. True, if there is one manufacturing job in the Miami Valley with a future it would be at a factory that makes hybrid batteries. But the chance to learn a new skill, and not only that but to be paid while attending school, is such a rare opportunity that I have to explore it.
Though it has meant a seemingly endless stream of applications, tests and questionaires in what has been three straight weeks of fill-in-the-blanks. I didn’t think it possible, but I’m tired of writing down my social security number, my birthdate, the names of the high school and colleges I atttended and when, as well as describing every task I performed at my last two jobs. I’ve taken two seperate math and reading tests as well as ones for grammar and typing. I’ve learned I read at a college level, retained more algebra than I would’ve imagined and that I can accurately type 45 wpm even if my fingers are jittery from nervous adrenaline and frappacino caffeine.
Then there’s been searching and making copies of other necessary forms and identification such as my social security card, birth certificate, letter of termination, and W-2s and tax returns from the last two years. For the latter I had to repurchase a 2006 copy of Turbo Tax to open the tax file. (Lesson learned: save a .pdf copy of your tax returns along with the regular .tax file just in case the paperwork is needed later.) And is it some sort of cosmic joke that several times this month I’ve misplaced the papers along with my car keys before I’ve needed to be somewhere?
But for now I wait. My career future is still up in the air. It can either be lamb chops or McNuggets.
