Matt Stamps is One of My Students and I Am a Genius (in my dreams)

This came as a great surprise to me, as no doubt it does to you all. I mean, I thought the guy was married and in the Navy thousands of miles away or something. But apparently he has lost about eight years of age and returned to high school. And he's taking U.S. History as one of my students. Oh, and he's changed his name to make it sound like he is of Greek origin. I suppose he thinks this is a clever disguise, but I see right through it.

To his credit, I didn't realize he was in my class until yesterday, when I was carefully eyeing students taking a quiz. I was monitoring cheating and all that. I had to do several double takes looking at this student. But as he was taking the quiz I decided he was practically the spitting image of Stamps, at least as I remember him in the days when he was around my part of the country! Uncanny. Strange. And I believe it is the first time I have seen a reincarnation of someone outside of my teaching life placed into a school room context. Now I eagerly anticipate seeing other reincarnations of friends and family in my class! Who will be next, in years or months to come? Classmates from BS? Neighbors? Cousins?

In other news, I have decided that genius has evaded me, except in my dreams. I dream clever things. Last night it was a new scene from Mr. Bean. I have not watched Mr. Bean anytime recently, and little in general. But I dreamed of a very clever scene of Mr. Bean counting change he took from his pocket, then proceeding to eat a hard boiled egg, which he partially shared with another person (while trying to eat it). Now I'm wondering if I have seen a scene like this before, or if I should start to hire my services out to the Bean writers in exchange for very clever and hilarious scripts. Actually, I'm not sure how hilarious it was in my dream. It seemed a little gross...

This has not happened recently, but I also find my vocabulary is immensely expanded in my dreams. Again, it must be my inner genius bottled up, only to spill out when in dreamland. Each morning that I wake up to an alarm, I wake up to the radio. Don't like the annoying screeching sound. Much prefer some announcer or advertisement to bring me out of my sleep. Anyway, on past occasions, shortly before the alarm (radio) turns on, I have dreamed that I am hearing the radio and the morning news. It seems very real. Except in these news reports are various complex words that I never use in common language. It's the most amazing thing. It's like my verbal IQ is through the roof or something. Where do these words come from? And if I recall correctly, they are not gibberish. They make sense to me in my sleep.

Now I'm slightly irritated to think that I cannot share all of this inner intelligence with the rest of the world. Why does it elude me in my waking moments? Frustrating. If only my expansive intellect and creative genius were not confined to moments lying on my mattress...