Woke up this morning from a dream about curriculum redesign. How’s your end of semester going?

Hier soir, j’ai rêvé d’une France post-apocalyptique où les Parisiens ne reconnaissaient plus les noms des villes « en province ». Juste avant de me réveiller, je partais à pied explorer un pays oublié et enneigé.

I was dreaming that some STEM-type was criticizing Bachelor of Arts degrees as “BS” and dream-me flew into a rage ready to defend the humanities until I woke up and realized that his joke didn’t even work.

I’ve only read two Mormon missionary memoirs (plus one compilation of Mormon missionary comics), but both have been helpful for me in thinking about my own missionary experience. Brittany Long Olsen’s Dendo: One Year and One Half in Tokyo is a remarkable graphic novel memoir of her missionary service in Japan. The art is great, the ambition is fantastic, and it absolutely deserves the 2015 award it won from the Association of Mormon Letters. Although it’s a fantastic book, it was also a difficult read for me; I received it as a gift shortly before entering a period of faith crisis and as I later wrote in my journal:

Dreamt this morning that I was applying for PhD programs. It wasn’t until dream-me began reviewing my research record that I remembered that I already have a PhD and am actually applying for tenure right now.