I had a dream last night about running a child care program in Siberia. At one point, all of the other counselors abandoned the kids to go drinking on a big fishing boat where they practiced speaking German. This left me with a giant pack of kids (at least one hundred!) to keep safe by myself. I decided to keep them entertained and to tire them out by setting up a race for them to run on the snowy tundra. My child care philosophy: When all else fails, exhaust them.

After they'd already run quite a bit, a herd of wild yaks (or something) came stampeding toward us. I was the only person who noticed the yaks; the kids were clueless. Panicking, I excitedly shouted to the kids that the finish line had moved and was now "over there!" in a spot that seemed like it would be safe from the stampede, perpendicular to their path.

A few of the kids had to run among the yaks to get to safety, but I think we all made it out OK. Whew. (And then there was a coming storm of rocks falling from the sky, but I woke up before I had to deal with that.)

I seem to have a lot of dreams about being the responsible person in a disaster. This must be the result of being a teacher. I wonder what sorts of dreams other professions have.