nonsense dreams and diversity training update

I had a dream last night that I was in an earthquake for over 2 minutes, the whole world was shaking constantly and I just stood there thinking, oh let me go to the balcony - there's open space. So I did, but when the shaking just didn't stop, I decided to walk outside and through a tiny alleyway and went to find friends. Eventually the shaking stopped but the dream went on - we came back through the tiny alleyway and we were testing every stair, brick and wall that we were passing by, just to make sure none of the walls or steps were going to collapse on us.

Then we came back to the apartment, which turned out to be an Airbnb I was staying at (no idea where I was, but it feels like Chicago), and then it turned out that the Airbnb host was a friend of mine! So if I had known, I could have just crashed at his place for free instead of paying him through Airbnb! Then I was rationalizing that there was an opportunity cost for him so it's still better that I paid him, though we could have gone without the Airbnb fees.

Anyhow, it's all an illogical dream. It's almost impossible for the earthquake to be shaking for so long with no damage to any buildings at all. So I woke up from my dream and realised it's all a dream, and went back to sleep.

This depicts my confusion upon awakening from the dream.

On a side note, I'm feeling kind of tired and haven't been sleeping well these days - like I'm fighting a flu bug. Maybe I am falling sick :(

For those of you who were wondering what happened with the Ally Skills training for my company two Fridays ago, it went better than I had expected. I was quite worried that there would be a lot more pushback, that more people would be challenging the trainer at training, but as it turned out most of the senior management were supportive and only one or two middle-management folks raised concerns or were passive aggressive in addressing the trainer. While I was happy with the way it turned out, I asked more folks after the training on their thoughts - and I realised quickly that the older senior /middle management folks were not bought in and were questioning Diversity 101. They didn't think there were certain biases or issues that exist - really that's something only privileged people would say because by definition, they don't experience the short end of the stick there.

Those folks were questioning the context and were rules-lawyering (e.g., what if there's this one case in that one instance where this doesn't happen instead?), and were saying I don't do this, in fact I avoid biases and treat everyone equally / fairly so I'm all well and good! Well....the issue isn't about them, it's really about seeing someone who is a target of oppression being treated in an unfair manner - as people with privilege, how can we step in as allies to help? I can see why these folks were taking it personally, they think that the training was about their own behavior instead of society's behavior in general. It is unfortunate that they took it this way and got defensive about it; it seems like there needs to be a Diversity 101 training of sorts to help them see these issues, or somehow make it more real for them.

If I were talking to someone one-on-one, I think I would be able to get through to them more easily by bringing up real examples (e.g., what if this happened to your daughter? how about what if the client did this to you?). I'm not sure how much I should push the envelope though, given the power dynamics here (me being at the bottom of the totem pole), but I'm glad the Ally Skills training opened up the conversation. In the week since then, everyone has been talking about it and ruminating over it. If all we've done is raise awareness and consciousness about biases in the workplace, then we've already succeeded.