• I was going to college in the tropical rainforest. I had just gotten a new roommate, who wore a shirt depicting a guy vomiting. Needless to say, he was slovenly.

The dorm room was dark and cave-like.

I was outside, enjoying the forest while I could (there was some impending trip that would take me away for some time), watching hummingbirds zip around. I wondered if there were any Sasquatch in the forest. Immediately, I spotted a group of them in the distance, far below me. I took out my camera and started to video tape them. At first they looked computer-animated, then they looked like little brown and yellow dogs.

• I was with Jake [a friend], ambling through an estuary full of people. IT was a cheery scene: blue sky, yellow sand, clear water. It resembled an archipelago, with strips of sand bordered by channels of water. In these channels could be seen huge, cruising sharks.

I told Jake that I had once seen a massive Great White sitting in a pool of water just big enough to contain it. I thought this was funny.

We swam across the channels. When we did so, the water turned murky when I opened my eyes underwater. There were schools of fish that would swim by, always to be sabotaged by a shark that slammed into them at about sixty miles an hour. The sharks always passed me over, but it was still frightening.

• I was sitting in my dorm when I heard a faint alarm. Erring on the side of caution, I ran outside. The few of us who paid attention to the alarm saw that the building really was on fire. We ran around, screaming for everyone to get out.

There was a posh restaurant next door to the dorm. I ran through, yelling for everyone to evacuate. They all looked at me petulantly and continued to eat their food.

Gandalf appeared outside of the dorm. Standing in front of the flames, he commanded them to enter his staff. As he issued booming commands and chanted magic words, the air darkened and he physically grew. It was an incredible display of power.

He wasn't successful in capturing the whole fire, though he said he would be able to shoot fireballs for at least a couple weeks.