Dream

I had the funniest dream last night about my defense and thought I'd share...

After the talk I was so pleased and relieved that I totally forgot about the closed door. I was walking around thinking "I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor!" Then like five minutes later I realized my mistake and went running (literally) back to the defense. When I arrived I discovered that the closed door session was really open to anyone, and the room was crammed full. There were tons of people sitting at the table that I didn't even know. So I went and got a spot at the table and waited while everyone was having conversations and chatting. I looked around and noticed that Chris Sneden was there even though he was supposed to be in Brazil. I asked why and he said that it was a long story that he didn't want to go into. So then I asked if Tom Barnes had been able to call in ok, and sure enough he talked back from the telecon speaker. Then I realized that I didn't have anything with me, not even a copy of my dissertation. Since people were still chatting I excused myself and ran (literally again) to my office and back to get a copy of my dissertation. Only it seemed more as though the run took place in a mall with teenage hoodlums watching me sprint by. I also tried to print out copies for all of my defense members, but then realized that would take like 30 minutes, so changed my mind. Once I got back to the closed door room someone had taken my seat and there was nowhere to sit. I had to go get a chair from another room and squeeze my way through to the table, annoying a lot of people along the way. I looked around for my committee members and noticed that John Kormendy, Pawan Kumar, and my advisor were all not there. I was most surprised that John was missing. As we were about to start I looked at the clock and noticed it was 15 minutes later than we should have started, because I wanted to time how long the whole thing took. Then some guy that I didn't know, but who looked a bit like my advisor, starts up the session and starts to ask me something in an antagonistic sort of way. I interrupted him and asked who he was because I had never seen him before. He seemed to think I was kidding or something and kept on. I was like, "no really, I have no idea who you are." And he said, "How can I be on your committee if you don't know who I am?" And I said that he was not on my committee! He was very confused by this. I just kept asking him to introduce himself. Now Chris Sneden was sitting next to me, and he seemed to know who this guy was and what the deal was. He told the guy just to introduce himself so that we could move on, which the guy didn't. I asked the guy how he even knew about me and my defense in the first place. He acted like it was kind of a secret, but covered his hand over a piece of paper, then lifted it so I could see what was underneath. It was my signature page showing the signature of my external committee member. [Note, I spent a lot of effort getting that signed from Germany recently.] I took it to mean that my external committee member had sent a proxy. Chris Sneden, who was acting like he was my advisor, still insisted that this guy get up and introduce himself to everyone. The guy had previously been a bit of a blowhard and now was really shy. He tried to say "Excuse me everyone" but nobody was listening - there were still tons of side conversations going on in the crowd. Then he stood up to say it again and someone sitting in the back of the room yelled out, "Please be quiet, I need to hear this!" Somehow this told me that guy in crowd was a spy from Leiden (my external committee member's former institution). During this I noticed that John Kormendy was actually sitting right next to me, which was oddly comforting. So only Pawan and my advisor didn't show up, and that seemed perfectly expected to me.

Then I woke up. I still have no idea who that guy was.