Flashes of Panic

Sometime last week, I was sitting in my “office” at the department, and the interim department chair—who also teaches one of my classes this semester—came by on another errand. She looked at me quizzically for a moment, then asked, “Whose student are you?”

I misunderstood the question and told her my name. Once we got straightened out (“No, I know who you are,”) I told her I wasn’t really anyone’s student (yet), and about my multiple advisor situation. (The department thinks I have one advisor; the registrar thinks my advisor is someone else.) She asked about my undergraduate college. (Everyone does, even though in my case it’s barely relevant, but it’s easier to answer than to explain.) Then she looked thoughtful and left after an exchange of polite pleasantries about the town (she got her doctorate at the large university there.)

Am I allowed to be paranoid about what things like this might or might not mean, or am I being sucked into some kind of surreality?

Now Playing: Like A California King from So Much For The Afterglow by Everclear