Craziness.

One of the members of my thesis committee is the first person to retire from the Biology department in twenty years. It's a phased retirement, of course, since hard scientists rarely fully retire. He has yet to be on campus at the same time as me since I decided to actually finish my degree. Which means I haven't talked to him since October 2008. Yesterday was graduation, and I assumed he would be going since it was his last as full time professor.

So I called his office and left a message, "Hi, this is MG. I was calling to discuss scheduling my defense with you, perhaps for June since I'm leaving the country at the end of July." I left my number and hung up.

He called back a few hours later. "We have a problem, I don't remember being on the committee of a student with this name."

WTF!!!!!! Calm down Melanie, don't panic!

My response: "I'm MA-R's student, I'm doing the work with the salamanders."

His response: "Oh, of course, you've had a name change haven't you?"

My response: "Oh yes, you probably know me as MH. I got married during the time I was your student."

His response: "And you go by Melanie now."

My response: "Uh yes, I've always gone by Melanie..."

His response: "Okay, I can work with you. Now, do you have a full thesis ready. You said you wanted to defend when?"

My response: "Almost ready. I'd like to defend in June before MA-R leaves town in July."

His response: "Okay, I'll need to check my calendar. What was that week again? I'll have to get back to you. Ah yes, I do have your number. I'll call you later."