Thesis Defended.

John got the ball first, and as usual sort of shot it off in some random direction, leaving the rest of us looking puzzled. His question was "Hoho, here's a passage from your thesis, which I liked quite a lot. (reads aloud.) And that reminds me rather of Catholic priests, who are a lot like gallae in that many of them are gay, and they are celibate, and they wear women's clothing! Hohoho! What do you have to say to that?"

"Well, um..."

The rest of the professors spent some time trying to get the ball back and show John where the goal was, while he continued to be amused. Uzi scored on "Why didn't you cite Bordieu?" (Answer: I hadn't read him yet; I made all that stuff up. But I couldn't say that because I'm sure we had a Bordieu reading in one of his classes, and I'm certainly supposed to have read him by now. So, new answer: "I'll add that, thanks.") David scored on "Explain the classical notion of sexuality." (My answer: Um... obviously it's not one monolithic social fact..." His answer: "Duality more about penetrator and penetrated, rather than gender." Oh, right. Sorry. Next question.) John scored on "I think there's a typo here where you left in a word that you meant to take out." (Answer: "Ah yes, so there is.")

At any rate, it went smoothly and was actually pretty fun. We've got about three quarters of it on video, which I'll probably put up on the web somewhere. And I'm graduating. Everyone should have to do a final project and defense for their BA/BS. Just a mild one so they feel accomplished at the end of it, and get to sit around feeling like the expert for once.