Starfleet graduation

Five days later and I am still in a kind of surreal mode. “Ineffable bliss” comes to mind but most of all I am feeling so very grateful for all the love I received last Friday, both from those who attend the defence in Lund and from those who for different reasons could not make it.

Before I sat down with my discussant Sverker I had made up a list:

• Be calm
• Don’t be ironical
• Try to answer each question within its “domain”
• Listen
• Avoid talking about space and “StarTrek” in particular
• Breath
• Ask for clarifications

The point about StarTrek dawned on me some weeks before the viva when I talked to a person who was not at all familiar with the Trekkie universe. Though “StarTrek” for me stands for a wonderful melting pot of Greek humanism and Swedish social democracy extrapolated into the 24th century, I think it is important to recognize that for other people it may just be another strange action series with ridgy heads, pointy ears and lightsabers ;-)

In light of such concerns I was extremely happy to be given these Starfleet cufflinks by my fellow PhD students...