The robot

Just woke up from the weirdest dream. Weird not only content-wise, but also full of little details which i don't usually remember from my dreams, if they're there at all...

Anyway, i was a student at UiTø, as i am in the waking world, except that instead of linguistics i was studying robotics. I know the dream was happening here because, although we were in a classroom i've never seen, the other students were people i've met around. At the same time, i remember thinking "i thought they didn't offer robotics at this place!" and feeling fortunate that in fact, they did. By the way, in reality they do not, but i'm ok.

The professor was this cute norwegian classmate from the phonology course, except he wore a black hat and had long, curly sideburns, like a hasidim. He said "today we're gonna have a practical lesson, so pick up your stuff and follow me." We did, and he took us to the secretary's counter, who introduced us to her robot and her husband, both one and the same: a chunky, squat, old fashioned telephone covered in pink, fluffy fabric. In the dream this seemed absolutely natural, as weird stuff usually does in dreams. Or it does in my dreams, at least. Of course, i know that robots are defined by their having moving parts, and that so far they don't marry people, however much Asimov may have written about that; as for the moving ability that could have made a robot of the telephone, well, in the dream he kept still, but perhaps he was simply a very quiet robot (and yes, you've noticed rightly: everybody referred to the robot as "he", though there was no physical evidence of gender anyone could discern).

The secretary went on to explain to us that he was very friendly and not only accompanied her to work, but stayed there to help her. She said other stuff to introduce him, but i don't remember what it was. I was whispering a translation of all this to some of the spanish Erasmus students, whose english is not soo good in actuality, either. The phone itself was, as i've said, very quiet. Either shy or stuck-up, i thought.

We were all clustered around the secretary's counter, in a bend of the corridor. When she was done talking the professor handed out photocopies with three questions that we were to discuss in our own little groups. I was with the spaniards again, plus a short french girl called Violette and others whose names i don't know yet. We all sat down in a circle on the corridor floor, and started working. I remember thinking that we were too close to the counter and felt a bit embarrassed that the secretary or the phone might hear us talking about their lives. One of the spanish girls apparently felt the same and whispered to me "shouldn't the professor have organized this better?".

The questions themselves have faded a little... I remember there being 4 pages in total, with technical-looking graphs tucked in the corners. One of the questions listed all the things that the robot did for the secretary (like, he was connected to all domestic implements in their house and could fix them and work them) and then went on to ask what else could the robot do for his wife. None of us sniggered or raised eyebrows at this question. Apparently, in the dream not only was it a given that he could do that for her, but it was such a non-issue that nobody even thought of bringing it up.

Raindrops splattering on my windowsill woke me up while we were still at work. This was 25 minutes ago and now i gotta get ready for phonology class. Wonder if the cute norwegian will show up today.