1999-09-08 -- The Interview

I had a weird dream last night.  I'm not sure about the order of things.  I was on the road in front of the Watergate and John P jogged by.  I noticed that it had snowed and I was trying to walk on the trampled areas to try to stay as dry as possible.  I was late for my interview at Ab Initio.  It was in Georgetown.  I got to the Virginia Avenue intersection and noticed that where the snow had melted and been trampled, it had mixed with the dirt and there was reddish brown muddy snow everywhere.  Now I was trying to avoid the mud more than the snow.  It was blood red.  I was wearing light gray slacks and I think they were too short!  Anyway, I then found myself in a stairwell with Tim R and Mike F headed up to our interview.  The stairs were sort of cage-like with metal fencing around it.  We were then in this guy's office.  He was slightly heavy and Korean.  Tim and Mike were having a good conversation with him about computing and cryptography.  I felt nervous and stupid. Then Tim or Mike said something about "those Korean variables."  I thought he might be offended, but instead he chuckled and said "you're so right, how did you know about them?" I felt even stupider.  Then somebody came and told us we were now going for our real interviews.  We were back in the stairwell and headed back down.  After making one more turn on a landing, there were no more stairs.  Instead, there were all of these metal drawer handles bolted to a metal mesh wall. It was like a climbing wall mounted on a tight chain-link fence. Anyway, we had to climb along vertically to get over to where we were going to be interviewed. As I struggled along, I watched as Tim and Mike swung like gibbons out of sight, laughing.  I found myself hanging by one handle with nothing in easy reach.  I started building up some swinging momentum in the hopes of reaching a nearby hook or handle.  I finally was able to grab a bar but now my arms were stretched out on both sides.  I tried to use my position to swing back past the original handle on to another.  My grip was slipping and as I started to fall 30 feet to the floor, I woke with a start.