In a conference room. I am getting ready for a speech. Barack Obama has tapped me to be in a high level cabinet position. I am strangely unprepared and quite surprised at this unexpected nomination. I am one of about a dozen or so people to have been nominated who was speaking today in a press conference format to introduce themselves.

I'm confused about what the position I'm nominated for is. The white board listing names has "Secretary of State" next to my name. But I can't believe that I could possibly be named for something as politically important as that. I assume, correctly, that this just means I will be reporting directly to the Secretary of State, as one of possibly many #2's. I confirm this with Obama. I ask him what I should talk about at this speech here, and he tells me, "You should say why you're the right person for this job." Why am I, I ask? "Because you will bring a perspective to this that noone else could. With your background in activism, your youth, and your ideals." It's very good, it's better than I would have come up with for myself. I start trying to prepare in more detail what I'm going to say, which becomes tough because I am having trouble findings omething to write on. Finally I do find a pen and paper, and as I start to jot some words down, Barack expresses great interest in seeing what I write, understanding that I am likely to be taking notes on what I will say. I write, and the letters come out in a dense cursive, and the ink on the pen blends together on the very porous paper, making the words illegible. I try to find another piece of paper, and start going through a couple of notebooks, both of which I have filled. I find another piece of paper in the form of a long roll like butcher paper, but 5 inches wide. I wrap a long piece around my hand to get to just the part I can write on. The meeting is starting very soon, and I'm not talking first, but I need to get my thoughts down very soon, or just wing it.

Finally I start writing, planning things like "I'm very grateful to be here today, and deeply honored by this nomination," etc. As I do this I start to realize that taking this job will completely change my plans of finishing at MIT and working out in the desert and all of this sort of stuff. I wonder if that's OK.