So, I've had this fantasy wherein I'd walk up to her, prostrate myself at her feet, hug her knees with my left hand, and touch her chin with my right hand (cf. Thetis and Zeus), and beg her to take me under her wing, i.e. to agree to be my tutor on an agreed topic, meeting over coffee once a week or twice a month.
My inspiration and source of nerve in dreaming up this arrangement is Prof. Ben-Porat herself, who once told me of just such an arrangement she's had as a young Ph.D. student with one of her illustrious professors at UC Berkeley, which was "the best seminar I've ever had".
I don't deserve all this good fortune. But I'm not complaining! I'm so pleased I could burst.
Now I need to figure out what I would most like to study with her. I'm thinking intertextuality, generally, but I need to come up with something specific.
1 [no, she does not have a beard; she is, as a matter of fact, one of the most beautiful older women I've ever seen]