Huh?

Lately I've had the opportunity to become acquainted with folks who know something about sociology/social theory and who may even ask me about my dissertation. Maybe I don't know anything about sociology or maybe I've been holed up in my office too long, but somehow the questions always throw me off balance. I come off sounding like I have never set foot inside my own department and feel the need to give the person my card at the end of the conversation just to prove that I am not a fraud (even if, for all practical purposes, I really am).

For example:
Q: So, are you a functionalist or a structuralist?
Me: Ummm (stammer and glance around nervously as if searching for an escape route), I guess I'm neither. I'm interested in the interface between lived micro-interactions and macro-cultural ideas that enable and constrain our after-the-fact interpretations of those interactions.
Q: What theorists are you using for your dissertation?
Me: Well... (long pause as I glance around nervously as if searching for an escape route) I'm using Wuthnow for one section and maybe Bakhtin... and Bourdieu.
Q: If Durkheim is a functionalist and Marx is a conflict theorist, then what is Weber?
Me: Huh? Hell if I know but his ideas about rationalization and bureaucracy and the various relationships between rationality and action are interesting.