Cram that, sucka.

Back from cramming my head full of texts and notes. Now I have three days to connect and remember all that crammed gear and one day to relax the brain and do finger exercises (exam is hand-written). How tired all of this is making me is causing me to wonder about my own abilities, however. I've never really felt that it's all that important to impress colleagues and classmates with my supposed knowledge of philosophical texts. I mean, haven't all of us philosophy students read and understood Plato for crapsake? Name-dropping about what one has read has always been a turn-off for me. I certainly know some people who care so much about people thinking they are smart/well-read/superior to the rest of us that they really go around acting like total jackasses. Most of us got out of that crap before the end of our first semester of graduate school, when we realized that eveyone has read what we've read and is just as capable, for the most part. I know one person (not in my department) who wants me in particular to feel stupid in his glorified presence, to the point where I really want to run him over with the Focus. It pains him to no end to find out that I have one more year of a graduate fellowship and I've read the same books he has and understand them as well as he does but then don't waste my time letting everyone know about it. "What's the point of reading this stuff if we're not going to talk about it every frickin second like we are philosophers first and people second?" seems to be his credo. I like to think that his hopes that I am not as smart as he is will be crushed like the Diet Coke can I just recycled. When I get old and write my opus, I'll dedicate it to this academic punk-kid. What does Baudelaire say?

A man goes pistol-shooting, accompanied by his wife. He sets up a doll and says to his wife: "I shall imagine that this is you." He closes his eyes and shatters the doll. Then he says, as he kisses his companion's hand, "Dear angel, let me thank you for my skill!" (Intimate Journals, pg. 37.)

Sorry for the violent imagery. But I'm gonna write me a nice doll one day and send it to this person with a picture of me. The picture's caption will say, "Ha ha. You're a tool. Call me, and we'll do lunch." Seriously, though, doing little else lately but philosophy shouldn't really exhaust my little ole brain like this, I think. At least, I hope it should. Because it does. I feel like someone hit me with a shovel, possibly the one I wanna smack that dude with sometimes.