One thing Kevin said when we were talking last night was that he has a plan that he's not sure I'll approve of. And I asked him what? And he said that he wanted to read some fraction of my exam booklist (probably mostly the theory stuff, because he just won't have time to read the whole thing, and once he has the theory, he can apply it to whatever novels he wants), so that he a) would know what I was talking about, with all the post-colonialism stuff (which he already had some interest in) but perhaps more importantly, so that he b) would get a sense of what I'm like as an academic. Eep. Do I *want* Kev to know what I'm like as an academic? What if he thinks I'm not very good? What if I'm *not* very good? What if he loses all intellectual respect for me, once he figures out that I really have trouble even understanding Derrida sometimes, much less arguing with him?
Okie, so it's not so likely that Kev will lose all intellectual respect for me, fine. It was just a passing panic attack. :-) But still, it's a little intimidating. It'll probably be good for me, though -- I'm not just supposed to read all these texts next year, I'm supposed to understand them thoroughly, and arguing with Kevin is probably going to be the best way for me to get that understanding, especially given that I'll only be seeing my professors periodically. In some sense, he's doing me a favor. The more of my friends who want to read this stuff and argue about it with me, the better.
Hey, Shmuel -- when are you getting to post-colonialism, anyway?