As usual, I’ve left my reading for class till the nth hour (literally), so I’m attempting to read very fast. But Derrida, whose reputation for incomprehensibility is notorious, does not lend himself to speed-reading. Contrary to expectation, I’ve found him remarkably exciting, thus far. Reading theory seems to me to be the intellectual’s fix: it’s a way to read about the mundane world in abstract, even astonishing terms. It makes everything new, it peels the layers off, one by one, in a tantalising strip-tease of ideas but what you find underneath is nothing like you expected.
I’ve decided to reform my decadent ways. I’ve been sleeping too many hours a day, watching too much House, spending too much time on Facebook talking to people I really don’t care about except as sounding-boards for my boredom and neglecting the pursuit of potentially intellectual things. And of course, eating way too much junk.
No more of this, I say! Nose to the grindstone, back to the wall, nose in a book, and all the other cliched metaphors you can think of for serious study in response to the peril of being proven second-rate shall be the order of the day.
In other news, Ireland tickets have been bought. Now we just need to find places to stay, things to do and of course, a damn visa that allows us to enter!
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Ah, I could have spent words uselessly on questioning my actions, recent and imminent, but I’ll save it for another rainy day.
