We've had Spring once a week here for the last month or so, and I am hoping that this one sticks. I have finals this week and next, and a large paper due as well. So, there will be no update next week. The following week, however, I should have my gazette on the pantheon of Spring 2013, and I hope you will all join me.
There is a constant oscillation for me during finals week for most of my classes. On the one hand, I know I have this covered. I am, after all, brilliant and all that. On the other hand, I know that I am prone to overconfidence. And so I may stress a little, wondering if my feeling prepared is just me setting myself up for disaster.
I was a dishtowel cape kid. Completely satisfied that I could fly, and why not, I would leap from huge heights (well, to a four-year-old) and generally come crashing down shortly thereafter On occasion, there was hang time. "Aha," I would say to myself, "I'm getting close. If I could just get a little more altitude." *WHAM!* "You know, I think I need a bigger cape."
To this day, my reaction to heights generally comes in two parts. The first is an instinctive response, independent of all reason, to seeing the round looming cartoon-like stories below: "Hmm. I could make that. In fact, if I keep my arms out just right, I bet I cold just glide right over those trees..."
My second response, which is amazingly dependent on reason, offers the democratic response of clutching the nearest stable object and not letting go. Others, looking on, will misunderstand and try to comfort me with assurances that the railing is quite strong, etc. And all the while, my hoarse whisper, unheard, "You don't understand, my medulla is trying to kill me!"
Some classes are immune to this effect. My Anatomy/Physiology class, for example, was amazingly resilient in the face of my self-inflating ego. But otherwise, when it comes to a blend of competence and cocksurety, I'm pretty well up there with Joshua Norton and Moses.
So, over the next week-plus, I am erring on the side of caution. And I will say that thus far this has never done me harm. But in the meantime, between confidence and caution, there will be no post next week.
And I am still looking for a big enough cape.
Sometime again,
--Coyote
(Stupendous Man is (c) Bill Watterson, and so is billionaire playboy Calvin. No one knows why they have neevr been seen together. All rights reserved.)
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