Sometimes — most of the times — it’s hard to escape the feeling that at the end of the day I’m one of the smartest dumbasses I know. I’ve been at this University for three years and the most original and convincing work I’ve done is reconciling the place of virtue and passion in Rousseau’s Levite of Ephraim; or analysing the role of stereotypes in Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde. Oh, and my first year epic — Tolkien’s use of Faramir of Gondor in the Lord of the Rings as a representative of his own motivations, ideas, fears, etc. If the expression on your face is somewhere between “what the fuck?” and “what the fuck?” then welcome to my life.

And then, all that shit isn’t all that original anyway. So in the end, what have I accomplished? Nothing. What have I learned about what I want to do? Nothing. All I know is what I don’t want to do, and that’s what I’m probably going to end up doing.

I’ve learned how I’ll probably never know how many genes, exactly, were on or off (or somewhere in between) in shaping my nose, unless (and perhaps even after) I get my genome mapped out. Or at least that part of it — the nose part. If there is a nose part. There are probably nose parts, spread out all over the place. I also know what my kidney looks like, under a microscope. Okay, not mine, but a rat’s. Apparently they’re very similar. I drew real live (dead) human bones once (more than once). I’ve also learned that a dead man’s half-back-torso is heavy, and, when stored in formaldehyde in a fridge, smelly. But I knew that latter part from grade eleven pig dissection.

I’ve come to accept the theory of evolution as conclusive. I no longer believe homosexuality is something to cringe at, and defend it. All that and more, and none of it in the classroom. For all it matters I could’ve been panhandling in the Toronto Reference Library or Robarts these past three years. As long as I had access to a computer and the Internet I would’ve been fine. I also would’ve been spared reading Rousseau’s Levite of Ephraim. Which, admittedly, is a very short read.

In the end, I feel like I’m a little bit of everything, not enough of anything, and far more confused about my future than I have a right to be.