We all do this. Everyone loudly mentions that article from the academic journal that you read when a teacher walks by, or drops hints that you regularly peruse the unassigned chapters of the textbook. Don't pretend you aren't a cheating little brown-noser.
So here are some ways to impress your profs and/or make them think that you spend your spare time buried in a corner of the library instead of watching back-episodes of Dr. Who for the fifth time.
Carry these things around and leave them out where your profs can see them:
- Walt Whitman poetry collections (your favorite poem is "Eidólons" because before you looked up that word (Greek for apparitions), you imagined all the different things it could mean based on the stanzas and you discovered a bunch of fascinating layers in the poem)
- Books by Jorge Luis Borges (extra points if they are in the original Spanish)
- Essays or books written by your profs (with key passages highlighted, of course)
- The list of fascinating quotes you have encountered in obscure books
- Really beat-up copies of the lesser-known Shakespeare plays
Mention these things when you know your prof can hear you:
- How the ending of Sense and Sensibility is too philosophical and ambiguous for your taste
- How Brian Switek's views on the Orinthomimus are completely unfounded and the Smithsonian magazine should really be peer reviewed
- That you still can't decide whether Lacan, Žižeck, or Freud make more sense when viewed as a whole or if they should be considered separate
- That your copy of the complete works of Rene Descartes should arrive in the mail any day now
Fight on, brave little soldiers, in your never-ending battle to trick your profs into thinking you can't get enough of their subjects.
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