out of nowhere

Long absence, I know. So yesterday I was shopping for shoes at Nordstrom and this clerk asks, "Aren't you my TA?" Stunned, I said, "Oh, um, that's right." Gah... Gahh. I think I stood for minute totally dumbfounded and obligated to say, "so... how's it going? Are you graduating this year?" and the topic conversation immediately switches to grades. Seriously, the student wanted his 1 extra point to raise his C+ exam. So I suggest an appointment with the professor would help, as well as the rewrite of an assignment and so forth, etc. It was the oddest feeling to be talking about grades in a non-academic environment. And then I got the most alarming revelation of all -- the student lives two blocks away from me!!! So whatever, like I wasn't going to ask him to get my shoe size and watch me try on a bunch of stuff. That was just too much for me. Too much.

Moving along, I have three weeks of my dreaded classes -- okay, the derrida class isn't half as bad compared to two early modern classes. So I was suppose to be reading lots Colonial literature research-related stuff and by chance I picked up Agamben's State of Exception and it is unbelivably good. Sigh. I really want to finish it instead of all the crappy-must-read.