Patience and marshmallows

Intellectual insecurity

"In short, the painful truth we voracious students discover, at twenty, or forty, or sixty, is that what we sometimes call the 'knowledge of explosion' has left us all ignorant of vast fields of knowledge that every educated man and woman ought to have mastered. Is it any wonder that we tend to be defensive in debate, sure that our next class or public lecture will reveal the fatal truth: We are ignoramuses, and since we call ourselves professors, scholars, even doctors, we risk exposure as frauds?"

--Wayne C. Booth, "The Idea of a University--as Seen by a Rhetorician"

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Conundrum II

Thank you for your thoughtful answers to the conundrum below.

Although my thoughts have turned bloody of late as a result of your suggestions and my rising irritation, the offending fly continues to live. I keep missing it with my newspaper. Dang Daily Universe.

I occasionally wonder if there are two flies, but that may just be paranoia.

Perhaps the next step is changing my shampoo to a less appealing scent.

In other news, I now officially have four signatures on my thesis prospectus. (YIPEE!) Four down, two to go.

Conundrum

Here's a moral conundrum for you all to ponder:

What would you do if a) you were being driven crazy by a fly who took up residence in your house two days ago and is especially attracted to the scent of your shampoo (and therefore flies around your head constantly), but b) you are afraid to KILL anything because killing things, even little things like flies, typically leaves you feeling guilty and traumatized for days on end?

And, let's say, you've already attempted to get it to just fly out of your front door.

Of course, this is a purely hypothetical question, not based on a real situation, and meant only to provoke thoughtful discussion. Let me know what you conclude.