Knowing the things you don't know you don't know.

That is the problem with bibliography assignments. It's my problem with all intellectual work, and I actually find it kind of terrifying. I mean, how can you know that you need to know something you don't even know about? I'm the kind of rat who likes to sit in my hole and gnaw on one little piece of knowledge for a very long time. Easily zipping around the whole perimeter of a debate? Not good at it. And of course, professors always assign these things in their own fields, where they've had their clear vantages for so long that they don't remember that you start off struggling through the murk, casting little pieces of worm into LexisNexis and hoping the big one bites.

(Count 'em, four mixed metaphors in that little paragraph.)