I was talking with one of my professors today. She told me a story that went something like this: "One of your classmates came to talk to me and contrasted themselves with you. This student said that they felt like they didn't know enough about social psychology and that you know so much it is very intimidating to be in class with you."

I assumed she was telling me this because she wanted me to be more careful in how I presented myself in class, so I played it off by saying that I just talk a lot, so some of the stuff I say must turn out to be true due to the sheer volume of information that I present, and I added that I could tone it down by just piping down a bit.

She said something along the lines of, "no, no, I mean if you're intimidating people, you must be doing something right, so keep it up."

Right now, my mom is thinking of commenting in the following vein, "Watch it mister, or I'll have to go get a pin so your head doesn't swell up too big." A smarty-pants might reply with: my head is only growing so that it can continue to contain my obviously expanding brain. A neuroscientist might inform the smarty pants that his brain size isn't indicative of intelligence. Brain density and the ratio of brain size to body size are correlated much higher with intelligence. A neuroscientist might also inform my mother that hydrocephalus is a serious condition that cannot be fixed with pin pricks and is likely to lead to serious brain damage and/or death in an adult such as myself.

It's normal to make up imaginary conversations among caricaturized versions of yourself and your mother, right? Someone with an intimidating brain would do that, right?

Excellent.