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I've recently been wondering, is knowledge power? It isn't as if people often utter the phrase 'I really like her, she's so clever!' Yet, if you were to describe your perfect partner, the word 'clever' would be quite a priority wouldn't it?
I mean, I'm no vegetable, but I'm not even clever enough to do the course I initially wanted to do at University. I've always wondered what it would be like to be one of those really, really annoying students that don't have to ever revise or try to get their head around anything at all, and yet they excel at everything they do. I can be reasonably bright, but it takes a lot of application.
I'd love to be really clever when it came to people. I'd love to be able to understand people's behaviour, and the best way to act in any social situation. The last four months of my life have presented me with a lot of reluctant alone time. And now, over the next few days, I will be faced with a city full of excited students as University begins once again. But to me, it's a big challenge to be around so many people again. I'd love to be clever enough to keep calm and know I don't need to worry, to know what to expect. 
I can imagine that being really academic has a lot of negatives. If I was in the pub, for instance, and I whittled on about relativistic cosmology (yes, I did Google that), then people wouldn't want to talk to me. Is there an inverse relationship between being a social butterfly and being a smart bookworm? Or is there such thing as being all-round clever?
I think it's an acquired talent, knowing how to be good around other people - knowing what to say, knowing how to stick up for yourself, knowing how to portray yourself favourably to others.
So I might walk into doors a lot, spend money on the wrong things and spill my coffee every morning, but I try my best to make an effort with people, and that's what will hopefully get me somewhere.
I know it's possible to learn and to exercise your memory, but can we really do anything to make ourselves more clever? Or are we stuck with what we have? It must be frustrating to not be able to understand much, in other words, to be academically backwards. I always felt average when I was in school, top/middle sets in maths and science, mostly 'B's at GCSE level, does this mean I'm going to stay at this level all through life? Be the one who loses half her memory at the old people's home?
The age old question is beauty or brains... well, although it would be nice to have both, I think that being clever enough not to appear shallow enough to care about your looks is the way forward.
And why is it that people are often very modest about their looks, but it seems that if you're quite gifted in the head department - it's not as hard to admit that you think so.
If you were brainy enough to analyse any situation, to understand anyone and anything, what do you have to be afraid of? I once read a quote that said there is nothing to fear, only to be understood. Which doesn't really make much sense to me, I'm never going to understand how planes fly, or why I bump into everyone I know at the gym.