–You've had far too much to drink tonight.

–And you've had far too much to say tonight.


I have decided that Russians must know something secret and remarkable about life and humanity. I can think of no better ways to spend my time this very hot summer than to read Russian novels, brush up on my languages, and to write. Reading always makes me want to write. I have several things lined up to read, and a thing I've finished already:
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov (finished)
On Walden Pond by Thoreau (begun)
Speak, Memory, Nabokov's autobiography
Пиковая дама/La dame de pique (The Queen of Spades) by Aleksandr Pushkin (it's bilingual French and Russian)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
La pesanteur et la grâce (Gravity and Grace) by Simone Weil

I'm also planning on reading a couple of Steven Pinker books through, as thus far I've read them in parts either according to personal whim, or to the necessities of my research. I'm going to read some St. John Chrysostom. Perhaps I'll have it in me (and the good time) to read some Dostoevsky or Tolstoy.

So, tell me what one does when one comes to hatred about so many things in society. What am I to do? I hate the credit card companies, the fashion magazines, the "gentlemen's" magazines, Bratz dolls, the vacancy in the eyes of too many of my classmates. And boredom! I hate being bored. It is just an insult to God. I am determined to not be bored and I really must figure out how to jettison from myself this hatred which does absolutely no one any good.