:: reading & other summer things ::

work and productivity and swimming are all things taking up my summer time at the moment: my design internship is three days a week, swimming is basically at least an hour every afternoon, and then I fit everything else in the cracks between.

"everything else":
- free online classes through harvard
(YES. go take some. they are spectacular, especially professor kelly's first nights series -- I just finished monteverdi's l'orfeo and it was magnificent. both the opera and the course.)

- lettering practice + videos through sean mccabe's learn lettering series
(which I unreservedly recommend as well)

- reading out loud to brother and sisters
(the brother is 8, the sisters are 6 and 10. a third, almost 3, sometimes accompanies. we've made it through the first two peter and the starcatchers books and are almost done with book one of the incorrigible children of ashton place. I need to find #s3 and 4 of peter and finish that before plunging into maryrose wood's utterly delightful saga. love that simon harley-dickinson. ahem.)

- memorizing all of "I've been everywhere" by johnny cash
(first verse, check. second verse... we'll get there someday.

haha.)

- planning my TRIP TO CALIFORNIA
(yes, but that's as per usual and I'll mention it a lot in the future, so just know I'm going for almost the month of july and planning on enjoying myself hugely. except trips aren't so fun when you're on your own; but I'll make it work. heh.)

- reading in my head, to myself. for fun.
(what is that.)

this is where my list really comes to the point. I've checked quite a lot of books out of our online library woo and actually read -- get this -- thirty books in may. yes, three-zero. I've been practically inhaling them, but you have to remember it's been a long time since I had this time or this opportunity. june's been a lot more busy, and I'm not going to read nearly that many for the rest of the year; especially since I just started leo tolstoy's war and peace this morning.

I'll obviously be reading war and peace for a while -- I swear, a single "book" that is divided into fifteen poly-chaptered books should not have the need for a second epilogue -- and I'm going to do my best to record my live-streaming thoughts this time around. last time I started in probably book 12 or 13 and wrote down all my shipping as the plot line progressed (still have that paper; pretty hilarious), and I've decided to start at the beginning this time and write slightly more of-content thoughts -- although what's a good russian novel without some hearty love interests, amirite. especially since like everyone ends up with the wrong person and then half of them die and they reshuffle so you get to pair 25% of them around like three times. whee. fun.

those russians, goshdarn and bless their hearts.

yeah. so the result may end up slightly muddled and circular and inconclusive like my night train to lisbon series, but I'm aiming for something more like my oliver twist thing, only hopefully more sophisticated. but not much because w&p is still way way over my head. still, I love it, love it, and hopefully I'll keep understanding better as I grow with it. (those are the best books, that grow with you.) and really, tolstoy is the master. -- my dad was a russian lit major in college for about a year, and he must have handed something down to me. I remember reading one of our pushkin anthologies when I was 9; pushkin and me, we go way back.

enough about russian novels. takeaway: w&p will be read and commented upon, so stay tuned for the upcoming tears (AHH FORGIVENESS and REDEMPTION), guilty boredom and tears (AAH MORE WAR DESCRIPTION I don't undersTAND), and gushing and tears (AN. DREI. BOL. KON. SKY. JUST STAHP).

I'm afraid you're in for a lot of all-caps and tears. I'll try to tone it down. (but seriously: TOLSTOY!!

I clutch my heart and die dramatic russian death)