Another Attempt at Rest and Relaxation

Today is a splendid sunny weekend day. The mid-day break is just coming to a close, so I will be able to play the piano soon.

I haven't done much the past few days. I've decided to simply forget about doing things for my future and to stop worrying. So far it's working; I already feel much better, and I haven't been feeling so sorry for myself or navel-gazing much any more. In October, I hear, the lectures will begin at the university, so I've decided to end my holiday on that occasion. If I ever had any doubts, the past few years have shown that true happiness arises from a proper mix of work and pleasure, so I don't fear that I will degenerate into mindless laziness.

Anyway, until October I'm reading online books and real books, and playing the piano, and watching videos at youtube.com. These videos have thus far included three Japanese animé films: Howl's Moving Castle (very peculiar), Spirited Away, and Nausicaa. I watched the films with my critical thinking dormant, and they were very relaxing. Other than these films I've also watched episodes of the Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Maybe a week ago T. and I also watched clips from classical music performances on YouTube. There was, for instance, one where Glenn Gould was recording Bach's Italian Concerto in New York; different takes and commentary were interspersed with aerial views of the streets of the city. But there were also Brahms's Hungarian Dances as played by Yehudi Menuhin, etc.

My Russian is progressing nicely. I've already learned the names of professions, nouns and adjectives of nationality, nominative personal pronouns, and rules for recognizing masculine nouns, and my mind is retaining much of the information. So far there has been at least one error in the textbook, so I've become wary, but the density and conciseness of the information in it are decent.

Finally, this morning I also browsed the New York Times and Guardian websites, as is my wont, and found, among others, an interesting article about an early copy of the Mona Lisa.