a summer-full of words

This summer, I came home from college to find my family in a new house, a new state, a new circle of people. And so, this summer, for lack of anything better to do, I think I shall be spending a lot of time studying.

...what?

The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind?
-Ralph Waldo Emerson 

It sounds abysmally boring, using my one break from school to study more, but I think I'll be better and less restless for it.

I like language, a lot. I won't be so pretentious as to say "I like languages" when I really only know one and two halves (and that, unfortunately, does not equate to "two"). Armed then with English, a bit of Latin, and a slightly bigger bit of Russian, I now begin my summer goals, most of which I think tend towards an end idea of understanding words/language/literature better.

Katie's Summer Goals

• Shadow ESL classes at the community college
• Gain the professor's respect enough that she lets me do something useful in class by the end of the semester
•  Learn more about community college life by picking up "Community" as my summer bad habit of choice
• Find a job that pays money
• Take that job
• Do not spend the money on frivolous things
• Read books edifying to my intellect
• Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh 
• Spirit of the Liturgy, Joseph Ratzinger 
• 1984, George Orwell 
• Story of a Soul, Therese of Lisieux
• Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens 
• The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell
• Every Good Endeavor, Tim Keller
• Lolita, by Nabokov
• Various poems by Державин, Ломоносов, & Пушкин
• Read books not quite so edifying to my intellect
• The Princess and Curdie, George Macdonald
• Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
• Life of Pi, Yann Martel
• Time and Again, by Jack Finney
• Mark Twain short stories
• Write some sort of reflection on my experiential and/or book learning at least once a week
• Take three consecutive internet-free hours every day, exclusive of the hours when I'm working
• Write a libretto for Braeden's oratorio of The Great Divorce
• Sew myself an elf cloak

And that, dear internet, is what this blog must keep me accountable to. I must post at least once a week to comment on things I have been reading or doing, or maybe just thinking. There will probably also be some pretentious and/or snarky sonnets thrown in here too, because I have discovered just how fun those are to write.

I want to get moving. Sitting around at home does not suit me. My mind must travel far and fast to make up for my sedentary, stationary physical life.

And now, a picture of a squirrel: