Not much is happening. I'm trying to take it easy because in less than a month's time I'll be off to Amsterdam and I'll add the stress of studying to that of working. Another busy year is knocking on the door. So I try to do everything now I won't have enough time for during the school year. Which really only means reading and gymming and seeing my family.

I spent a heavenly weekend at my cousin's summer house (I only get one weekend off in three months so it's actually a big deal for me). It's a place where I can't draw a line between reality and dream - it all seems too good to be true. Of all the people I know my cousin really is the one who knows how to enjoy life. And not in a big or fanciful way but in a very simple and down to earth way. We went swimming so many times I stopped counting, we ate pancakes on the porch on Saturday morning, we heated the sauna and spent two hours sweating and dipping in the lake, we read books and took naps, we sunbathed and ate fresh honey, we played football with kids and made apricot jam. Heavenly. Absolutely heavenly. When I had to leave the place I've come to love so deeply, I left with an invitation to go back, and not just for a weekend. My cousin said that if I ever needed a place to hide and do my homework or just relax, I could stay there by myself for a whole week. I promised to keep that invitation in the back of my head. And now I'm thinking - October. I so need to take a week off and go there in October and hide from the business of my life!

My reading business has been upgraded to a new level recently. I already took reading advice from Dr A. N. earlier but now she has come up with a whole new thing she calls The World Literature Course. She's the lecturer, I'm the student, obviously. It means that she has given me a personal reading list of 50 books, containing classical novels, travel books, biographies, a big section of African literature (which, I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about), etc. I took a tour in my local library last week after I had received the book list and I realised how poorly equipped it was. So she promised to help me out as much as possible and supply me with books I can't get my hands on here when she comes to Estonia in October. This is some serious business! I feel like I almost have an obligation to read now. But I don't mind, I love it. At the moment I'm finishing my 25th book this year - William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, a frustratingly beautiful and painful book about the history and tragedy of American South and slaves and slave masters.

My gymming has a big impact on the music I listen to. I've picked up Body Balance classes again and who ever is choosing music for their routines is doing a brilliant job. My two favorite songs at the moment must be George Ezra's Budapest and Tom Odell's Heal. It's a pure pleasure to listen to these songs while sweating in the gym.