Friday, June 18, 2021
I finally finished reading the first book this year, The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I found this book too smart for me, like I'm not adequately smart enough to understand it :( The story didn't fit what I expected when I read the book jacket. It tells the story of a guy whose parents are two psychologists. The guy is a champion debater in high school and a lot of the passages talk about debate and its strategies and how the strategies are also employed by politicians these days. He and his parents have alternating chapters. The parents being that they are psychologists also talk about smart things in their chapters. It made me think of how different life is if your parents are highly educated and live in a white collar world. It made me realize that it's not something that I can relate with. Along with the chapters of these 3 different view points, there are also short chapters of the guy's childhood friend who's like an outcast but then suddenly was included in their high school group, but it didn't work out in a really bad way and the last we see of this "friend", he was a Trump-er. Yes, the story is quite contemporary. It's one of Obama's favourite book in 2019 and that kinda makes me think even more that I'm not smart enough for this book. I can't say I enjoy it much. Maybe if I have read it in another circumstances when my life is not in disarray and my mind is not all over the place, then maybe I could have liked it more, or maybe no matter what, I'm really not that smart. So that's book 1. I'm pretty sure we're not gonna reach 5 books this year. It'll be good if I can complete 3. Next, I think I want to read Ann Patchett's The Dutch House.
So life, how has yours been going? To say that my life is going bad is utterly ungrateful, so I'll say it's not ideal. The last time I wrote, I wrote about my new living situation which I just want to say is actually going bad. A lot of people will say it's not so bad, but it's bad for me and here I am, I have to last. There are other things that are not going well either. Health wise, one part seems to be better but I'm not sure, but even if that part is going well, there's another thing that's torturing me and I have yet to go to the doctor since I couldn't find the time, so I just have to endure :( The only good thing is perhaps I finally got vaccinated. Only first dose so far, didn't feel feverish but the soreness was immediate within 5 minutes for me. If I think about how things are not going as I want them to be, I'll get very depressed. My mom keeps telling me that I need to change, that I need to deal with things not going my way, that I can't have things go the way I want them to be, that everyone can't be fitting into what I want. She annoys me so much when she says this, but today I realize that I perhaps have issues with this. I'm not saying that I will try to find a way to bend. In fact I think I'm inherently unable to bend or the nicer word some annoying people like to use, be flexible. The issue with this way of thinking is that most of the time, there's only one outcome for me and that is to get out. Thoughts like this really depress me because what am I going to do. I feel so directionless in life and writing and admitting that is really embarrassing but it is what I feel. Too much turnmoil in me :( As such, I do hope that your days are glorious, sincerely :)
:) eKa @ 9:38:00 PM • 0 comments
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