17 June
French. I'm spending more time on French nowadays, because now I have an opportunity to practice it once a week with a student from Quebec. I help her with her Russian in exchange. I'd like to have some practice in teaching of Russian as well.

Swedish. I'm also brushing up Swedish with the course "Kontakt pa svenska 2" which I copied in Sweden, it's a bit outdated but has useful vocabulary lists.

Looking for a job. My job seeking activity has not led to anything tangible so far. That American IT businessman sent me a text file of his commersial site, and I wrote to him what I thought about it. Then he aksed me to re-write the text and sent it to me again. But the text was basicly the same, just declarations. In my comments I asked about names, examples of products, financial data, list of clients, etc. I can't write all this for him, I do not know much about his company, I only met him a few hours for interpretation.

I had one more interview - now at The Russia Journal. The job is to find info in the internet on various topics in their office during weekends. But when I said my price ($3/hour), the man's countenance saddened. Still, maybe I'll pick it up for a smaller pay for a while, I need to have some income while I'm looking for a good job.

Mother. Tomorrow I'll probably go with my mother to a village in the Kaluga region for two days. It's her bithday soon, and she wants this kind of present from me (to go with her and see the place). She is thinking of buying a plot of land there and building a house. It will be a sort of spiritual community there, people will be growing their own food and teaching their children in their own school. I do not think this is viable in the long run, it is in the wildreness (200 km from Moscow), no jobs around of course. One can grow one's food, but still one needs money to build houses, for utilities, transportation, etc. But I'll go with her for a change.

Books this month.
- Soloviev, V.M. Slovo o Rossii (A word about Russia) - M, Russkij Yazyk. Kursy, 2000, 190 p. (in R)
History of Russia for foreigners learning Russian. Well written, many facts that I didn't know.

Films this month:
Russian TV
- Diary of His Wife (Russia - France, 2000)
see the notes on the page favorite Russian films.
Cinema
- Höstsonata (Sweden)
Analysis of of the relations between mother and her daughter.Worth seeing