I talked today with my institute girlfriend. I say: “Come on, remember how we studied there at our cultural institute? Do you remember Elena Semyonovna Pozina?” — “She is unforgettable!” answered my friend. “She always had beautifully coloured lips, she wore a green suit, I remember I answered poorly at her exam and Elena Semyonovna said that it was precisely this material she had explained sequentially, and you, unfortunately, ‘did not listen, but only looked at me.’” Well, Elena Semyonovna was right, if my friend to this day remembers what colour her suit and lipstick were!
By the way, I will now say “one smart thing”: here you sit at a lecture, listen attentively, well, and what is your percentage of “assimilation” at this lecture in an hour and a half? Eh? — only 3%. That is scientifically proven. But at the present moment I have from the lectures of the respected Elena Semyonovna no percentage left at all… somehow I grew sad.
I want to try to develop one theme that concerns everyone who studies or studied “a little of something somehow.” When I was about 14, my papa once said to me: “You don’t know how to study!” ? (and I studied well and excellently, sometimes). And he continued: “when you read, you don’t know how to pick out the main thing from the material read, as if you look at the book, and see …… in short, you see nothing.” I remember I then “took offence.” After all, how smart we all are at 14–15! And these “ancestors” are no authority for us! But Papa was right; he turned out to be a living example for everyone of how to study CORRECTLY. Tomorrow I will write.