The next section in the book is much lighter, which is nice after such heavy material. This section mainly concerns Alyosha and a group of younger boys that were introduced in an earlier chapter. I really liked the character of Alyosha, and it's nice to see him again. Alyosha has since left the monastery and been living as a normal person. When we saw them last, the younger boys were engaged in a heated conflict with each other, but they seem to have made up since then. This chapter features a ton of rather funny dialogue thanks to a new character, Kolya. This boy was mentioned earlier in the book, but this the first time he has actually appeared. I like him alot: he's a very interesting and entertaining character. Reading some of the dialogues he's involved with, I found myself laughing out loud. Again, this lighthearted tone offers a nice break, and I'm interested to see where the relationships between these boys and the youngest Karamazov end up.
I had a day off today, which is always really nice. I went to the gym and hit legs and abs. I've been really enjoying smith machine squats recently; they're probably my favorite leg exercise. I can just feel them really well. As for abs, I enjoy doing decline sit ups, even though they are super hard. While I used to neglect legs in the past, I've been really enjoying working them recently. Also, after my workout, I did 30 minutes on the cardio bike. I didn't bring headphones today so I just watched episodes of Frieren on my phone with no volume. Shout out to subtitles. I can't even understand the japanese anyway, so there's no real need for the audio in the first place. I do the bike because I hate running. The bike was actually a ton of fun, and I want to work my way up to about an hour after every workout. Also, when I got home, the day was the perfect amount of cloudy where there was no sun but you could still see the blue, mild sky, with a nice breeze blowing. I ended up going for a walk around my block.