I’m feeling a bizarre mixture of things right now. Today I had sort of an insane excess of energy from the bizarre circumstance of my having slept almost the recommended 8-hours three nights in a row. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t exercise, I don’t know, but I found this energy translated into a sort of “logorrea” (a term I only use because it’s coming across a lot in my studying for my psych exam), an overactivity of the mind. I tried to write earlier, like perhaps a blog entry or something, but I just couldn’t focus enough on one thing- new ideas and observations, mostly superficial stuff about my immediate surrounding environment, kept intruding, soon to give way to ridiculously-syntaxed observations of my writing attempts in themselves. When I tired, the mind kept working just as ... read more

Aspects of this place I´m fed up with Thoughts, in the Mendoza bus station Note: Just because something ends up on this list doesn´t mean I don´t accept that there's a logical explanation for it´s existence, nor that I condemn the people who manifest it. Nevertheless, it gets on my nerves and I´d rather not have to experience it. I don´t know, perhaps the fact that it frustrates me so much demonstrates that I really don´t “accept” it, in spite of my better judgment. In any case, here they are: -All the goddamned cops and security guards-that is, all the guys who walk around with their stupid guns and military boots with the pant cuffs tucked in, swaggering about with their arms hanging motionless by their sides- as if either they were characters in some old ... read more

So Uruguay this weekend is one of those experiences where there's too much to say, and I know if I try to give an account from beginning to end I'll get hung up on certain parts and I'll never get through. But here goes anyway. So the first omen of how this trip was to go took place on board the ferry, when the nice lady let me have a cup of coffee for free because she couldn't change the 100 peso bill I had. These types of things make me far happier than I should, but the ample amount of sleep I had gotten the night before and the fact that we were out in a gorgeous sunny morning perched atop the gorgeous ocean-like Rio de la Plata didn't hurt either. After a pleasantly short ... read more

So just the other day I finished my spanish class (and passed with flying colors of course), thus inaugurating a new etapa of my time here. With classes only on Monday and Tuesday now, and no other commitments but rowing and yoga, I find myself faced once again with extremely copious quantities of free time, which if not filled properly risk becoming the anxiety-ridden abysses of idleness into which I occasionally slipped during the beginning of my time here. Luckily, the risk is small because a lot of things have changed since then. For one, I just conquered, finally, my sleep issues (turns out it was the pseudoefedrina I was taking in the evenings). The result of this will be that I’ll be able to animate myself to do lots more things that, despite my desperate ... read more

Well, I suppose it would be fitting to talk about this weekend. I spent a large chunk of it outside of the city, and now that I think about it this was the first time I’ve left since Iguazú, which now that I think about it was only a month ago. Lots of sudden realizations here. That’s all of course as long as you don’t count the few minutes that I spent on the other side of avenida General Paz when I went to Mataderos. You all can figure that out for yourselves. So this weekend officially started, I guess, on Saturday (though Friday may as well have been a weekend day as well). Regardless though, I “awoke,” meaning I opened my eyes and gave up the night-long struggle to fall asleep, at 7:40 and checked ... read more