Doin´ So Good It Aint Even Funny 7/8

Man, it has been SUCH a long time since I wrote in this blog (I have a sinking feeling that no one is really reading anything I write and I´ve just been communicating with some nebulous e-mass), but eh I might as well finish up the story of the psychadelic journey that has been my study abroad experience in Buenos Aires.

So.

The last time I wrote in here was a few days after my robbery. The month after that was undoubtedly really really hard, and also a very unreal time period. When I think back on it, it feels like I´m thinking back on some hazy dream, with all the auspicious airs that float in and out of a person´s dream-state. The first week was just unreal. I would go through dramatic mood changes and in a split second switch from feeling really nervous and panicky to feeling the most intense, deep-seeded anger I´ve ever felt, to profound joy at having survived something so troubling. The second week was more or less the same, but definitely to a lesser extent. The third week I developed this very bizarre body pain in my lower back and all down my right leg (which I realized after a few days was a pinched nerve... most likely some sort of psychosomatic reaction to my trauma, my body´s way of dealing with stress). And this shit was MIS-ER-A-BLE. There was this constant dull, aching pain all through my leg and it only went away if I was lying on my back. Luckily (or, actually, not sure if it was fortunate I received this), my super-medicated friend here with 83649362894 disorders and 96745740479482 bottles of the strongest shit a bad doctor can prescribe gave me A LOT of pills called clonazapam (a VERY intense pain killer), which I popped like candy all week long. On the one hand, I wasn´t in pain anymore. On the other hand, I straight up DON´T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THE ENTIRE WEEK.

The week after I kept on running into people who would me stories about things I did, conversations we had, and I didn´t remember any of it. Apparently at one point I took my shirt off on a bus, walked into a classroom in the middle of class and started having a conversation with my friend, and fell asleep in the middle of my class, sitting in front row center with my head back and my mouth open! I missed a lot of class and the classes I did go to I don´t remember (my notes from that week are SO FUNNY! On one page in the middle of my notes I start making a list of movies I wanted to see and for some reason crossed out half of them and then rewrote them again...). After that, I decided it was better to be in pain than to be a fucking half-asleep tweaker and I stopped taking these pills.

The next week was really hectic and I had to write two HUGE essays, both of which actually turned out pretty good. I was still very much traumatized by what happened to me and I couldn´t stop thinking about it all the time, and I was in a constant state of hypervigilance regardless of where I was, but I found that getting really into my classes helped distract me from all of this, so I became the biggest bookworm and (surprise, surprise) read everything I was supposed to read for every class. Then my birthday rolled around and I turned 21 the perfect way (went to class, bought myself a book, went to a park and read for hours until the sun set, then got chinese food with my buenos aires harem). During my birthday dinner I ended up talking to my friend about what I´d been going through and she told me I probably had post-traumatic stress syndrome and that I should seriously consider seeing a therapist.

I ended up agreeing with her and my study abroad program set me up with an American therapist named Carol who lives here. I was really nervous for my first session with her because I´ve never been to therapy before and I was anxious about making myself vulnerable to a complete stranger, but I left the first session feeling as if a HUGE burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Already I was feeling so much better about what happened to me, just talking it out and realizing some really important things about my actions (and reactions) during the whole experience, and it´s only gotten better since then. I´ve continued seeing Carol and I think it´s getting serious. Fuck! Why is it that when I´m finally able to commit I have to leave the country? Ahhhhhh I AM FORTUNE´S FOOOOOOOL (dumb joke, but I barely slept last night so fuck you).

This last month here has been really really fun, and so busy. At the point when I had all these essays to write (an 8-pager and then two days later a 15-pager), I ended up getting an awful fever and was so delirious and miserable and oozing from every oriphous (yeah, that´s right, EVERY. ORIPHOUS.). Somehow I ended up busting out those two essays as well as filming and editing a 5-minute short for my film class (in which I tried to dramatically portray a girl having a panic attack in a park, who is subsequently devoured by pigeons, and for some reason my teachers loved it and thought it was hilarious, even though this wasn´t my intention. My one teacher called it a "tragi-comedy." Little did he know my LIFE is a tragi-comedy!).

I got over the fever and had to start studying for finals (three finals: ALL oral, meaning it´s just me and the professor and my bad pronunciation). One slight problem though: the registrar office in the film university is UNBELIEVABLY disorganized (I think they must only spend their workdays playing Freecell and getting drunk or something), and because of that we didn´t find out what dates our finals would be until the Friday before (giving us at most six days, at the least three days, to study). I´ve just had a weekend to study for three finals and have taken two so far, both of which I more or less fucked up but the teachers took pity on me because I had so little time to prepare, and I have one more final this Thursday (which I´m going to more or less fuck up as well).

Other than that, I´m so happy right now. I seem to have reached this wonderful peace of mind and, having been able to turn my robbery into a really important learning experience, I´ve been rediscovering how much I love it here and how much I´m going to miss it. I´ve been waking up every morning with a smile, even though I´m in the middle of finals week.

So yeah, that´s it. I leave Friday for Santiago, Chile, where I´m going to spend five days by myself (which is going to be wonderful) and then, after travelling for 20 hours I will be back in the States.

If any Cohnell friends are reading this, I´ll be back in Shith August 15. Mark it on your calendars.