A little honesty.

I can't sleep. Between the coughing, the twitching, and the lateness of the current hour, I suppose it's a wise idea just simply give up on it for a few hours and return to bed later this afternoon for a lovely little thing I like to call, a nap. Plus as I'm lying in bed I'm thinking of all these things that are preventing my mind from feeling at ease.

I haven't updated in a while. The recap of the previous week can be summed up quite easily: sickness. Maybe I had the gripe A, maybe I didn't. We'll never know, because I'm a currently an illegal American citizen living with out health insurance in a country where if I did go to the doctor, I probably wouldn't understand anything they were telling me, anyway. So, unable to speak well enough to teach classes or socialize, I drank hot tea with lemon and read. All in all, it was quite a relaxing week aside from all the phlegm. Last night I did come out of my gofer hole to make new friends, eat delicious Peruvian food and drink some beer. It was a nice entrance back into the social world that I had been missing.

Last week I began my dance classes, which ended up being a lot more entertaining than I expected. It's contemporary dance, so there are a lot of hand movements, pillets, and rolling around on the floor. Yes, I just said rolling around on the floor. It's an exercise to get the muscles warmed up, well, so I think. I can only understand about half of what she says, the other half I just make sure I am always keeping one eye open towards the person next to me to make sure we didn't just all stand up and I'm the only one laying on the floor rolling around, still. Of course when the instructor participates in this activity there is much more grace and finesse to her moves, but regardless it looks like a bunch of people having seizures in slow motion. gracefully.

Making friends with Argentines is about as difficult as trying to learn Spanish. I don't say this with any pun intended, but honestly I can't think of a more suitable comparison, plus I'm going on about 4 hours of sleep, so give me a break. Friend making is a challenge in general, especially once you leave University. Because Porteños live in their own world makes it notably more problematic. They have their own lives, their own judgments, cynicism, friends, etc. And when you meet them, even if they are genuinely excited to meet a foreigner, which is a rare occurrence, that is probably the last time you will ever see them, no matter how many times, in your conversation, they insist that you hang out together. I have a theory that there is a secret poll for Argentines of how many people they can meet in their lifetime, and every time they meet a new person it goes into the count. I haven't decided if there is a winner or a loser in this 'poll,' but knowing Argentines, I'm sure there is. And it's most likely a corrupt system, so who knows who actually wins. In fact, now that I think about it, my Spanish is developing at a much faster rate than my rate of making friends.

It's not that I'm doubtful about making friends, it's the whole process. Learning Spanish, trying to find a job, working, moving around the city, making friends, enjoying the city, keeping in touch with people, and somewhere in there I'm supposed to be setting life goals and working on a screenplay (ha.)? I'm trying to make this easy for myself, but sometimes, it's just life. Shit happens. You have bad days. To give credit to my dear friend Meg, "...everyday living abroad is hard. it's exhausting." Esto es verdad. I'm constantly evaluating myself, and asking myself if what I'm doing is enhancing my 'experience' or if the decisions I make are wise. But it should be enough that they are my decisions, I shouldn't need to validate them with someone or something else. I forget that it's not important how others perceive your life, it's about how you want to live it.