I haven´t been able to make it online for any sustained length of time in about a week. School has been consuming, and, the Institute keeps closing early because we have excursions to go on, or because they feel like it. This meaning, that I don´t get free access to the net from upstairs–or that I don´t have time to use it.

I´m at about -1 but fighting it.

It may have happened in Malaga the weekend before, or when I got back to Sevilla, but most of this is speculation. What we do know is that my lower-right lipped was swollen for days and then I lost control of the muscles on the left side of my face. This sounds better than it is.

Tuesday the air was really polluted and I couldn´t close my left eye really. So it was exposed to a catalog of debris and became irritated. It´s still not happy.

Thursday I gave in and went to the clinic. A shot in the ass and some histamines and the conclusion that I am having an allergic reaction to a bug bite. And, that if it doesn´t get better in four or five days, which are approaching fast, then I should see a specialist. I don´t want to hear what they have to say.

Friday we went to the cathedral in town. Another guided tour. I might have a picture somewhere. I don´t remember.

Friday night we finally made it to a club. ONE of the other guys and I basically acted as bodyguards for about seven girls. It seemed like everyone wanted to fight us. And, seeing as he´s a novice Spanish-speaker (being tied for the overall most competent speaker in the program got old sometime weekend before last), I did all the talking. These guys seemed just about ready to fight for a chance to dance with our girls, as they referred to them. Once I started talking to them they weren´t as the girls thought, really. Nice guys in general, some drunk. I think my grill intimidated some of them.

We all danced until 4a. I was on detail the entire night.

At 8:45a the faculty director raised her fist to me at the bustop a block away from school. I had forgotten that I had texted her throughout the night, inviting her…and her husband…out to join us, etc. And while I was doing it I had forgotten that it was as late as it was. While 9am–when the bus would leave in the morning–seemed like a very real and valid number it just didn´t mean much around 3am. The Carling and Stella had drowned whatever taste I had for math out of my mouth hours before.

The bus took us to La Rabida which is where Columbus set sail from, well, almost. Another guided tour.

I ended up enjoying this exhibit more than just about everyone. I retained a few cool facts. They had the three most accurate full-size reproductions of the three ships of the voyage and we were allowed to board them. The Franciscan monastery housing the complex was full of dead paintings small doors and rooms. Monasteries could never properly accomdate my height.

Afterwards we went to Matalascanas beach where they don´t windsurf. I climbed what´s left of a very old outpost or litehouse, lifting myself straight out of the Atlantic Ocean. I cut my hands and feet on the twenty to thirty feet of rock in a Speedo. Pretty much the most exercise I´ve had since I´ve been here besides speed walking to class.

Tonight most of the program is going to have dinner together. It´s the last week and all. I´ll be there for the paella. And, hopefully they´ll have straws because liquid has this thing about not staying in the half of my mouth that works.

I feel like a leper.

Oh. One of the local soccer teams won the big championship, La Copa del Rey. I was just getting into the fanaticism, almost. I had learned the songs–I watched the previous game with my older house brother at a tapas bar. I bought a jersey. I was all about watching this game and just to be absolutely certain about how I managed not to see the game, I took a six hour siesta, without lunch. We haven´t seen our family all weekend.

Even though I am now able to halfway smirk left I have to say once again: I feel like a fucking leper.