Lunacy and Lemonade

Sorry for my protracted absence- it's been a crazy week. We're in the middle of crunch time of our studio. Let's see, Sunday I worked literally all day on studio work, and most of the night, getting to bed around 3 AM. One of my group members, Adam, had just come back from another Argentine ski resort even farther south than Las Lenas, called Barlioche. He took a direct bus there, but it was still a 20 hour ride. The bus, he told us, were "executive cama" which meant the chairs reclined all the way back to lie flat, and wine and whisky were served free thoughout the trip, as well as three hot meals. Anyway, he had literally come off the mountain and hopped on the bus without stretching, so he was in bad, sore, shape when he got here. This prompted him to take up a detox diet which had also done last year.

This was just what we were talking about while we worked, and the diet sounded interetsing to me. I've had more wine and grilled meat here then in the rest of my life, and I've also been a lot more sick over here, so I decided to give it a shot. I was also curious as I've never been on a fast before. The diet is called the lemonade diet, and its really a cleansing diet rather than a weight loss diet. The idea is that you only drink this special lemonade for a week straight. I joined Adam on this diet sunday night, having last gorged myself on empanadas around noon. Monday morning, I got up (after five hours of sleep) and mixed my first batch of lemonade. The lemonade is supposed to made with fresh squeezed lemon juice, water, some maple syrup, and a sprinkling of cayanne pepper. I didn't have the last two ingreedients, so I left out the pepper and added this kind of thick bland sugar syrup with no flavoring made from corn syrup. It was not terrible, but it wasn't great. I made four bottles and hauled it all to school. Didn't eat anything all day.

It was kind of interesting, everyone kept commentng that we were crazy, that I would wither away to nothing, that I must have been starving, etc etc. but the fact is that the lemonade suppresses the appetite and the sugars in the syrup kept my energy up. I felt totally fine the entire time I was on the diet, and definately more clear headed. That night after studio, I went with some friends to a bar/restraurant after class. Its funny, when you can't eat, everything looks and smells so wonderful. Even after one day, I could have written poetry about a sandwhich. I need to do this more often. Anyway, I stayed on the diet until Tuesday night, lasting two days without any kind of solid food whatsoever. I wasn't hungry, but the insanity of our architecture studio, the long hours we work, and the frustration with the studio made me want to have access to comfortable food and lots of caffinated beverages. It was a good experiance, and I'll definately do the full thing before I leave.

Studio is frustrating and difficult. We're working according to a very different methodology based on processing and abstracting site information rather than designing from a program. More later. Need to get on the reading for theory class today.