crazyyy stuff.

So the story I'm about to tell you is pretty much gossip magazine cover material. It's pretty intense. There is this boy in my program, we'll call him Bob, and he is quite the character. I think he is an incredibly nice guy. Bob is the one who organized the residencia dinners and what not. How to describe his personality? Hmmm. FREE SPIRIT! He was really carefree, almost too carefree, and really friendly. Mysterious would be another word to describe him. Everyone here joked that Bob was just a walking mystery. No one really knows what his deal is.

From the beginning of the program he kind of made it known that he was different than most people. He would just knock on peoples doors, walk in, and make himself welcome for an hour or so. Sometimes he would just go into someones room and use their computer for awhile, all without asking. One time he walked into Carly and I's room just buckling his pants, with wet hair, having just gotten out of the shower. We hadn't invited him in. One time we were walking around La Rambla with him and he would just disappear into the crowd without saying he was going anywhere. So yea, basically everyone knew Bob was a little different, but everyone just assumed that he was like the epitome of carefree. Ya know, just kind of did his own thing at all times and went about his business as if there was no one else in the world.

A few weeks ago Bob's weirdness level shot through the roof. It seriously went from a 2 on a 1-10 scale, all the way up to a 58. Everyone had a new story about Bob that was even weirder than the previous. Bob would brag to people that he just slept on a bench in the middle of Barcelona for the night. In fact, he rarely came home at night at all. Now, you have to be crazy to sleep alone on a bench in this city. Unless you have a death wish, you just don't do that. Basically Bob just started freaking out for no reason at random times. He would explode out of nowhere. A few weeks ago he went out to dinner with a group of my friends. When they were taking the metro to the restaurant Bob would just randomly disappear for a few minutes, come back, and disappear again a few minutes later. During the meal he was totally silent, which was really weird because Bob was typically quite the conversationalist. He also kept leaving the table randomly. While everyone was eating, these annoying people who sell fake roses everywhere tried selling them to the group. Yes, these people are incredibly irritating, but everyone is used to them by now. Bob apparently lost his cool and started freaking out on the rose seller. Everyone was telling him to chill out, that wasn't a big deal, but he was just furious for no apparent reason. Other kids were telling me that he would walk down La Rambla and get into peoples faces and scream, "COMO ESTAS BITCHES?" Not cool. And most of all, not safe. Everyone was really starting to get freaked out by his behavior and wondered what the heck was up. Two weeks ago he took a CEA trip to San Sebastian. He thought it would be a good idea to purchase a liter of vodka for the bus ride back. Not only is that incredibly against CEA rules, but your stupid to drink all of that on an 8 hour bus ride. He eventually had to go to the bathroom and there wasn't one on the bus. CEA had planned bathroom stops and one wasn't coming up for a while. Bob lost his cool x's 47549875. People on the bus said he got up in the face of the driver and the CEA chaperones, screaming wicked loud, and threatened to pee his pants, urinate on their heads, etc. Eventually the bus driver had no choice but to pull over because Bob was freaking out. Two girls who live in my building were on the bus and incredibly freaked out, rightfully so. They ended up writing to the head of CEA making a complaint saying that they were really concerned about their safety with Bob in our building. CEA emailed a few people and asked them to corroborate the stories they had receieved. Last night we found out that Bob had been kicked out of the program and went back home to the U.S.

I can't help but feel bad for this kid. He only had about a month left of the program and he got sent home. However, CEA obviously felt that he had done something to merit being kicked out. It's just unfortunate because he won't get a refund and he is now going to be a semester behind at school. Still, I can't really say that I feared for my safety, but I was definitely growing more and more uncomfortable around him as time went on. There was definitely something not right with him and he obviously needed help. People wonder if he got into drugs out here or if there was something wrong upstairs that just got magnified due to the intense stress we're under. It's probably in his best interest that he was sent home because he was just losing it here. Not to mention, he couldn't really have gotten any help out here if he actually needed it. I can't help but wonder what was really wrong with Bob to cause him to pretty much go crazy out here. I guess we'll never know.

OK! Just wanted to at least get something up in a blog. I figured this would be an interesting read. Mental health update for me? I'm doing just fine...no threatening to urinate on people..PROMISE! I'm off to study for my test tomorrow. ICK! I love and miss you all!<3