I think I know what the Cruciatus Curse must feel like

Otherwise titled “Why being on vacation is not as much fun as I had hoped it would be.”

There is a poster hanging by the entry of my place of residence that reads “On connait très jeune les problèmes des gens plus agés.” Or something like that. I don’t know, I’ve glanced at it a few times; we all know how good my French is. Basically, I live in a place designed to help young, unemployed persons with a cheap place to live and help them find work and get on their own two feet – so there are a lot of signs around about hardships and abuse and the dangers of mixing alcohol and marijuana and remembering to use a condom etc, etc, etc. Well, this particular poster is talking about how even young people know the kinds of problems that older people are face with – homelessness, joblessness and the like. Well… I relate this poster physically now. Because I feel like I have the back of a ninety year old woman, and it decided to start acting like that – when else? – when I was on vacation.

I have never experienced pain like this before. I feel like Bellatrix Lestrange is following me around and every so often sticking her wand to my back and whispering “crucio!” That’s my pop culture/nerd reference for the day. But seriously. Have you ever had back spasms? I haven’t before. But I would always think people were over reacting. Since I spent the last three days attempting to under-react (read: letting out gasps of pain rather than screaming obscenities), I know now the truth. It freaking hurts. It’s the worst in the morning – as in I can’t even bend over to put on my own shoes – or after I’ve been lying in a nice, comfortable bed. It feels slightly better after I’ve been shuffling around town or lying on the hard floor with my feet on a chair.

Which is exactly how Daniel found me in his apartment on my last day of vacation when he got back from a meeting with his professor. I was supposed to go out shopping and seeing the city while he was gone (he even drew me a super-awesome map) but instead I was in too. much. pain. to even think about wandering about town. So I webmd’s that crap and did what it told me to do… which, I’ll admit, was pretty lame. It ruined the plans for the afternoon, so we had to improvise.

I’m not going to continue to rant about this. Just thought I would give a life update… and the biggest thing on my mind right now is how much my back has been hurting for who knows what reason. I blame the trains... this whole thing started with the slightest of spasms during my ride between Lyon and Strasbourg, which I thought would get better once I was up moving around... yeah, it has to be the train's fault. Freaking trains.

I promise a happier entry coming soon…I've already started working on it. Because after all, I am a happy person :o)