Skiing
- Marjane is depressed because she's still hiding what happened during her time in Vienna. She wants people to understand her, but she doesn't want to tell them what she lived through.
- A friend invites her skiing, so she goes and has fun.
- Well, she has fun until she admits that she's had sex and one of her friends calls her a whore. Even sitting in front of a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate on top of a snow-covered mountain can't fix that.
- Back home, Marjane goes to therapy. She is prescribed medication.
- The medication prevents her from feeling anything except like she's "in a trance" (31.33).
- Her parents go away for ten days, and Marjane tries to kill herself.
- Slitting her wrists proves too hard, so Marjane takes all her antidepressants at once.
- She sleeps for three days, wakes up to some freaky hallucinations, but lives.
- She decides self-improvement is better than self-destruction, and gives herself a makeover to become an aerobics instructor… like an Iranian Jane Fonda.