Language Improvement, Crazy Dreams, and Emotional Rollercoasters

We had another language interview yesterday and received our results today... I moved up two levels! I was at the 4th level and now I´m at the 6th! I´m really happy. But I am finding that as my Spanish improves, my English is getting worse and worse. Sometimes I find myself searching for words and I am totally at a loss, unable to express myself in either language. It can be very frustrating.

In other news... only a week until we find out where our site placements are! I´m trying not to think about it too much, because it´s way too exciting and I can´t sleep.

Speaking of sleeping, I am loving our malaria meds. They give me amazing dreams. One night I dreamt that I was a giant who picked up one of my fellow trainees with one hand, threw him across the room, and in midair he turned into spaghetti noodles. Another night I dreamt that I was late for the GRE (GRE? What? I have no plans to take the GRE...) and when I arrived I felt like I had no pants on. So I looked down and my legs were mosquito legs. In another dream, I was taking my language interview while sitting on a horse, only to look down and see that the horse had turned into a stationary bike. That´s the only one that I can actually see some meaning. The others... who knows what they mean.

I´m certainly experiencing the ¨Peace Corps Rollercoaster¨with all of its highs and lows. One day I will be feeling like I totally understand everything that people are saying to me and the next day I won´t understand a single word. Sometimes I´ll experience all of the highs and lows within one day. In the morning I won´t understand anything, but then I´ll come home for lunch and understand every single word of my Panamom´s story about how she killed a snake that was in our latrine... kinda wish I hadn´t understood that story.

I´m also slightly worried about the level of my emotional attachment to a new telenovela that just started called Aurora. My family makes fun of me because I´m so into it. But whatever. It´s awesome. Aurora died 20 years ago, got cryogenically frozen, and is now alive and all her old drama is still there plus all this new drama too. For example, she´s pretending that she is still dead and she´s the daughter of herself, though her real daughter was raised as her sister and now thinks that she´s her aunt. And the guy Aurora was in love with is still in love with her even though he´s married to her best friend, but his son is in love with Aurora too. Awesome, right? I think so.

We have finally gotten some free time every Sunday and it has been amazing. I didn´t know what to do with myself at first, it had been so long since I had a single unstructured minute. I´ve finally started reading a book in English which probably makes my Spanish worse but I don´t care, I need the break sometimes. I´ve also been running every day which I NEVER did at home but it´s pretty much the only time I can be alone here so it´s not hard to motivate myself to go.

Thanks to everyone from home who has been calling! It´s really great to hear from you, especially when I´m riding on the ¨down¨part of the emotional rollercoaster, calls from home really cheer me up!