I dream in Spanish.

Or at least I DID dream in Spanish.  Twice.  Last week.  Or at least I SPOKE Spanish in my dreams, and people talked back.  One of the dreams also included a conversation in French which was REALLY weird since I've spoken almost no French since September aside from the odd phrase or two to my French and Belgian co-workers.

I woke up totally disoriented because dreaming in Spanish is weird.  It was sort of like moving here all over again.  Once I got over being disoriented, I realized how far I've come.  I'm finishing level B1 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages in the next couple of weeks.  I can now write essays in Spanish, hold conversations on most topics in Spanish, and generally negotiate my way through the world.  A year ago I could barely put a sentence together.  I wouldn't have been able to pass the A1 test, so I feel pretty good zipping through to B1.

The problem is that there's still so much that's so hard.  Sometimes I wish I did work in Spanish, so I'd have more opportunities to practice.  That said, most of my work is writing (which has to happen in English) or data analysis which happens mostly in numbers and is devoid of language.  So, I'm not sure how much it would help me anyhow.

The best time to practice Spanish is actually in my daily Basque class.  I'm pretty sure I'm learning more Spanish than Basque in those classes, but that's not a bad thing.  I can now put together extremely stupid sentences in Basque.  Things like "You live in the big red house, but your parents live in the small white house."  Very useful in every day life, as you can see.  Basque is satisfying my inner linguistics-nerd because there are a lot of really interesting "language-y" things about it.  The good thing about the class, though, isn't so much the fact that I'm learning a few words in Basque and how to construct basic sentences, but rather that I'm negotiating the class in Spanish.  So I'm asking my questions in Spanish.  Trying to negotiate the class without English as the intermediary between Spanish and Basque.  And while it's hard, it's SO much easier than doing this in October.

As are most things, honestly.  Small talk with the cashier at the grocery store about the new machines for credit cards, eavesdropping on the teenagers on the bus talk about how their moms won't let them buy a certain style of pants, and tomorrow will be the ultimate test.  I'm going with our secretary to renew my residence card.  Mostly, I'm renewing it because I can get a 2 year renewal and being a resident in Europe has certain benefits (like free healthcare whenever I travel to Europe, easier times in Customs and Immigration in all of the EU countries, etc.).  But, the last time I went to administrative offices, I understood next to nothing.  I'm hoping tomorrow, I'll understand more and be able to talk more for myself.  I feel like the commitment I've made to learning the language has really helped me professionally (hopefully, it will result in more possibilities on the job market), but also it's been a really great personal endeavor.  Mostly because I'm not great at it.  And usually when I'm not great at something, I just don't do it.  I've had it pretty easy being good at most things I like or need to do.  School was easy for me.  Music was pretty easy for me.  And while I was happy to work hard, if I wasn't good at something, I just didn't do it.  But now, Spanish is NOT easy for me and I'm not particularly good at it naturally (a point that is made painfully clear every time I need to spontaneously do something like call a restaurant where I left my scarf), but I'm trying very, very much to get better at it.  And slowly, I'm seeing some green shoots come out of the little language garden I've planted.  It's a long way from being a real flower, but it's a start.

My language endeavors have not been sufficient to negate my tendency to worry about things I have no control over, but I'm starting to get better.  I'm renewing my efforts to only worry about things I have control over, trying to focus more on making myself a little bit more relaxed and happier.  And with the beautiful weather here the past three or four days, I'm also reminded that I need to enjoy the life I'm living, right now.  Spring is right around the corner, and I'm hopeful this is true metaphorically as well.