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Went to Mindo the other weekend with some PC people, and had one of those crazy, soul-sustaining times that keep me sane in Ecuador. It's a sleepy little cloud-forest town, where we went zip-lining (one of which was a slightly terrifying bungee-jump-cum-zip-lining mash up) and jumped off of a high (12 meters) rock into water (I hit the bottom) and swam in a river with waterfalls. At night we ate delicious over-priced food and swapped stories and were generally silly. There are good people in PC Ecuador, that's all I have to say.

And now for something completely different...

I'm in a pretty good mood tonight. I finally realized today that if I want a change in my life, I have to make it, and that even something small can make a difference. So I looked up some info/videos online and started teaching myself Parkour/freerunning at a local children's park.

It's perfect for me: the park is ten minute walk from my house, and isolated enough that are no people staring at me as I run (and Patate is perfectly safe, as well, unlike other Ecuadorian cities...please don't let THAT statement come back and bite me in the...)

The park is filled with benches, jungle gyms, swings, tables, tires, slides, everything a beginner runner could want. Parkour, or freerunning (though they are a little different, but at this basic level I think I can use them relatively interchangeably) is essentially running from point A to point B no matter what is in front of you. So you vault off tables and swing over bars. It gets crazy (aka the guy in the opening sequence of "Casino Royale" was a freerunner), but I'm just trying to learn how to roll without hurting myself and vaulting over benches. It is brutal work, and makes my whole body feel like jelly. I feel great.

Work is also improving, and while it is still slow slow slow I am at least getting something accomplished, and that's a relief. A school garden actually succeeded (gasp!), a farmer sought me out to ask my advice, a school I work with made their own Biol, and I'll be teaching honest-to-goodness classes in a few weeks. And as always, the people that I work with are so friendly, I literally don't know what I would do without them.

My biggest thing now is looking to the future: My brother's visit in June (+birthday and midservice), going home for my sister's wedding, Me + Mom = Galapagos, but most especially ending my service in just over a year and going to graduate school. I've been doing my research and have my schools narrowed down (just two now, but they are both awesome), and will be retaking the GRE's/ applying this fall. I am so, so looking forward to that life. I miss school, I do. I miss learning, I miss sitting in classrooms, I miss writing papers in coffee shops on my laptop, I miss living in an American city with American people.

Now that the craziness of February is over and I have some work to do, I am content here. A volunteer who is just about to COS (leave country) told me that the goal of the second year is just to make it to the end, but it goes fast and despite this, is the best year of all. So I'm looking to the future, as always, but content. Maybe I will even miss it when it's over.