twothousandten

*

happy last day of 2009!


and welcome another 365 days of total weirdness!


*

sounds like a bad christmas song...

this is quite possibly the loneliest christmas i've ever had.



boohoo.

англи хэл

last night while i baked cookies for 4 hours with my roommate - she asked me about returning to america (in march) and what i'm looking forward to the most.

that's always a difficult question for me to anwer because my response is always changing. sometimes i can't wait for convenience, sometimes i'd really love a clothes dryer, other times i'm excited for consistantly fresh air, most times i'm anxious to see my family, other times i long for easy communication.

this last one is a little tricky, though. for example, sometimes i really don't enjoy being able to understand other people's conversations in public places. most times, the english i overhear here just sounds...ugly. And the topics people tend to speak about drive me crazy. these instances delude my excitement.

maybe i've gotten used to either not understanding anything or understanding very little of the language around me that understanding everything in my own language is overwhelming. at any rate - the ability to overhear conversations has at least given me the opportunity to revise my own conversational verbage so i can avoid sounding more irritating than usual...

ps: english speakers, stop using the word "like" so much.

Ai Er Handkerchief

this is the plot description on the back of a copy of The Merchant of Venice DVD:

good intention Andong Buddhist nun (prominent rice Ai Langsi of liner) is for the sake of the wedding of good friend, and to harsh Xia Luoke Jewess (Ai Er handkerchief Xi Nuo) borrows money and does not still come out money and obtains cutting one pund of flesh before hte chest by Xia Luoke. Encircleeing Miss Xi Ya in case not being intelligent impersonates lawyer to get off one's hands to save from danger, Buddhist nun in Andong probably for a long time kick the bucket


and these are the credits below it:

narrated by Morgan Freeman
Recent presents a Diceburc LLC production of The Hunting of the President based on the book by Cene Lyons and Joe Conason


and it's rated PG-13 for "terror/violence, some sexual content and language"


yikes.

-6

that was today's high. can negative numbers actually be counted as 'highs'? that seems paradoxical.

anyway


I LOVE CHRISTMAS

dear coffee shops

why is your music always so annoying?







oh well.

friday

i spent 3/4 of the day sitting and calculating grades.



top 5 things i'd rather do with 3/4 of the day:

1. bake cookies
2. dance the cha cha - or rather learn the cha cha because i don't actually know it.
3. read a book
4. go to a museum
5. laugh. straight through, non-stop

music videos

one little treat i get every now and then is being able to watch mongolian music videos on the bus. several buses here in UB have little tvs affixed to the wall behind the 'driver cubby.' a few of them are functioning and generally have some kind of entertaining program running. sometimes it's european candid camera type stuff, or it's a long stream of weird ads, or it's mongolian music videos.

my favorites are music videos. this morning, the first one i caught was really quite happy. in it, a young mongolian man with bleached blonde hair was walking around a neighborhood singing very passionately while all the mongolians around him were smiling and high-fiving each other or kissing or hugging or holding hands. sometimes there would be quick shots of half naked little boys joyfully jumping into the river for a swim, or dudes hugging before one gets on a train, or a family happily walking together down the street, or an airline worker smooching a pair of plane tickets she got as a gift from her co-workers, or some lady running into the arms of her boyfriend, or a sweaty Olympic medalist and his coach cheering victoriously with the mongolian flag draped on their shoulders. then our blonde mongolian friend would reappear on screen in a new neighborhood, weaving in and out of his band mates as more mongolians behind him continued high-fiving, kissing, hugging, holding hands. occasionaly a young mongolian girl would pop up on screen lip-syncing to the singer's words.

most of the time i'm too distracted by the visual to really care about the audio so generally i have no idea what the singers are singing about. watching the music videos is sometimes like putting a puzzle together but finding out along the way that some of the pieces don't quite fit. often in the music videos there are strange surprises that don't seem to comply with the story being told. but you know to the insiders, all the images are connected by the often sporadic asthetic unique to mongolians.

in the next one, an older mongolian singer dressed very casually and wearing a khaki baseball cap was standing in the middle of CG football field. he was singing about a love story between two people who grew up together. the guy loves the girl when they're young, but the girl doesn't love him. so he ends up with a different girl (who is just awful) thinking that his childhood friend still doesn't love him - but by the time they're adults her feelings have changed. by the end of the video, the guy is in the middle of his wedding to the awful girl and when it's time to put the ring on her finger he snatches it and runs away leaving her at the altar. he's running back to his childhood girl, but i had to get off the bus before the video fully ended.

rudolph syndrom

nothing like closing the end of the semester with a cold.

i couldn't finish my last semester of teaching without a chapped, red nose.

how would i ever be able to enjoy it?


groooossss.

frozen stumps

this morning i went to naran tuul market (aka: the zakh or black market), a massive open air market place that sells pretty much everything known to humankind - from turtles to wood burning stoves, clothes hangers to raw meat, area rugs to antiques.

the thing about good old naran tuul is that it is one of the coldest places in one of the coldest capitols of the world. even in the middle of summer, you could classify it as "chilly." today, it was probably about -10 (F not C). i knew i had toes when we entered the market place, but about 10 minutes later they disappeared and frozen stumps replaced them. oh, it was cold.

the good news is that i got 1/3 of what i set out to buy at the zakh: fabric for pillows. and buying fabric is no easy task. there has to be about 50 or more stalls that sell a rediculous range of fabric and all the spools are squished and crammed together so tight you sometimes need the jaws of life to pry them free. once i had the fabric, i was just too cold to go in search of the other items on my list and thankfully my friends felt the same so we just went home.

now i'm sitting, propped up against the radiator in the living room. my toes have returned. and i'm pretty sure my pillows will look fabulous.

welcome december

happy 12/1! i celebrated the first day of my favorite month by...

-waking up early to work
-doing a dance workout to christmas music (curtesy of Twisted Sister)
-being 20 minutes late to my lesson (curtesy of crappy traffic)
-playing games with my students for an hour and half**
-hanging out with two great mongolian friends after school and listening to them talk about their boyfriends
-coming home to work

now i will fix some delish hot chocolate and get back to work. cheers.




**i don't do this regularly - this week is the last week of lessons.

thanksgiving

happy

turkey

day



gobble

gobble

poultry brain

can't write on blog. too busy dreaming about turkey.

two-for saturday

story I

today i had to buy an ink cartridge for my printer. the place to buy ink cartridges is in a building downtown named 'computer world.' you can generally find anything technology related there from cameras to copiers to (i'm pretty sure) computers. it's a trek to get to from my home - about an hour walk or 20 minute busride. i decided to walk since it was relatively nice out and i had eaten xushuur** for lunch and i already had to go downtown to meet some students.

however, much to my dismay - computer world no longer exists. after my hour long jaunt, i found it had completely disappeared and in its place was an empty shell of a building. d'oh! so, that's that i guess. hello amazon.com.

***
story II

in one of UBs larger and busier intersections, there was a fake crash site set up almost in the middle of traffic. it was like those kinds of things high schoolers do to teach about drunk driving: a severly bashed up vehicle is parked in a very public place and a few mangled people lay about covered in fake blood.

except in liu of a mangled person, this particular crash site had a guy dressed up as the grim reaper complete with ominous scythe. he was chatting aimiably with the police officers.

visual interest: check
extremely public setting: check
creepy, mythical being: check
irony of fake crash site meant to teach about safety actually being unsafe for drivers: check


i like it.






**xushuur: a popular mongolian food - it is essentially a fried pancake filled with mutton. much like beany mexican food, it stays with you all day long.

stop understanding me!

sometimes i wish no one in the world knew english except for native english speakers. sometimes i wish that english was about as useful outside its respective country as mongolian is outside of mongolia. why can't we all study chinese? or hindustani? population-wise, more people in the world speak those languages anyways. doesn't it seem wiser to speak the langauge of the highest population?

eh, well. i'm just upset because sometimes i don't want to be understood.

at least Cold Mountain isn't a musical

as i write this, my roommate is watching Cold Mountain and there is no where i can escape from it.

it's not that i dislike Cold Mountain. it's a decent movie as far as movies go. what i don't like is having to listen to it as i try to get work done (i don't dare sit in front of the tv or nothing would get done - i sit to the side). especially during the battle scenes where everyone is groaning and dying and blowing up and shooting. and the background music is a super intense drone. and nicole kidman and jude law are speaking in southern accents...ehhhh.

actually, what's worse than having to listen to Cold Mountian as i try to work is listening to Mama Mia! in German (because my roommate is a German gal).

oh, life. sometimes you're just flipping annoying.

this is how dollar stores make money

the prices of some things in mongolia completely baffles me. examples: toothpaste, dental floss, milk, anything plastic, in an aluminum can or from korea. these things cost too much. i don't like paying the equivalent of $3 for dental floss unless it's economy size and will last a year or two. items i would most likely find at a dollar tree store are at least 3 to 4 times more expensive here. and while that's uncool, i only pay $150 rent for a two bedroom apartment that has a decent view of the mountains and fairly reliable hot water/electricity.

is it very american of me to equate the value of something in monetary terms? i mean, cheap is cheap just as overpriced is overpriced, right?

whatever.

coat stink

someone ate at a restaurant for lunch because their coat smells like food. why am i smelling their coat? - because it's hanging behind me on the coat rack that's about to topple over. i dislike it when clothing smells like food, especially when mutton is involved - and in mongolia, mutton is always involved.

food stink on clothing reminds me of when i used to work at a restaurant in high school. those were mostly good times, but man i stunk! i smelled like a giant cheeseburger three or four days out of the week. that and windex because one of my jobs was to clean the windows after my shift. i was a walking windex-y meat sandwich.

bleh.


beware of food stink!

laugh

today i needed a laugh. like a stomach-ache-tear-inducing-hour-long-almost-too-painful kind of laugh. which i realize i have not had in....well, a very long time. unfortunately, i have yet to accomplish this. so maybe i can settle for now with a series of several smaller laughs. that i can share with you.

these are some things make me laugh:


Mr. Obvious Show long time listener, first time caller

Toothpastefordinner shave that unibrow!

Gap Girls lay off me i'm starving

Bill Cosby riiiight

Heavy Metal Band Names i know a guy named slayer...

Homestarrunner it's uncool now, but i don't care

Beards they have an organization!

Everyone Poops - the movie inside all of us...

Bohemian Rhapsody skalamoosh!

People falling down it's painful, but hilarious

Laughing it's contagious



ahhhh. good times, good times.

ooo yanaa!

that's what the mongolian lady passing me by said as i slipped on some ice and landed right on my tailbone. then she watched me get up, shaking her head and muttering something about how i should be more careful.

the first of many biffs to come this winter season.

joy.


...now my butt really hurts.

ugly pictures

today a co-worker was showing pictures of her 'fat days*' to us so we all could have a laugh at her. as she was pointing out her various flabs i thought, yeah! right on! way to be cool! because i know lots of grody pictures from my past i'd NEVER want to show anyone.

and then i thought -- it's so much better to purposely look hideous in pictures. some of the worst pictures of me are when i'm trying to look good in them. and some of the best (and most entertaining) are when i'm pulling a face or striking an unbecoming pose.

certianly there is a time and place to be normal and attempt looking that way, but being a freak can be so much more satisfying.

satisfy your freakiness. take ugly pictures.



*fat days for a mongolian woman means 64 kg or 140 pounds....

oh yeah

i forgot about this....

fruit

where was my life before mandarin oranges? they are the perfect fruit. and stores here just started re-stocking them!!

celebrate your fruit today!

potty talk

generally i try to avoid the bathrooms at school. they are a sesspit of nasty and uncomfortableness that justify an all-day hold.


first, the window is open all the time, no matter what season or temperature it happens to be. in the winter, it is a consistant state of torturous freeze.


second, although the walls are littered with anti-smoking paraphanalia and no-smoking signs, teachers and students still light-up together in a herd. usually they all wait until the 10 minute passing time between classes so when you open the door it looks like the inside of a hippie's VW van after some kind of stash party.


third, there are no toilet seats.


it took me a long time to figure out the reason for this. but then i kept noticing dirty shoe sole marks on the toilet rims. my theory: mongolians are a squaty potty culture, especially when it comes to public toilets. the thought of putting your butt on something other strange butts have been on is probably the epitome of gross. so they stand on the the toilet rim and squat over the toilet. however, toilets were not meant to be squat upon - they were not designed with that in mind. so all kinds of putrid surprises get splattered and splashed all over the place for the benefit of others to experience.


i'm not a squater. so i have adopted a bathroom strategy that helps me survive in emergencies. i will not go into details, but i have learned that the worst time to go is before 11 am because the cleaning ladies avoid the bathrooms until the afternoon.


fourth, to mask the smell, they burn incense. if there is anything in existance worse than incense for masking the smell of icky bathroom ... i have no idea what it is.


fifth, the plumbing is all amok so in order to avoid clogs, one must throw away one's TP - this is actually unavoidable in mongolia no matter where your bathroom happens to be located.

sixth, there is one sink and no soap. (i have to add that there is usually an abundance of hot water and an automatic hand dryer - but one out of five actually wash their hands...)


and those are the reasons why the school bathrooms are for emergency only circumstances.


grossed out? me too.

only 8 1/2 hours of daylight left

1. it's dark at 6:30 am and 6:30 pm now. leaving only 12 hours of daylight as oppsosed to the 16 during summertime. 12 hours will become 10 by november, by the way. gehhhh.

2. october is an empty month for me if it does not contain candycorn, marshmallow pumpkins, Charlie Brown, or Young Frankenstein. but it is survivable on just two of the four.

3. i came to the office at 9:30 this morning so a student could take her exam. not surprisingly, it's after 10 and she still hasn't shown up. i needed something to do and the internet was working so...here i am.

all balls

me: "what kind of sports do you like to play?"

student: "many, many! table tennis, basketball, football....i like playing with all kinds of balls. i like all balls!"

me: "oh.....great!"

cigs and tweezers

i cross a bridge everday on my way to and from work. sometimes there is a woman who sits on one end of the bridge to sell candy and cigarettes. one day, as i passed by, she was selling a cigarette to a college kid (it's illegal to sell single cigarettes out of a pack, but people here do it anyway). this would be an otherwise non-blogifiable happening, except that she was picking the cigarette out of the pack with a pair of tweezers instead of her fingers.


very germ-conscientious, but somehow.....superfluous

PG-13 fashion

today, i saw this printed on the back of a young woman's sweatshirt:

"some hockey ass d-squared"


take that back-to-school clothes.

mental image

yesterday morning, as i was walking to school, a very fat man walked out onto his balcony in nothing but underpants. like FTL underpants.

just thought i'd share that with you.

fistful of mystery

this morning i went for a walk. on my way home i noticed an American soldier dressed in his camo uniform and black boots running my way. in his hand he held a fistful of mystery papers. as he clomped past me, he nodded and smiled.

does that seem curious to anyone else?




(i have to add that that encounter has made me happy for the rest of the day and i'm not sure why)

coffee empire

this afternoon i was sad to find out that my favorite coffee shop is closed until august 3rd. so i went to a different one. this one is not as good. there is only one plugin - in the smoking section - beside a table that is directly in front of the AC machine. so i'm freezing and my lungs are slowly turning black. however, the coffee is excellent and the place is not filled to the brim with tourists.

anyway, now i have to get some work done.

smoochy

let me tell you a story:


i went to my favorite coffee shop the other day. to my immediate right was a young couple sitting and chatting. the man was clearly not interested in whatever his ladyfriend was saying because even as she was talking he'd get all smoochy on her. make-out smoochy. she even got up and moved to a different couch so he'd calm down. 5 minutes later, though, he was back by her side sucking her face off. it went on like this for about an hour. it was really distracting.


the end.

oily

i ate some good old oily chinese food last night and although it was delightful, it made me wonder how i ate similar good old oily meals every day for one year when i was in china....

also, mone cut my hair last night. i feel like a new person.

this afternoon i passed by a construction site and noticed the three construction workers spooning each other under a platform as they took a nap. i can't describe how very awesome it was to see this.

grooooooss

for three days it felt like my intestines were being pinched unmercifully tight. it was the worst sick/nausea - ness i've ever felt! and i can't think of what might have caused it: was it the flimsy egg-sausage-mayo sandwich for saturday's lunch? was it sunday's mexican food? the germs from city living finally catching up to me?

it's a mystery. my intestines feel less pinched now, but i'm really tired and i get really hot really easily. really.

i hate pinched intestines.

breaking the law of the blog

this will only happen once that i write on a monday. rest assured it will never happen again.


these two things happened this morning:

1. two ornry poor kids were walking down the street throwing stuff at people as they passed. when i approached them, they were just about to chuck some sticks at me when they noticed my big foreign face. immediately they began whimpering, "money? money?" i didn't give them anything and they went on throwing stuff at people.

2. directly following this incident, some guy tried to steal from my backpack. i heard and felt him unzip my bag, so i wheeled around, gave him a nasty look and shoved him backwards. i definitley starlted him and myself. he was a big man and i almost made him fall over. it wasn't funny at the time, but now when i replay the scene in my head, it looks hilarious. he was just so shocked.

lies!

this is a story of when i pretended i didn't speak english and it backfired on me:

some strange mongolian man snuck up on me while i was going home and wanted to 'practice his english.' so when he asked me "you speak english?" i looked at him and held up the "little bit" sign and lied. most times the guys don't really want to practice anything related to english, they want to do other things with you....if you know what i mean.


so i figured maybe this would be a clever, passive-aggressive way to shake him. not so much. he followed me almost all the way home (untill i said: go away!), asking at least three times for my number and looking deeply offended each time i refused to give it to him.


it's irritating when your lies backfire.

sillyeryness

funny words i've seen in my mongol/english dictionaries:

blobber lipped
dicker
bibber
forefaw
kloof
nid-nod
plumbum
flagitious
quidnunc
gibbosity
joss-sticks
mulct
plenipotentiary
flummery
furphy
hugger muffer
mizzle
xylanthrax
aegrotat
noddy
snaffle
truckle (or 'truckler' - one who truckles.)
unhandsome
newish
yashmak
gobbet
mammock
wodge
whang

and there's more where that came from.

tuesday's whatever.

it's been in the 70s - or for you celsius folk: the 20s - for the past 3 days . which means it will snow pretty soon. in the meantime, i'm sweating to death.

monday: i saw an old man by the bus stop standing around with his finger up his nose. he wasn't doing anything in particular with his finger, it was just plugging up a nostril.

what is up with that?


today: was normal. i wanted to wear flip flops real bad, but that's a cultural faux pas in April. my mongolian friends are still wearing their winter jackets. i already get plenty of weird stares, i don't want to increase the number.

boohoo

today i made a student cry and i feel really horrible about it. so i came home in a bad mood, ignored the good-natured guys hanging out in the stairwell, and ate some peanut butter cups. i probably ruined her life. i know all the teachers who made me cry have ruined mine.

bah!

don't read

isn’t it like 3,000 hours of a person’s life is spent waiting in traffic? that’s about how many hours i spend playing solitaire. and the only reason i play so much solitaire is because i’m a fan of The Office. in fact, that may be the only reason…

speaking of The Office, if my office ever had an Office Olympics day, these would be the competitions:
1. Who’s the Mama?: how many extremely pregnant women can we fit in here at once? [3 is the number to beat]
2. Flappermouth: who can speak Mongolian the quickest? triple points if you use speedy Mongolian during a faculty meeting involving important information that even native speakers can’t catch.
3. Coat Rack: how many coats can fit on the rack before it topples over on Alissa as she is working? or playing solitaire.
4. Phraseology: how many awkward phrases [ie: bust you’re a** off] am i asked to explain on a daily basis?
5. What’s that smell?: is it someone’s lunch? BO? stale coffee? the men’s bathroom next door? the foreigner?
6. Share the Orange: how many ways can you divide an orange so everyone in the office can have a piece?** double points if you can feed 10 with a mandarin
7. HIYA!: 2 points and a ‘judo chop!’ every time a co-worker asks me: “are you related to Jean Claude?”



the end.




**culture note: Mongolians share stuff. so if you bring any food item into a room of Mongols (including wee mandarins), be prepared to share

like the dickens!

i will use 'like the dickens' in this post as many times as possible. as many inappropriate times as possible. because it's such a stupid and irritating phrase.

tuesday's monday:

there's a good chance that mondays are out to get me. but this one wasn't so bad. however, my roommate yelled at me for not cleaning up enough. that wasn't pleasant. like the dickens. on the other hand, i talked to my parentals for 3 hours and got a box from kendall which had reeses pb cups in it. aaaaand my best friend is now on facebook. so. at the end of the day, i didn't feel like punching anybody.

i don't actually ever feel like punching people. wait. yes, i do.


tuesday:

there were 4 short term YWAM people who came to visit my class today. they all have normal names. but when i tried to write 3 of the 4 names in a text, they went all screwy. example: bryan = crybn, elissa = flippa, jordan = korean. it made me laugh. like the dickens. anyway, they were great and very helpful. i wish they would come to every class. but they should think about changing their names. nothing wrong with flippa.

on a rather sad note - i believe something is inflamed in my ankle. it hurts (like the dickens). i don't like it. i wish it would go away. not my foot, but the inflamation. good news: i have lots of ib profen to pop. like the dickens.


the end.

who dat?

fact: i'm on a slight sugar high.
fact: it's not really a sugar high.

tuesday's monday:

i ate dinner with a malaysian, german, french and japanese ( i feel like i should end french and japanese with 'person', but not so much with malaysian and german...why is that?). it was by far the most multi-cultural eating experience i've ever had. even the sushi was multi-cultural: made by my japanese friend but with korean sea weed.

not too many people can say they've had multi-cultural sushi. i think that deserves a badge or pin of some kind.


2sday:

it was freakin hot today (upwards of 60 - i kid you not). i gave myself the sweaty betty award, because that's what i was. all day.

other than sweating great amounts, nothing else happened. i may have taught a lesson.

big day

1. tuesday's monday:

i met with a student to practice english/mongolian (so you're not confused, it was me practicing mongolian). we had a grand time laughing and talking about our futures. then i spent 3 hours getting copies made. but my friends at the copy place gave me a discount and i finished a good portion of the novel i'm reading. so it was a win win win situation.

2. tuesday:

at various times i get asked to correct documents that have been translated by one of the department heads at the school i teach at. correct sometimes means re-write. but today she came in with a little bitty paragraph that was only slightly bad. after, she not too subtley stuck her wrist in my face to proudly show me a fairly nice watch she received over the weekend from the prez of mongolia. then she pointed to everything really nice about the watch. she's really proud of that gift and will probably keep it forever. i've never seen someone cherish something - but i think i saw it for the first time today.

i also noticed that a kid had "ass excellence" embroidered quite prettily on the back of his jacket. nice.

3. last day of march:

i'm happy that the sun is still out at 7 pm now. before it was dark at 5. that was gross. this is much better.

s-a-t-u-r-d-a-y NIGHT!

it's not night. more evening. but you can't sing that song with 'evening' at the end. too many syllables.

i taught a little angli khel (english) grammar today to a church cell group (aka small group) and this is what one of the participants had to say afterwards : "when you began teaching about present simple tense, my stomach started to hurt. i had to leave. i'm sorry. it was diarreah."


I GIVE PEOPLE DIARREAH WHEN I TEACH.




that's all i have to say.

friday - korean soap opera day

it's friday afternoon and i am just in time to catch a korean soap opera [with dubbed mongolian] at one of my favorite coffee shops. i'm not a huge fan of any type of soap opera, but the korean ones are pretty awesome in a horrible sort of way. i suspect strongly that the three mongolian girls sitting next to me have been waiting for hours to watch this show.

in today's episode:
there is a man and woman hanging out on a beach. uh oh...now the man in the episode has stripped down to his swim trunks and his innocent gal pal is having a hard time keeping her eyes off him. racy and scandalous! and now on the same beach but somewhere else, some girl is drowning in 2 feet of water (btw: her swimwear is extremely modest - a t-shirt and shorts) and a brave young man saves her. back on shore, the girl is limp but with a few violent shakes by her friend she magically comes back to life. her rescuer stoically walks away down the beach. throw in a couple lonely but attractive young people staring at each other across restaurants, an awkward dance party scene, a creepy fortune teller, a hot tub and a handful of over-acted, wide-eyed love/break up scenes and that's pretty much it.


this is the best friday ever.

ALL CAPS THURSDAY

TODAY'S ENTRY WILL BE IN ALL CAPS. BECAUSE I CAN. AND REALLY, I SHOULD.


IN CLASS ONE OF MY STUDENTS ASKED ME "MAY I TAKE A PISS?" HE SAID IT SO INNOCENTLY AND POLITELY, I DIDN'T HAVE THE HEART TO TELL HIM THAT THAT'S NOT REALLY AN APPROPRIATE WAY TO ASK TO GO TO THE BATHROOM. SO I JUST NODDED SLOWLY AND SMILED ON THE INSIDE.

ALSO, ON MY WAY HOME I MET A RANDOM COLLEGE STUDENT WHO WANTED TO PRACTICE HER ENGLISH. MY BIG WHITE FOREIGN FACE IS LIKE A BILLBOARD FOR EXTROVERTED ENGLISH MAJORS. SHE LOOKED 30 BUT WAS NOT MUCH YOUNGER THAN ME. SHE ALSO LIVED FOR 6 MONTHS IN JAPAN. HER PARENTS ARE HERDERS OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MONGOLIAN COUNTRYSIDE. SHE LIVES IN A GER (OR 'TENT' AS SHE CALLED IT) NOT FAR FROM MY APARTMENT. SHE EXPLAINED TO ME -IN MONGOLIAN - HOW TO MAKE BUUZ. IT WAS A VERY INFORMATIVE WALK HOME.

tuesday's monday

well, seeing as i will probably never, ever write anything on monday and always on tuesday, consider tuesday's monday a tradition from now on. a tradition that will never, ever change. ever.

**tuesday's monday -- 'today' means monday**

today i walked everywhere. i didn't intend to, it just happened. i did this for two hours straight. i gave some money to an old beggar woman and warmed her hands, but i couldn't understand anything that came out of her mouth. when this happens, i just say 'tiim uu?' (really?) after everything the person says. it illicits some funny reactions. when i got home, i made tacos. they were nothing short of awesome.

**for real tuesday -- 'today' means tuesday**

this is what happened today: i drank some coffee, taught a couple lessons, picked up some fallen cigarette cartons from some lady's stand as i was walking home and gave them back to her, complained to mone about my broken work computer, ate a boiled egg, celebrated national 80s appreciation day*.

THE END!





*there is no such thing, but if there was, i would have absolutely celebrated it. totally RAD.

wednesday's wednesday

busy today. lots of fun things happening.

actually, that's not entirely true.

there are no fun things happening today.

but it is wednesday, which means humpday, which means it is the middle of the week already, which means that's not too shabby.

tonight is the first English Club meeting. it will probably be awesome.


have an excellent humpday. i'm going to go buy scissors and glue.

tuesday's monday

it's funny that i start this blog this week. this being one of the least interesting weeks i could possibly begin a more frequent update.

last week would have been much better.

but seeing as i am a woman of the now, i'll just vaguely allude to last week throughout this week's various postings.

let's begin.

1. i realize i should have started this monday. but mondays are not my strong suit so i avoided it. actually, our internet was not working. so that's why. consider this tuesday's monday. and when you read 'today' trick yourself into thinking it's monday and you'll be fine. unless you hate mondays. then you will not be fine.

today as i was sitting in the office, a fellow teacher got up and locked the door. i thought "hm, this is strange. why is she locking us all in the office?" then i got a bit nervous because nothing happened. we were just a bunch of teachers locked in a tiny office together. and that spells disaster.

eventually though, about 3 of them grabbed their cigarettes, lit up and began smoking. after 2 minutes it was worse than a bar in there. then one of the smokers asked me "is this ok? do you smoke?" i wanted to respond with a huge, resounding "no and no!" but this is what came out: "it's ok. i don't smoke." i looked at my watch - it was only 2 minutes before classes began anyway.

this is typically how my monday classes begin:

me: ok, give me your homework.
class: silence. confused/blank stares.
me: did you forget?
class: silence. confused/blank stares.
me: do you understand?
class: silence. some of them blink.
me: great. less work for me.

despite my constant battle to get them to do their homework, my monday classes are really quite delightful. abnormally forgetful, but delightful.


**end of tuesday's monday**


2. today is tuesday, also that means St. Patrick's Day. i am wearing green, but not to celebrate. today was also another exam day for my 212 students. see, all my classes except the high schoolers essentially have 2 midterms - called Progress Exams - during the semester (which i struggle to understand the reason for), the second of which is only two weeks before their final. one of the questions i asked during this particular PE was "who are your heroes" and every person said "my dad." but one girl said "my mom." so, things are looking up moms! you, too, will eventually join the hero fold someday!

3. as i was cleaning out my favorites list i came across this doozey: old china blog and nearly peed my pants. i thought it was real funny, so check it out. later i read it again and couldn't stand it, so just one read is more than enough.