Life in UB

Well it has been quite some time since I have written... my computer has been broken for a few months. I hope to get it fixed and install the best virus protection in the world and then bring the same lap top back here for my second year... that is the plan at least! Nothing too exciting happened during April and May though; I'm having a hard time even remember anything that I should re-cap on here. The end of the year was a little crazy with all the different tests students are given. School is actually still going on, but I am in UB. I came into UB about a week ago to start a seminar called TOT (Training of Trainers). So I am part of the 20th group of Peace Corps volunteers that has served in Mongolia. In country everyone just refers to us as the M20's. The next group of volunteers though, the M21's, will be arriving here on June 5. There will be 76 of them I believe, which is 7 more than we had coming in, and I guess then the next couple groups after them will be bigger and bigger... within a few years I believe they hope to have a group of 110 volunteers come in. Anyways, so us M20's and all the Peace Corps staff are very excited, and very busy! getting ready for the new group to come. The M21's will have a summer much like we did last summer. They will all have an orientation in Zuunmod for a few days, then go in groups to different small communities to live with a host family for the summer. Thoughout the summer they will be trained by myself and a bunch of other PCV's and Mongolian counterparts. Peace Corps breaks the summer in half, with different PCV trainers for the first and second halves of the summer. I will be training the M21's for the second half of the summer along with another PCV who is a friend of mine and two Mongolian counterparts. Our Mongolian counterparts are awesome; one is a middle age man who has a ton of experience in education and teaching in Mongolia. The other is a girl the same age as me; she studied at a Mongolain University to get her bachelors, then in England to get her masters, then after returning to Mongolia she worked in the President's office! This past week of working with them and the other PCV's has been awesome. I hope the summer goes really well and we can be helpful, effective trainers for the new group. I am training the sector of Cross Culture and Community Development. Every trainee will have sessions with us every week. Then they will have sessions for their specific sector and Mongolian language classes as well. Last summer I had Cross Culture, Mongolian language, then my sector was TEFL training. The other non TEFL sectors are Community Youth Development, Business, and Health. So right now the Peace Corps is crazy busy with all of us summer trainers trying to get everything for summer prepared before the new group comes in one week!!!! Needless to say we have been working pretty long days. Today is Saturday and we are heading out to meet with the host families, tomorrow we have a little retreat kind of day, Monday we do final checks at the host families homes, Tuesday is a national holiday: Women and Childrens Day!! so we have off and a big group of us PCV's are actually going to travel 45 minutes outside of UB to Zuunmod and have a barbeque. Then Wednesday through Friday will be crazy getting all lessons planned out because ideally we would like to have all lessons set for the summer so we are not rushing to plan them out the night before this summer.

My friends and I are going to run in a 5k in UB next Saturday, which should be a lot of fun. Then that night I think the plan is to head out to the airport and be there to greet the new group. They did this for us last year, and as exhausted and out of it from the flight we were, it was really cool to have the current volunteers there to support us coming into the country. Then I will actually leave for America on Monday! I am very excited to come home for a visit. Being in UB is a bit like America, with the variety of foods I can buy, real coffee at a select few places, running water and a shower in our apartment, foreign people kinda all over the place now as it is warmer.... buuuuut still not quite America haha, so I'm pretty excited to come back for a visit. It will just be nice to see my family and friends; that is definitely what I am most excited for. Other perks include being able to speak crazy fast English to everyone, walk anywhere and not be stared at or probably even noticed by anyone, and of course just eat and drink everything delicious that I have not had for the past year! Though one of my Mongolian counterparts at my school warned me he will be giving me a Mongolian language test when I get back because I can't forget my Mongolian!!!! So some people in America may get a little Mongolian language lesson from me so I make sure the language stays in my head for that month that I'm back!

First Round of English Olympics

Last weekend was the first round of the English Olympics. First a little background information... all subjects hold olympics every spring. Two students are selected from each grade to participate in each subjects olympics. So I have been working with my eight English Olympic kids for the past few months to get them prepared to compete. Last week we traveled to Bayanchandmeg Soum to compete against surrounding area Soums. Getting there was an adventure! 3 teachers (the Russian teacher along with Tamir and I), 12 students, the driver, his wife, and their little girl in one meeker (van), so 18 people total! I found this halarious, and was taking pictures of us all packed into the meeker, which my students thought was just strange that I was so amused by this. Let me tell you, Mongolians can pack like 30 people into these meekers, and I am not even exaggerating! So the fact that we had just shy of 20, in what should be a 12 person or so meeker was nothing special to them. On top of us we packed our bags and some food and we were off! I don't know if people are aware of the road situation in Mongolia, so let me give you a little info.... there really aren't many. It's basically constant off-roading on really rough terrain. About an hour into our drive we got stuck in some deep snow out in the countryside. No worries though, we all just got out of the meeker and pushed! About ten minutes later we were on our way! And a couple hours later we safely arrived at Bayanchandmeg. As far as traveling in Mongolia goes, I am extremely lucky with my site. Batsumber Soum is a few hours by train from UB. The train is slow, but a quick ride for me (compared to volunteers that travel for anywhere from 8-60 hours by car/bus to get into UB), inexpensive, and never has issues like getting stuck in the snow! And other volunteers don't let me forget how lucky I am for this!

It was somewhere around 10pm when we arrived, so I was thinking, alright, I'm going to get to bed... big day tomorrow, right... wrong. All teachers had a meeting to discuss logistics. At this meeting though I saw another Peace Corps Volunteer that teaches in Tov, she came along with the methodologist who works in the Aimag center that she lives in. So this was really nice to be able to see a friend, speak English really fast, and just have someone there that is a first-timer at all of this with me. So during the meeting the methodologist announces that "Allie will be doing a seminar for you all... with really good info., it's going to be great, etc. etc......" then she turns to me and says how many hours do you need Allie?? To which, I stammered a bit and said.... "Oh, um, not even an hour, it will be quick and informal!" And she said, "Teemo...." (this means "oh really...") So I was a little scared here... for one, I had nothing prepared, much less anything soooo interesting that these teachers had to hear. And second, this is probably not a lady that I want to make a bad impression on. So with that looming over my head I went back to my room, where my counterparts and students were in a frenzy of cramming and preparation for the next day. I think we got to bed around 2am. The next morning everyone in my room was up at like 6... and we weren't scheduled to start until 9, so I kept laying until 7 and then got up. I do not function well on 5 hours of sleep! Anyways, I got over my tiredness quick with all the excitement of the day.

To begin all students took a written test, after that was a speaking test. For the speaking test, myself and three others, two Mongolian teachers and then the other American volunteer listened and judged. My students were super nervous throughout the day, but I was so proud of how they did. Batsumber ended up taking second overall. I was extremely pleased with this and proud of my students. The best part was how well they did with speaking. The methodologist and the other teachers said Batsumber's speaking had improved a ton, and the other volunteer said Batsumber was the talk of the town that night after we had left. That was such a relief to hear... I mean, how bad would it be if after Batsumber got an American volunteer, their speaking had not improved any. So I was really happy to hear that they had improved since previous years. And my little seminar actually went great. I just talked a bit about how to make classroom time as effective as you can, giving a few different strategies and ideas. Me and the other Tov volunteer are going to do a longer seminar at the next olympics, and that one I know about and we are going to prepare together ahead of time! The sad thing was how sad some of my students were with how they did; or I think they really were sad that they were not in the top three of their grade to get a medal. A bunch of them cried after finding out how they did, which just about made me cry. As I have been working with these students so much these past months and I know how hard they have been working on their English. And all of them finished in the top half of their grade's students, which is awesome. I tried to tell this to them, but I also understand what it is like to be bummed about not doing as well as you would have liked to. I just wanted them to know how incredibly proud I was of how they did and that Batsumber placed 2nd overall. I think part of it is a pride thing too, in Soums everyone talks about everyone. So if a student gets a medal, that is a big deal and something to talk about. And if a student doesn't... well, people are going to talk about that too. So as much as I know they have improved, and the teachers at the olympics said they had improved... still not a medal to prove it. Anyway, back at school it was nice to have our school director congratulate me (she is also another lady that I never want to get on her bad side!) Tamir told me that they methodologist had called our director and told her I was a good one, so that was really nice to hear. And besides that those things are always nice to hear it was really good for hopefully giving me a little more credibility. Not that people at my school don't listen to or respect me because they do. But people like to see results, and this gave my training manager and director at least a little proof that having me here will help give some results with improving English.

The next round of olympics will happen in a few weeks and only two students go, one 9th grader and one 11th grader. I will probably have another blog entry about how that goes! Lately at school we have been busy preparing for this English drama competition. It was actually supposed to be this weekend but was postponed. So this past week of school was crazy busy; I literally felt guilty if I left school before like 7pm. But some days I had to... you can't chop wood in the dark! At least I don't trust myself to! For the next two weeks students have their spring break. I will be going into school most days, and part of each day I will work with those two English Olympic students. I am going to take a long weekend in UB though to re-stock on some things, eat some good food, drink some good coffee, see my American friends. Ahhh I love UB! So far I have not heard of any of my students going to Mexico or Hawaii for their spring break... hehe, man some things here are so different!

Pictures

Finally trying to get some pictures on here...

One of the posters students drew for Teachers Day... Notice the technology teacher in goal with an ax! I was happy they had me yelling "come on" to my teammates, pretty fitting actually... little do my students here know how much I liked to talk/yell when I played.

This is my puppy!! So that is frost on her face, this was right away in the morning and she was still thawing out... I'm trying to transition her into being a full-time outdoor dog. She is getting to big for my ger and all the Mongolians think I am crazy for ever even letting her come inside! Ok, now don't worry, she sleeps out in my little enclosed entry-way and she likes it! That way she can go out and bark at things at her leisure during the night. I also decided it's about time I give her a name besides just "gulug" the Mongolian word puppy. Well actually Tamir told me I should name her because it's just weird that I call her gulug now when she's huge! So her new name is Lucy I have decided... your thoughts??

My ger!

Tsagaansar back in Erdene Soum! My Mongolian host dad, my American Peace Corps friend, Maggie, and me. I think this was like 10am... starting the day off right.

The Little Beautiful Things

The other day I made it a point to write in my journal. I planned on being so good about consistently writing in it, but my entries tend to be about as often as those on my blog... But my entry consisted of two lists (if you are unaware, I like to make lists haha) One list was frustrating things, and the other was beautiful things about my life here in Mongolia. The frustrating list ranged from things like having to worry about getting more wood delivered when I've run out... to school things like my seventh grade boys punching each other during class, making me kick them out, only to probably be then punished by other teachers in a way I don't agree with. I definitely had quite a few things included on my list of frustrations, but getting hung up on any of those things really isn't going to help Mongolia. So onto my longer list: All the little beautiful things... everyday is sprinkled with wonderful moments that make me just stand back in awe for numerous reasons. Here is a random sampling of some of these moments I'm remembering off the top of my head now... #1 A bunch of my seventh grades boys called me over to them and rolled up their shirt sleeves a bit to show me "tatoos" identical to mine that they had drawn on their wrists. #2 My puppy (who is big and fat now, I don't think I can even call her a puppy) being sooooo excited and jumping all over me when I get home from school. The wagging tail is the cutest part. #3 Kids that I don't even teach English to because they are too young, always saying hi to me. These kids seek me out! They see me from so far away and start yelling "Allie, hiiiiii", and when I get closer they all repeat the chorus of hellos again. Adorable. #4 Batnyam sceaming to me from outside as I was in my ger. I run outside thinking something crazy or horrible or really important was happening, but he is right outside my ger just staring up at the sky. I look up too; there is one plane flying. This seems like no big deal right, but he tells me that he has seen a plane only once before, and has never sat in one. So I kept watching the plane with him, and ponder it flying above Mongolia. But I also thought about how many more times likely it is for a kid in the U.S. to fly on a plane, than a kid in Mongolia... and other opportunities like that. #5 My old seventh grade classes running up and hugging me after not seeing me for awhile. #6 Having coffee with Batnyam, Batzorig, and occassionally Narnaa (cute little peanut of a girl) in my ger on the weekends. Batnyam can't drink it when it's really hot, so he takes my little water scoup thing and pours the "coffee"~I put probably 7 parts sugar, to every 1 part instant coffee in his. But he pours the coffee from his cup into my water scouper, and back and forth like this until it has cooled to his liking. He reassures me though when he is big like Batzorig he will be able to drink it hot. #7 Meeting up with some friends in UB to meet with different NGO's. We are all in different parts of Mongolia, with totally different school situations and struggles, but we are all doing it. And it is so refreshing to hang out with such good people. I don't even know how to explain it, but it's great. We have these different goals and we are not sure how to reach them but we are going to try. The support system of other volunteers here is the best. There's about 60 of us from the M20 group still in Mongolia now, and I think something like 30-40 of us are English teachers. So there are that many people to possibly talk with about things, and then I have my group of really close friends. When I'm frustrated with something, these people understand. And when I just need school activity ideas these people have them. It is an awesome thing to have support from close friends that are here having a similar experience.

As for other news... the English Olympics are coming up very soon so we have been very busy getting ready. Two students per grade, grades 7-11, participate. I have been working with these students for several hours everyday, including Saturday and Sunday now! I am pretty excited to see how they do. Today I spent about 5 hours judging an English song and English drama cometition with some other teachers. Each class put together an English song and drama and performed for us. Tomorrow we will select who gets to go onto the next stage where we compete against other schools. It was really fun to watch, and cool to see my students dressed up and all nervous about performing. For the past few days I have been helping some of them prepare... I'm now again very familiar with a few of the Backstreet Boys songs I was such a fan of way back when! Anyways, I think spring here is a time of a lot of competitions and holidays. So my goal for spring is to not get hung up on the lesson planning I should be doing, or the grant that I want to have turned in by this month! or the million other things I should be getting caught up on... but sometimes just relax and enjoy it all.

Tsagaansar!

My apologies in advance for a terrible explanation of what the holiday Tsagaansar really is... but that is what I have been celebrating here in Mongolia for this past week! Tsagaansar is one of the big National Mongolian holidays. It began on February 14 and officially lasted for three days, though many people celebrate much longer than that. Tsagaansar celebrates the lunar calendar's new year and the name Tsagaansar means "White Month." During Tsagaansar Mongolian families make hundreds or sometimes even thousands of buuz. Buuz are a National Mongolian food that are comparable I would say to like a meat ball wrapped in a flour shell... wow that's a kind of horrible explanation but I think you get the point! So for Tsagaansar I traveled back to Erdene Soum, where I lived for 2 months this past summer, to visit my Mongolian host family. It was awesome to see them again, and my family was really happy to have me back for the holiday. Being in Erdene for Tsagaansar was awesome because Erdene is like the real Countryside, so I got the total experience celebrating there with my Mongolian family. We would wake up, put on our Mongolian Deels and start the day of buuz eating by like 10am, and didn't stop until at least 10 at night. During the days of Tsagaansar everyone goes around to each others houses and eats buuz, drinks fermented horse milk, milk tea, and vodka, then receives a gift from the hosting family. We would go to anywhere from 3-7 houses per day.... and you are supposed to eat a minumum of three buuz per house, as well as drinking all of those things.... so you can imagine how my body was feeling after a few days of this! It was a wonderful experience and I am very happy I went back to my host family to share it with them. By the third day though my other Peace Corps friends and I were ready to head back to UB! We say we are detoxing our bodies from all the meat and grease right now, and it feels oh so good!

This afternoon a few Peace Corps friends and I are going to meet with an NGO here in UB. We are all really interesting in different gender issues here in Mongolia and would like to work specifically on sexual harassment somehow. Us three Americans have met on our own, and we have an idea of what we would like to do in the future, but we are going to need a lot of help from Mongolians and hopefully some of these NGO's. I hope this meeting today can give us a better idea of the kind of things that have been done and are currently being worked on in Mongolia. I think we are going to find though that not much of anything has been done to date. I will update more on this topic as things hopefully get rolling, but as of now it's just all these ideas we have floating around.

Other news... Mongolia has an event called the English Olympics (actually not just English, every subject has an Olympics) every spring. Two students from each grade participate in the English Olympics as well as one teacher. I have been working with my Olympic students for months, so I am excited for the competition to see how they do (also a little nervous). As I understand it there are several preliminary type of rounds between Soums and then if the students make it they go onto the Olympics in the Aimag center (like a State Capital). I have definitely seen improvement in my students speaking because we have practiced so much, but I have no idea how they will do against other schools students. They have worked so hard and are such good kids though so I really hope they do well. Plus if they do well I feel like it will prove to them and everyone else in the school that you really can speak English if you work on it. A lot of times students are pretty good with grammar, and written English work, but when you ask them a question where they have to speak.... well that is much more difficult for them. Speaking is one of the skills I really want to focus on at my school and help both my teachers and students with their speaking skills. This is also one of the main reasons most schools want a volunteer like me in the first place; to have a native speaker around, for people to listen to and practice speaking with. It was nice to go back to Erdene Soum and hear people say (in Mongolian of course) that I have studied Mongolian well and my Mongolian is good. Now trust me, it's still not good, but it's a lot better than it was in the summer. Why....? Because I've practiced and studied. So besides the fact that knowing the language better will help me with everything I do here.... I also want to learn Mongolian to prove to my students that you can learn a language. I started off knowing nothing, and most of the time when I speak I sound silly and make so many mistakes. But that is ok, you just have to try and work at it, and it will gradually get better.

A Frustrating 40 Minutes

Well, nobody likes Mondays right, though my day as a whole was pretty good. Every morning I go and have tea with one of the first grade classes, which has turned in to one of my favorite parts of the day. First of all, who doesn't love cookies and tea in the morning? Second, these kids are adorable! They are six years old and they wear the cutest uniforms in the whole world (one of these days I will take a picture and then finally post some pics on my blog). But the kids all say hi to me when I walk in, and the saying hi lasts for like the first five minutes I'm in there. Then they all want to show me what they are working on, so I walk around and check everything out, throwing out a lot of "san bain's!" (good job!) Then when I leave the chorus of "goodbye," "biarte," "bye bye," "see you tomorrow," "margash olsetla biarte" etc. I say everything in English and Mongolian... maybe when these first graders get to fourth grade and have their first English class they will be way ahead of the curve! haha

Next was my 7b class, who most all the time have pretty excellent behavior. I have a ton of fun teaching this class. They cheer when I come in to teach, and we joke throughout most of class. If I do something they don't like, for example writing a bunch of new words on the board and saying "ok, write these down." Some of the boys will right away say, "teacher mo!" (bad teacher!) ~No worries they are only kidding, so to this I pretend to start crying and they immediately take it back and yell, "teacher san!!!" (good teacher) The point though is that I do feel like this class might be learning some English because I can actually get and keep their attention, and most of them write everything I ask them to and participate well. Their good behavior also allows me to plan more fun lessons. Last week when we were learning words related to crime, don't judge the material, I didn't write the books! But in groups I had them acting out the different new vocabulary words: burglary, pickpocketing, shoplifting, etc. and it was a lot of fun. Soooo I leave this class and go to my 7g.... Right at the start I have like ten kids asking to go outside and go to the bathroom... so I tell some of the girls to go, as the boys go and don't come back for 30 minutes. I write the date on the board, as I do every class at the beginning, and as usual the same 10 or so students are writing it along with me. I feel bad for this group because through the chaos of the class they are trying so hard to concentrate and hear (and throw me f'ing bone I think) but it is nearly impossible. So I write the date and do my lap around the room, 3/4 of the kids aren't writing the date because they are coloring other stuff (today I just took the stuff away), they don't have their notebook (I tell them get other paper, I don't care what paper they use), they don't have a pen (what do you use for all your other classes??), or they just continue doing what they are doing like they have no idea why I'm standing there. So then I always get this feeling of, ok, these few kids aren't going to write even if I get their notebook out for them and wait until they start writing (just to get me to go away) so I think... get back up to the front of the room and teach for those kids that genuinly want to learn. So I do. But as much as I say in Mongolian for them to be quiet please, and listen please, and look please... all of those students that are not doing any of those things are being too loud for the ones that are to even hear me, so I lap it again. A group of boys had clustered in the back of the room, and had started to fight -they were playing though, not really fighting, more like wrestling how they do. One of the twins was getting the little garbage can to take out, and water bottles to go fill (seems nice right, but so not something he is supposed to be doing during English class). Other boys I walk by and tell to get out their notebook just continue to draw in their English book and have none of the notes taken. Another desk with two students is just sitting there with nothing out, which they never do, this is no surprise. Then a handful of others are drawing; English notebook nowhere in sight.

So a lot of days there comes a point where I guess I just kind of give up, and I kinda just wait for things to calm enough that enough students can hear me so I can continue. Today I guess though I was less patient or just more annoyed. I left the room to go find a counterpart so she would yell at them. I'm not about to scream and yell in English, as I think I would have a classroom full of kids laughing at their crazy teacher that nobody can understand. The frustrating thing though is when Tamir and I came back the kids are all back in their seats, sitting quietly, as they were afraid of who I was going to bring back with me. Then kids who have done no work throughout the whole class are all pointing fingers at each other for "who was being bad." Then my counterpart leaves me alone again and the chaos resumes. It makes for a very long 40 minutes.

I guess you could say I don't know what to do with this class. It is very frustrating for me as a teacher because I know I can do better, but I don't know what to do. And I feel like if I spoke their language, or if they spoke mine, I could get some kind of a better understanding so that we could accomplish things during class. Though I guess thinking that way isn't going to get me anywhere, as no time soon are either of us going to speak the others language well enough to make that happen.... It is also so frustrating to me too because I don't like when teachers blame students for things that I think the teacher could have avoided all together if the teacher would have done a better job. Like with behavior management things; it bothers me when teachers blame students for not paying attention or something like that, and I'm seeing their lesson and thinking, you're not giving them anything to pay attention to! So I am trying to keep myself in check by always thinking if I were a student would this be interesting? But so far with this class it doesn't seem to matter. So many days I've come in with different manipulative things I've made or fun word games planned, only to leave discouraged because obviously such activities wouldn't go well with this class, why did I waste that time planning them?

Well that's enough about 7g for one day I think. This past weekend was good, did a lot of ger work. Chopped a lot of wood so I don't have to do that during the work week. Then I actually went by foot for the first time to get water from the well. When I have gone before it was in Tamir's Husband's truck, which is easy enough. He was not around though, actually in UB getting surgery (he is ok, no worries) so we had to go without the vehicle. Batzorig, Bagi, and I took our water jugs in metal carts and pushed/pulled them the mile or so to the well (in the freezing cold mind you). Then the way back was a little slower going now being full of water! The whole thing was kind of a funny adventure for me being the first time, and knowing I probably won't have to get water that way many more times ever. But what a serious pain in the butt for people that have no vehicle, or even if you do, just the fact that you have to travel far away to get water that will only last you a little bit before you have to do it all again. The irony of it to as I was on my way to and from getting the water, was knowing when I got home I needed to use it to wash my clothes by hand (another hour or two of manual labor).... All the ger work though is a piece of cake compared to teaching 7g.

The Holidays in Mongolia

Happy 2010 from Mongolia! Not trying to brag too much, but I was actually hanging out in year 2010 like 12 hours before all of you! haha Mongolians celebrate the New Year big time, though not many actually celebrate Christmas, though most knew a little about it. It seemed like all my students and others in Batsumer thought that we called what they call New Years, Christmas; I explained that Christmas is on December 25 and New Years is another, seperate holiday on December 31. My students were adorable on Christmas; they made such a point to celebrate the day for me. Mongolians don't celebrate Christmas (or at least in my Soum none did) so I just went into work as usual on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I had my seventh grade classes on Christmas day and they came and got me, tied a scarf around my eyes and brought me into the classroom. Then they threw confetti they made on me and sang the Christmas songs that we had done the previous classes. They had bought fruits and cookies and candies for me so they instructed me to sit and eat, as they all stared smiling at me.... It was quite odd, considering they are never quiet and just paying attention to me like that when I am trying to teach them. But this time all attention was awkwardly on me eating. They had also decorated the chalkboard with all kinds of Christmas pictures they drew, and paper flowers they had made. The funny thing was that they glued this stuff to the chalkboard... so went to leave all the kids scraped away at the chalkboard to try and get all the pictures off to give to me... In my head I was thinking, which one of you thought glue was the best way to go?! It was really, really sweet of them though, and it made my day. Then a group of teachers threw a little Christmas party for me at night. The director toasted, saying this was the first Christmas celebrated at the school in Batsumer, and that we will celbrate again next year. The teachers had all kinds of foods and drinks and we sang songs and danced. It was fun and again, so nice that they all did that so that I could celebrate my holiday.

New Years Eve day was craziness at school. It is kind of like when we would have Christmas parties and things at school in America, but times 10. Each classroom had music blasting and all kinds of food, champagne, cakes, candies, etc. It was a blast, but also kind of funny that each classroom had turned into like a disco club in the middle of the day. And the students kept wanting me to dance, which I'm like wow this is insanely awkward! ~I did it anyway. But you know, usually I like to dance when I'm out with my friends at a dance club or somewhere that it is dark and everyone is dancing... not when 40 9th graders are staring at my every dance move (no doubt thinking, ohhhhh so this is how Americans dance...)! The kids are all awesome though; they are such good hosts, every classroom I went in they insisted I sit and eat cake and dance and just hang out, which as a teacher, it is always nice to feel like students want to be around you. The night before Batsumbers teachers and other workers from the Police Station, Government Building, Kindergarten, and Hospital all celebrated New Years at the culture center. Same type of deal, lots of food, drinks, dancing, singing, etc. A lot of women wore prom-type dresses to the event, and men in suites. I don't have such attire with me here in Mongolia (and I was so close to bringing that old prom dress, crown and those heals too...) so I, as usual, stood out a bit in my sweater and black pants. Though last time I was in UB I did purchase some black boots with a little heal, so I fit in a bit more wearing those! Zulaa my supervisor said I should go around and wish the head government guys a Happy New Year, which I was like, um please come with me! So we went over to their table, and I wished them a Happy New Year. The three of them were so nice and very interested all about me (in a cute older men type of way). They said that they are going to introduce me to many rich, big Mongolian men so that I can pick on to marry. I said sure, why not!

The other day in class my 11th graders started asking me just random questions at the end. Then this group of boys were like, "teacher come on!" and I was like, no, no, it's, "teacher come here" ~teacher come on sounds like something completely different than "come here" I think! So they had written a note (they are all like deathly afraid of speaking in English, but can write pretty well) and it said, "Do you have a husband?" I said, no. Then in about a minute, "Teacher come here!" The note says... "When will you get a husband?" I said, I don't know! A minute later, "American or Mongolian husband?" Me, I don't know! A minute later they write, "Mongolian." I write, "Who??" They respond by writing some famous Mongolian wrestler. To which I was pretty pumped, as they could have been like, oh that drunk guy out there in the street or something, but to give me an olympic wrestler.... not too shabby! But I did ask them if he is good looking, because let's face it, I need that! And they assurred me, "Teacher he is beautiful." Done deal, sorry mom, marrying this wrestler.

Other than the all the craziness of the holidays not too much is new. School is still good, it is busy, and classes can at times still be very frustrating. Still have that wondering if my kids are learning any English from me. Though when I work with them in smaller groups, like when I have clubs with each grade of students and when I work with the kids that will participate in the English Olympics in the Spring, I do feel like I am actually accomplishing something. The other main thing I need to get going is to consistently work with the other English teachers. We have in theory been doing this all year, but week by week it is hard to make actually happen when so much other stuff is going on. That I think though is the key to my being here being truely sustainable; if I can help the other English teachers language improve, then in theory all the students English will also improve. Other random funny thing... The other day in my seventh grade class (of course) some boys were trying to pierce their ears with dull pencils. Which I have already told them, "No, No, No! -you need something sharper and your ear to be colder, so do it after class out in the snow!" But they are persistent, so anyways, I have a group of boys practically crying, ear bleeding during class as I'm trying to teach about the Past Simple Tense. Needless to say, I don't think they could say, "My ear bled during English class today."