Jun 28 2007
mid-week update
More pics up today of my family, house, and random chores my family was inspired to photograph. I’ve started up wood chopping and enjoy it quite a bit – it’s the only really strenuous chore/activity I’ve done recently. On one hand, not sweating too much during the week is good when you only bathe once a week or so. On the other hand…well, you don’t get to do much. I hope to lug more water and take more baths when I’m finally in my own place.
I have my first language assessment on Monday and our teachers here are all sorts of anxious about it. It will include self-intro (jikoshokai! woo!), talk about your Mongolian and American family, general free conversation, and two situational role-plays. It’s all oral, too. I’ve been working pretty hard, so I feel ok, but it’s going to be rough for everyone, I think. When you stop and think about it, being able to say all that in 4 weeks of instruction or so is pretty mind-blowing. That plus we’ve learned something like 6 verb conjugations and a variety of noun (nominal? linguistics ppl out there, correct me if I’m wrong) cases – there are something like 7 of them in Mongolian.
I’ve been kicking myself more about not appreciating home (both where I live and where I’ve lived) lately. I keep on finding myself imagining places I’ve been and people I’ve been around and how nice it all was. I think eventually I’ll come back with a greater appreciation for just about everything “out there”.
I’m looking forward to the mid-training convocation-like event coming up next week – a hotel room where I can keep my own hours, take as many hot showers (as opposed to bucket baths) as I want, and stay out as long as I want (oh, 10pm or so) sounds great. I really like my host family though, and I know already I will miss them when I finally leave. They were saying that they hope I get placed in the aimag (provincial) center nearby so I can visit! Otherwise they said I better learn my Mongolian song (damn) well so that when I call them to keep them up to date I can sing it on the phone and make my Mongolian mom so proud that she cries. They’re pretty funny people 
It’s been cooler and more rainy this week. One thing that’s nice about the complete lack of structures is that I can forecast my own weather pretty well – you see the rain coming in hours before it shows up and can prepare accordingly. On the other hand, I still have stringent underwear-ironing and general laundering rules, and rain guarantees I’ll have dirty pants. My knuckle blister/scrapes from the last laundering are healing up though, so I think I’ll be ok henceforth in the laundering department.
I hope to write some of you soon by physical mail – by the time you get it though I’ll likely have to get the reply to my actual site (with a 6-week roundtrip), so I’m up in the air whether I will do email or letters. Stamps here are pretty cool and I know how nice it can be to get a physical item…
Ok, sleep time – I stayed up earlier this week pretty late to finish “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and my teacher had me stay after class to make sure everything was ok, I was so out of it.
