July 21 This is going to be a novel. There are several exciting things I need to blog about. 1. Cashmere 2. Going to Erdenet/UB/Darkhon/Orkhon 3. Nadaam 4. Going to the Taiga 5. Good bye to my town, my schools 70th anniversary 1. Cashmere: Some of you may remember that I combed goats last year. [...]

I have been a horrible blogger this year.  But the reality is that my life is pretty standard.  I don’t really have much blog worthy to say.  I work and I rest.  The only difference from most other people is that I do that in Mongolia.  The amazing thing is how quickly you become acclimated [...]

It is nearly Tsaagan Sar (which I translate as white month, but it might be more accurately translated white moon.  The word for moon and month are the same).  Either way it is lunar new year, the year of the ox is ending and Tiger is starting.  Mongolians also believe that spring starts after Tsaagan [...]

Life may finally be retuning to quasi normal (or as normal as it is going to get). The high schools have been in session for two weeks now, I missed one because I needed a flu shot and got a couple of days off for Thanksgiving. There was a party hosted by Peace [...]

I haven’t posted in a while becuase I have nothing to say. I, quite literally, have been doing nothing.  The first case of H1N1 was diagnosed in Mongolia at the beginning of October.  Since then life has at times seemed surreal.  The government of Mongolia’s first response was to close all the schools when it [...]

Hello! It has been a while again. I am really bad at regular blogging. I apologize. Part of my lack of blogging is that I haven’t done anything really exciting to write about. A friend came to visit (I apologize if I already wrote about this, I can’t remember). We went [...]

July 27, Still no internet, actually I went to the net, but didn’t have my blog to post, so it is going to grow again. I apologize that I haven’t posted in so long, and that this post is so long. The post is roughly in reverse chronological order (most recent to oldest). I am also [...]

My trip to Korea was good.  I am sure the Americans living in Korea would disagree with this statement, but Korea is very America like.  It just goes to show that everything depends on your perspective, for me Korea is more like America than Mongolia, but not America.  I spent a week with my friend in [...]

I’m in Korea!  Visiting a friend.  It is super exciting.  Today I went to an ancient captial of the unifiers of Korea, Shilla people.  There is a fancy temple, and a big museum.  It was very pretty, and very green.  I had some troubles, Korea is not big on the English speaking, and my Korea [...]

So I appear not to be very good at this blog updating thing.  Nothing really exciting has happened.  But I will recap in chronological order. English Olympics: they happened at the end of April, but were very anticlimactic.  After all the preparation I was expecting something bigger. Graduation: The biggest graduation news was that it snowed.   Everyone [...]

Hello all! So it might have been a little while, actually not that long, but I figured that most of you don’t want to read about my daily life, because to be honest it is quite boring. I wake up I go to work, I come home and I do other normal things [...]

Amaraa Bainuu? Saikhan Shineleerei! (Not so literal translation for both: Happy New Year/ Happy Tsaagan Sar). Tsaagan Sar means (Literally) White Month/moon (sar can be translated as both month and moon and I have heard it used both ways in this case), is what we would call Lunar New year (or maybe Chinese New Year [...]

I have the internet again!!!!!! At least for a little while! Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My current band width usage would rival video conferencing which is unfortunate because I only have a dial up connection and things are going VERY slowly, but I have a lot to down load –2 forms for Peace Corps, an update for [...]

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So it is now 2009.  A little unbelievable!  I had a blog post written on the new year but my flash is not working with this computer.  So I will post it later.  I guess the biggest thing was that it has really gotten cold.  As in freezing exposed skin cold.  It makes getting out [...]

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Is VERY difficult. I guess I should not be to surprised by this, farming (or actually herding) is supposed to be a very difficult job, that I have had next to no exposure to. A typical day in my brief 3 day stay, we rose with the sun (which sounds challenging but is really around [...]

Since I have arrived in the city I will put up a post. This post is on Halloween, with the help of my counterpart we had a Halloween costume contest by class in my school (the way my school is divided each grade has 2 classes and they stay the same so class 7b has [...]

Things are normal.  I team teach 15 classes a week and teach 10 hours a week on my own.  When I say hour I really mean 40 minutes, but I guess it is the same thing.  I also teach four hours to teachers at my school (sometimes with another teacher and sometimes without).  The kids [...]

October 4 I went to my first wedding last night.  It was really interesting.  Very very different from an American wedding.  First of all there is no religious aspect – no priest/monk – so I guess it is more like having just a reception. the wedding I went to was actually not the actual wedding it [...]

Hey! School has started things are good.  I am teaching about 30 hours a week, student from 4th - 11th grade.  Things are really good. I will write more later!

So I have safely arrived at my site! I love it! It is in a beautiful part of Mongolia surrounded by taller mountains than my training site was. I live in a wooden house and my host family lives in a ger. My family is really really awesome. I have two little siblings, 3 and [...]

Today has been a big day. Mongolia won a gold medal in the Olympics in heavy weight (100 kilos or more Judo). One American with 32 medals to their nations name may ask why this is a big deal – it is the first time Mongolia has won a gold medal i ever.  Everyone is [...]

It has been a really long time since I was able to communicate with anyone. I have sent letters, I don’t know if anyone has received them. My town does have a post office but it is never open, so to mail a letter you have to go to the post masters house, drink tea [...]

So some of you may have heard about riots in UB, related to some controversy with the elections on July 1. I want to emphasize that the violence was only in UB.  I want everyone to know I am safe, and the violence seems to have ended.