Keeping Busy

Needless to say, we have been really busy the last few weeks. For this reason, we have been a little negligent in updating the blog. It may be long in coming, but here it goes.


This past Monday we (Joshua, Jennifer, and our two teammates) finally began our two-week teaching practicum. It has been shuffled around several times because of the impact that H1N1 has made in Mongolia. It was finally decided a week from last Friday that we could have our practice class. We were nervous and felt a little under prepared, but we were set to teach. The Mongolian English teachers that had enrolled in the course all taught classes in the morning, so we had to adjust our class hours from the morning to the afternoon. We did not complain about this because it gave us more time in the morning to make final preperations for the day's class. However, this also means that we have a limited amount of time in the evening and night to be able to prepare and do other neccesities of life.
The class goes from 1 pm to 4:15 pm. The teaching load has been evenly divided between us and our teammates, but we still have a lot to prepare for each class. We have 14 students who are all great! They all have varying levels of English abilities, but all have improved during this past week. It is both exciting and encouraging that we are able to help each of them! It is so fun to see them learn and to take part in their joy. One of our leaders made a very interesting comment. She said that it is funny how we are able to help others because we learned something that we didn't even know we were learning. How awesome!
Our experince has been a rollercoaster of feelings. It is been stressful, exciting, frightning, discouraging, thrilling, uplifting, and overall tireing. However, we are where we are and are doing what we are doing for a purpose. We have been strengthened and encouraged. We still have a week to go before we are finished teaching. We all know that it is going to be difficult and tireing, but we are learning a lot. This time will be invaluable to us next semester when we are teaching every week.


In the next few days, we will be administering a test and grading our student's practice teaching times. These are all new experiences for us. Please remember us during this coming week.

After all of our class is over, we will update you on how it went.

Getting Chilly

You may remember that we had our first snow in September. Well, after that day, which was rather chilly, the temperature went back up. Up is a little relative. Our high temperatures ranged from the mid 40s to the mid 30s on a daily basis. However, about four weeks ago the temperature decided to drop rapidly. We are now lucky if the high temperture makes it into the double didgets. The high today was a balmy 4 degrees Farenhite. Although right now, at 3 in the afternoon, it feels like 13 below. The low for tonight is a teeth chattering 19 bellow. It is always a little unnerving when the Weather Channel says that the temperature will be "bitterly cold." We have the possiblity for snow in the morning with a daytime time high of 3.



The only problem about the cold is that our main mode of transportation from one place to another is walking. We bundle up as best as we can, but sometimes we just get cold regardless. Thankfully, all of the buildings have really good heat. Most of the time we are sweeting under our coats before we can get them off.



The one thing that we are dreding the most is the comming summer. Alabama and Illinios in the middle of summer are going to be our undoing. If you see us stuffing ice down our shirts during the summer you will all know why.

Жижиг Update

If you didn't remember, Жижиг (Jejeg) is the name of our cat. Being the proud cat owners that we are, we figured you all would like an update on our feline. Жижиг has quickly become part of our family. He can be a bit agrivating at times, but for the most part he is a good kitty. We think he has been good for both of us. He has made us laugh so much. He also likes to crawl up in our laps and take a nap.
Unfortunatly, because our schedule is so demanding, we have to leave him at home by himself a lot. We have turned our spare room into his room. The floor is littered with his toys, he has a nice box for a bed, his litter box, and food are all provided for him. However, he gets lonely, so whenever we are home he likes to spend time with us.

He just makes himself comfortable wherever he can find a place to lay. This includes our laps, stomaches, legs, arms, and feet. During the day, when we are home, he will crawl up with us and sleep, but we never know when he will wake up into play mode. Whenver he is not sleeping he usually wants to play.Even though he is generally a good kitty, he often needs to be reminded that he is not the master of the house. Sometimes we have to banish him to his room for a little while to teach him that he should not bite or play too rough.However, we don't think he has life too bad. The majority of his time is spent doing nothing,but we love him! He has brought us a lot of joy and laughter. He has helped us relieve a lot of stress and remember that life is not that bad.

Morning Surprises

Today we got up to a beautiful sunrise, ate breakfast, and prepared for language class like any other morning. We bundled up since the high temperature for the day was only supposed to be in the mid 30s and headed down the stairs. Much to our surprise, we discovered that our apartment building has a new indoor swimming pool! Actually, one couldn't get more than a good wade out of this body of water, but it was large enough to cover the entire floor between the stairs and the outside door. First, this was quite a sight for us since we were still partially asleep. At first we thought our eyes were playing tricks on us, but that would have been too easy. Second, after discovering that the pool before us was not a figment of our imaginations, we had to determine a means to cross over it. This was no small puddle of water. There were at least two inches by the time we left this morning. Thankfully, someone had strategically placed three large stones in the water making it possible for a person to cross from the staircase to the door without soaking their shoes. This was not the most stable means of walking, but it served its purpose. When we returned to our apartment building after class, we found that the pool had only grown in depth. Whereas it was only two inches when we left, it was at least three inches by the time we returned. By that time someone had set a bench on the floor as a means to ford our new body of water. This was much easier than the rocks but was still not as sturdy to walk on as we would have liked.

What caused this lake to form is unknown to us. We believe a pipe broke during the night causing the flood. Our only concern is the type of pipe that busted. When we returned home we noticed a distinct smell lingering above the water as well as things floating in the water. You can only imagine what that might mean.

Whatever the cause or type of water, we are not complaining. We are the adventures type, and this event only added variety and excitement to our day!