Mongolia is celebrating Tsagaan Sar. It literally translates to "White Moon". It is a family oriented holiday where the young ones pay their respects to the elders. Tonight is the night you are to eat until you are more than full to ensure you are never hungry in the upcoming year. You travel to relative's houses and get and give gifts. I believe the tradition originally started through farmers. It is to celebrate surviving another winter and giving thanks for your animals. Also, a part of the tradition is to get up early and make fresh tracks in the snow. It is important to start your new year heading in the right direction. My students like getting gifts and candy but hate all the kissing. The teaching partners left school today at 12:00 and most of the students it seemed were away. I still had 17, so my day was pretty full. The energy was very high as my students were anticipating the parties they will be having this weekend. I get a four day weekend! It couldn't have come at a better time. I've been feeling like things have been so hectic this week. After report cards and my toilet being plugged, I could use a couple of days of rest. On Wednesday we all dressed in our traditional clothes. I had bought my purple "deel" to wear around the house but it came in handy yesterday! I got to wear my housecoat to school and was so comfortable all day. Also, Oyuna took us all out for dinner last night. It was very nice.

One of my students has invited me to lunch this weekend. It comes after report cards and I believe it's a way to meet the teachers (Yumchigmaa's brother is in Mr. Carr's class) without all the formalities of parent/teacher interviews. Doogie is trying not to schedule so many interviews this time around. We don't feel I need to talk to all the parents this time. We will not deny them the interview if they request one, but most of the students are doing well.

Things have been fairly quiet this past week or so, save for the headache of report cards. I congratulated my class on making it through half the year so far. It's been marvelous and greatly rewarding! I truly cannot imagine teaching high school ever again. The honesty is refreshing and the marking definatley easier! I dreaded grading the essays.

We had no water for two days this week and last week we had no power for half the day. That meant no hot water or heat and no morning coffee for me. As I mentioned above, my toilet was clogged. It took me two days to get it fixed and I actually had to pee in my bathtub one morning! To fix it the plumber had to take the entire toilet off and snake the pipe. There literally was crap all over the place. When they reaffixed the toilet, it was not put back on correctly and water was leaking whenever you flushed it. I had to harrass the poor guy to come back again. He was not happy! We do have a saying here that when crap breaks, it's really hard to fix.

I am now the head of the ice skating club here. We will meet every Tuesday after school. Some of my students were upset because they have other activities on Tuesday, so I had to promise we'd go Friday after school too.

I must have lost weight, because my pants are big on me, and my neck looks really thin again. Doogie mentioned that after the holidays, I looked thinner. I guess my fast, cleanse, and going back to strict vegetarianism are the culprits. I just can't eat the meat here. It is so fatty and honestly, you're never really sure what it is. Is it horse, sheep, cow or what? At least they don't serve dog here like they do in some other Asian countries.

These are my students hard at work! They are working on math, specifically fractions. I recall what a tough time I had with them so I'm going fairly slowly through the material and trying to use many manipulatives. So far, so good!