I finally got a knock-down cold. It actually seems a lot like the bronchitis I had a couple of years ago. I have some old medicine from when Gobi was ill. Everyone thought she had a lung condition before the distemper took her. Plus, the pets here get people medicine. I looked up the antibiotics on the internet and they are both for lung bacterial infections.

One of the staff here could tell I was ill and gave me some medicine too. She told me that the best way to treat illness was to drink your own urine. I thought she was joking, but, no. Apparently doctors tell you to as well. I am sorry, but that just ain't gonna happen.

There is a Valentine's dance tonight and I got suckered into being a chaperone. I had decided to try to avoid it but I was asked personally by some of the students and couldn't say no. It's only from 4-6 so not such a bug deal. Maybe tonight I will sleep!

My milk finally went bad. Here, I thought it was unable to expire. I have had the same open tetra pack of milk for many months. I have no idea what they do to it here, but it lasts forever. Well, almost.

I had quite the fright on Thursday at school. Enkhee came up to me and wanted to ask a favour. I said, "Anything." She started on this line of discussion saying her brother was coming into town for the holiday. By the nervous way she was behaving I was beginning to think she wanted some of her family to stay with me! Turned out all she wanted was to borrow my camera for the weeeknd. She made it sound like she was asking for my first born or something!

I went for lunch at Yumchigmaa's place yesterday. It was very nice. I got to see her room and meet all sorts of family. There was too much food and I ate steak but didn't want to apper rude or impolite. There also was beef tongue. I did not try it but Tina did and she said it tasted like roast beef. She ate three pieces. She also was mistaken, again, as Mongolian. It was very sweet to see how out our student's parents discussed how to properly say things in English to us. There was something of a language barrier though, as I would ask a question and it was either very cleverly deflected or misunderstood. On occassion, they would call in one of their children to translate. Before we knew it, four hours had passed and it was time to head home.

My Mickey Mouse humifidier has broken! I dropped it after refilling it and it basically shattered all in the hallway. I had to clean up much water and many shards of plastic. I am not a happy camper. It is so desperately dry here you really can't live without one, as far as I'm concerned.

I got really bored last night and decided to head into town. I arrived just in time to learn all was closed! One man at the pub actually locked the door and gave me a big "X" sign with his arms. I went home, argued with the taxi driver over the price he charged me, and began to rewatch Grey's Anatomy season 1. I have become utterly addicted to that show. I sure miss regular tv sometimes.

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!

We have an ice skating rink behind my apartment building at school. I decided on Friday to take my ESL class for a fun period. From left to right; Enkhdelger, Chandmani, Yumchigmaa, and Urin (pronounced Oohrin, not urine). Of course, the shadow is me. We had a lot of fun! I hadn't been in so many years and was worried about looking silly but it is rather like riding a bike, you don't forget. I was truly amazed at the girls' abilities. Three of the four had either never been or only skated once before and they were old pros! They contribute it to being really good at roller skating.

Unfortunately, not all of the class could go. This is only half of my ESL class. One's mom wouldn't buy her skates because she was worried she would get hurt. The other's didn't bring them because their parents said they were sick. Two of my girls actually cried because they couldn't come! They wanted to just come and watch but I said it was too cold out just to stand around for an entire period. This morning when I took the temperature it was -32. It usually gets up to around -25 during the day, without windchill factor. If you're moving it's not so bad. I found a pair of skates for myself last night but they are boys. I really like them though. I felt badly saying "I'm going to buy skates!" offhandedly because though they cost me 40,000 TK (a little more than $30) to them it's a lot of money. I have especially noticed it when Doogie asks me how much something I'm eating costs, like my granola bars. When I say I don't know she will make a face that says "of course you don't know, you have money". I have been giving her groceries though. Sometimes I will buy something to try it and end up not liking it or just realizing that I will never eat it and she is pleased. I did the same with my cleaner, Ganaa, who is so sweet! I gave her some potatoes I bought and told her that they were quite old and I didn't want to give her food that was going bad but also did not want to see go to waste. She understood and took them saying, "It's okay, I will use them."

This is my class during their swimming instructions. The pool isn't really large. When they swim laps together they are kicking and elbowing each other all the time. They seem to be pretty conscious about it though. They wear swim caps but they do nothing to keep their heads dry. The parents have been complaining about it being the last two periods of the day and the kids going outside after with wet hair. I tried to get it changed but to no avail.

This is our class trip to the International Intellectual Museum. I thought it was a bit cheesy but the wood carved puzzles were really interesting. The owner and founder of the museum managed to steal the show when he performed magic tricks for the class. Needless to day, those were mostly what the students bought at the gift shop. I bought a few items, including a puzzle that is traditionally given to potential daughter's-in-law. If they can't perform the task, they are considered unintelligent and not suitable to become one of the family. I was shown how to do the trick and of course when actually asked to perform it, couldn't. Just proves I'm not marriage material!

Things have been clicking along quite nicely here. The new principal is fun and nice and straightforward. I never leave his office more confused about the issue we were talking about than before. I appreciate that. My class loves him! They want to include him in all that we do and love to talk to and tell him things. It's not exactly the best photo, but the bald guy with the beard is Mr. Richard. The ones beside him are Dan and Tina Carr and then the Konowpaski's (I can never spell their name properly!). They are leaving soon due to her pregnancy. She is the school nurse and some of my student's ESL teacher. For some reason, they think we look alike! Tina is Phillipino but everyone here thinks she's Mongolian.

I am glad to say I have rediscoved my love of cooking. Initially I found it difficult here because everything looked so foreign and I could only discern what was in a package by the picture on the box. Now I'm much more comfortable buying groceries and love to cook Asian style cuisine. I have found that every once in a while one of the markets sells frozen calamari. It is whole and so delicious! I take care not to overcook it to turn it into rubber. This is one of those items, I'm sure, that if I mentioned it to Doogie she'd ask me how much and I can honestly say no idea. I just tried it one day and am now addicted. If it's there, I buy it. Once in a while I can find smoked salmon.

I have caught my first Mongolian cold. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. The weather is so harsh here you'd expect the cold to knock you flat and keep you in bed. I still worked and Doogie gave me some pills that are the equivalent to our Sinutab or Contact "C". They helped quite a bit. Still, it seems the cold here never quite go away. You always have a bit of a cough or a runny nose. I can't say I'm surprised about getting sick, with a class of 24 kids it's bound to happen. Hand sanitizer, anyone?

There has been quite the scare here this holiday season in regards to alcohol, specifically, vodka. Apparently some Mongolian made vodka poisoned a bunch of people and they died. There was some sort of mix up with the methanol/ethanol ingredient or some such problem. They just stopped selling all alcohol in general, including beer and wine. I hadn't noticed. Well, I did notice when I went shopping that all the bottles were covered up but I had assumed it was due to the fact it may have been considered too early in the day to sell it. Poor Dan, all he wanted was a beer. It makes me even more glad I have a self-imposed vodka ban on myself. Dan was saying that at the school Christmas party he was terribly ill and wondered if it may have had something to do with that.

Just a small correction to one of my earlier blogs. I had the directions wrong, I always get zoon and barone mixed up. Zoon is left and barone is right. John gave me a good way to remember. Zoon has the same number of letters as left. You can tell he's a primary teacher!

While John and Christina were in Korea they had an ultra sound done. The medical treatments there are much better than here. If you have a serious illness here it is not uncommon to head to Beijing for treatment. The doctor said it's 80% a girl. Christina said it was funny because people had been telling her that no one in Mongolia finds out what the baby is before it is born. She said it's really because the ultra sounds here are so bad you can't see anything anyway. They are heading back to Canada to have the baby there. I had forgotten you can't fly in the 3rd trimester so they'll be leaving in a few months. I told her the kids were going to be devastated because they love her so.

I am just getting ready for my first PD day. I'm feeling good. My cleanse is over and I broke my fast finally on the night of the 4th. I've decided to go back to being a vegetarian because the meat here is gross and makes me ill. Aside from just learning how to fall asleep at a decent hour, I'm doing pretty good! I have been trying to upload more photos but my camera and computer are not cooperating with me. Soon!

I almost forgot! Tina and Dan are a married couple here. Dan was adopted and they have been considering adopting a Mongolian baby. I had to tell them they needn't worry about all that paperwork and whatnot. You can just walk the streets and be offered a baby! As I was leaving Charming Beauty after my facial and massage (ahhh, hot rocks!) I noticed a middle aged woman walking with a baby. She made a bee-line for me and I assumed she would try to sell me something or pan handle. Nope, she offered me her child. I looked at her like she was crazy and walked away. It's one thing to take in a stray puppy, but a child! We figure she must be in dire straights to feel she had to do something like that and that she probably had many babies at home too. Dan said I should have taken it and named it Gobi II or Gobi's Little Helper.

Seeing as how I live in such a harsh environment I decided to have a pamper day. Facial and hot rock massage. I'm in love with the hot rocks! I have a bad feeling I'm going to be hooked! I really wanted the massage because I put lower back out again by carrying too many heavy grocery bags. It did help a bit but I'm still in some pain.

Yesterday I treked to the air line office to get my refund for my defunct vacation. They said they'd credit my card. As I was returning back to the bus stop I ran into John and Christina. They were heading to the natural museum and invited me to join them. I had nothing else really going on, so I went. It was a bit hokey but really interesting. Especially the dinosaur floor. There are actually some animals to be found here same as in Canada. Moose, lynx, northern pike fish, raccoons and beavers. Who would have thought!

Tonight those of us who are here are going for dinner with the new principal. I still have yet to meet him. We are going for Indian. I love Indian! I still can't believe school starts again so soon. I'm ready though. I have done enough shopping!