Bah Humbug already!

Today is Thanksgiving but I walked into the teacher room at school with a dark cloud circling above my head. I have plenty of reasons why.
Ahem.
I didn't wake up with my family close by, no plans to have a Thanksgiving feast or family games, no plans to go see a fun movie or play with my nephew. My apartment building had it's power turned off due to construction but forgot to turn mine back on yesterday so I woke up without power, my poor electronic devices running on fumes, the food in my fridge melting and going bad (I opened the window to the negative temps to help keep my food cool but it only let in tons of smoky, polluted air), couldn't see to put on my make-up, spilled coffee on my off-white CASHMERE scarf and my SUEDE skirt (which is fortunately brown) and on top of all that, I saw a dead dog and another limping with one of it's hind feet missing. Totally breaks my heart.

I actually feed strays treats/dog food when they'll let me. Yes, I'm THAT person.

It's definitely one of those mornings when I ask myself, "Wait, why am i here again?" But when I walked into the teacher room, I was greeted with "Happy Thanksgiving!" from my fellow Mongolian teachers. This wasn't expected because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here. Then one of my students stopped me and said, "Happy Thanksgiving, Teacher! Thank you for being such a great teacher!" and melted my heart again.

Undeserved Grace. That's what I'm living in and who am I to not revel in it day to day.

My friend, Andrea, took this of me (I'm in the middle)
just being quiet and enjoying His beauty. Wish we could live this way!!!

SO, here is a list of things that have happened to me over the past 24 hours:

• I woke up in Mongolia - here for a purpose that is far greater than I will ever know.
• I spent last night drinking a semi cold Dr. Pepper, in a bubble bath, candle light, in total silence, not worrying about emails/social media/etc.
• Nothing in my fridge is irreplaceable
• Neither is my scarf or skirt
• I've been here for 21 months and this week was the first time I saw a dead dog - pretty incredible actually!!
• I rarely have problems with power, internet, water or heat - AWESOME!!!!!
• I'm surrounded by friends and family who wished me a Happy Thanksgiving
• I just got word that my power has been turned back on

Team Mongolia
A.K.A. My  family in Mongolia
A.K.A. A bunch of nerds living in Mongolia...

That's Cindi with an EYE

That's what kept going through my mind as I walked into the eye hospital here in UB a few days ago. Yup, instead of choosing from an optometrist or an optomologist (and who knows the difference anyway), you just check yourself into a whole hospital dedicated to eyes. Love it.

So what was I doing at an eye hospital anyway? Well, about a week earlier, I was watching TV and realized that there were some strange moving colors in my line of sight. It turned out to look like a boomerang shape that had psychedelic moving colors inside of it and over a period of about twenty minutes, it slowly moved to the left and eventually out of my field of vision. It was pretty but I figured it was worth getting checked out.

The doctor couldn't see anything so she gave me eye drops to dilute - no dilate my pupils so after about thirty minutes, I looked like this:

Hey, there was nothing else to do while I waited so I tried to take pictures of my eyes.

Anywho, after she looked again for a good twenty more minutes, she decided I had some tiny floaters in  the liquid behind my eyes but other than that, my eyes were blissfully normal. Here's to normal! For about 40 minutes with the doctor and several tests, I paid about $27 - no insurance or anything. CRAZY.

However, between us, I would think that if the psychedelic boomerang was just in one eye, this would be possible, but it was in both at the same time. I may get a second opinion when I come home for the summer.

Either way, I want to introduce you to Duma (pronounced dome-ah). She works for my office and is a huge blessing. I emailed her about my weird eye thing and within hours, she had an appointment for me, then drove me there, stayed with me, interpreted for me and had her father (standing next to her) move us up in the waiting line (he works there and is adorable).


So, if you ever come to UB and have a problem with your eyes, I know where to take you and with whom :)

Planes, Trains and Elephants

 On January 16th, I boarded a plane and headed to Las Vegas, Nevada to meet my dad for vacation. We watched the Bellagio Fountains, ate nachos at El Diablos, played "toy dice" and walked all over the strip!

Dad and I in front of the Golden Nugget!

We went to see Terry Fator (a big ventriloquist who won America's Got Talent several years ago). He was great!

From there, I boarded a plane to LA, California to vacation with my mom, brother, sister (Cody's wife) and most importantly, my nephew! We rented a house, walked along the pier, shopped in some cute places, slept in and played Mexican Train every night!

My nephew, Gideon - the one I was most looking forward to seeing as he was born after I left for Mongolia! He's wearing a shirt I made for him before I left - it says "I love you" in Mongolian.

My brother, sister, nephew, mom and I at the San Clemente Pier - it was beautiful.

Yup, I'm his favorite. Aunt.

Amy and I with mom in the background.

Mom loves the ocean - too bad it was too cold to swim in.

This is how he and I spent all our time in the car - staring at each other. I couldn't get enough of that face!!!

 After that, I boarded another plane and went to Chiang Mai, Thailand to meet one of my closest friends, Karen for vacation. We went washed and fed elephants, flew to Bangkok, went to an aquarium, saw several temples, took an overnight train back to Chiang Mai, ate at some fancy places, had our feet done and explored Thailand. So. Much. Fun.

Karen and I went to an Elephant Sanctuary in the jungle near Chiang Mai - they were incredible!

No girls trip is complete without a few fun drinks!

China Town in Bangkok!

And finally, I joined about 600 others who work for the same company I do for our Annual Thailand Retreat (ATC). I had a blast.

When I met up with friends at ATC, I ran into an old friend Michelle. She was one of the reasons I joined this company!

We had a ton of fun going to the Night Market and eating Thai food - so fun!

8 plane rides

7 hotels

5 time zones

1 house

1 train

Loved every minute!

Well, it's the end of the world...again...

Another prediction - I'm 35 and I think I've lived through at least a dozen end of the worlds that I know of. Even if I didn't have confirmation from above that no one knows when the end of the world was coming, I think I'd still be a skeptic.

Unfortunately, my students aren't! For the past few weeks, I've been asked countless times if I think the end is coming on December 21st. I laugh and say no. They smile but I can see the doubt in their eyes. I comfort them with statements about how the Mayans weren't actually predicting the end of the world, no one knows when the end is coming, etc., etc. but they don't fully buy it yet. In fact, neither do many of their parents. I plan on giving an exam tomorrow (which happens to be Dec. 21st) and I was told by about 70% of my students that they will not be coming to school. Their families want to be together just in case.

Some of them have said they don't expect the end of the word, just lots of natural disasters. They are grateful that Mongolia isn't anywhere near an ocean so we don't have to worry about tsunamis or hurricanes. I've listened and participated in a few conversations about what kind of disasters could reach us all the way out here (we're thinking maybe earthquakes). It's lighthearted and usually is met with a few giggles, but again, there is doubt.



I can't throw stones though. I remember being a little freaked out by Y2K and even talked my parents into at least buying lots of bottled water in case everything shut down.

Either way, there was a letter written to the Philippians many years ago and the author said something brilliant in the first chapter, verse 21.

In the meantime, I'm going to download REM's It's The End Of The World As We Know It and try not to sing it too loud today or tomorrow...

Beijing!

 If you receive my newsletter, then you know I'm in Beijing, China for most of August for TEFL training. If you don't - EMAIL ME your physical address so I can add you (it's free and your information will not be given out to anyone else)!

Among the studying of TEFL Teaching Methodologies, Mongolian Cultural lessons and Classroom Dynamics, we get to explore the HUMONGOUS city of Beijing! Here are a few highlights - enjoy!

At Tienanmen Square. It was really hot and humid but we had the pleasure of having a BLUE, CLEAR sky - rare!

The gardens at Tienanmen Square were pretty creative

Cucumber flavored chips and an energy drink called "AK 47"

A fish dish with quite a presentation!

Me at the Temple of Heaven, Take 1

Me at the Temple of Heaven, Take 2

Me, Ann and Carrissa at the Temple of Heaven

John, Melba, Barb and Matthew - hot and humid!

Most of the new Mongolia team

Melba and I at the Temple of Heaven - future roomies!

What else do you need to know?

Temple of Heaven

"bumper crops" means bountiful crops btw

Subway ride = sardines

Bus ride = sardines.
I love the look on the face of the guy in the bottom right corner...

My camera skills at work - let me cut off most of my face

At a Sunday gathering

Our team at one of the registered churches in Beijing

Thinking...

Lots of bikes

This is called "Chinglish"- when translations don't seem to work correctly...

An Unexpected Opportunity

A teacher friend asked for male and female volunteers to record some English dialogue for teaching purposes. So my team mate Duke and I stepped up and prepared to read a few lines for a tape recorder on Saturday morning. Yes, 15 minutes or so on a Saturday morning shouldn't be a big deal.

However, this morning, I found myself in a small hot recording room crowded around a single microphone with Duke and four Mongolian "tweens" (not quite preteen, not quite teenagers) and about 12 pages of dialogue! Dialogue such as "This is my friend Ben. What is your friend's name?". It took us about 45 minutes to record the first page as we kept having to do retakes - this tween wasn't speaking up loud enough, this tween was reading too fast, this tween was mumbling, and you get the idea. After a while, we kept having to do more takes because people's tummies started growling (and the microphone picks it all up) so we decided to take a break and go to the tiny convenient store in the building - where the tweens filled up on sugar. Probably don't have to tell you that this didn't help things go any quicker. Four hours later, after tons of giggles, shuffling paper sounds, retakes, sweat, yawns, throat clearings, "shhh"'s, etc., we were done. 

I actually did have a fun time and what's neat is that this recording was for a standard English book that all Mongolian children will be taught from. Ours will most likely be the very first native English speaker voices they will hear. Yes, that's right, yours truly is going to be famous among all Mongolian 5th graders.

Care Packages

Some of you have asked what you can send me - gives me warm fuzzies every time :) I would suggest possibly sharing the cost of mailing things with others if possible. Also, padded envelopes are cheaper and travel faster than boxes but both work well. All my needs are very well provided for here in UB - DAD is so good. However, there are some things I like but haven't found here (at ...least not yet) so if you're wanting to give, here are a few suggestions:
 

Swiffer duster refills (it's so dusty here!!!!)
Dental floss
Bath & Body small anti-bacs
Water flavor packets (like Crystal Light)
Zumba workout video (yes, I miss Zumba)
Band Aids (the cloth ones that stretch are awesome)
Dry shampoo (will come in handy when there's no water)
Brita water bottle replacement filters (Target should have these)

That's all I can thing of right now. My mom, Kay Kitchens, is coming the second week of July so if you catch her, she may be able to bring things as well. Email me or her for the address - THANK YOU!

Thought for the day

There is nothing like the need to study to make you feel like your apartment needs to be cleaned asap. My procrastination today has given me the need to wash my sheets, boil eggs, clean my kitchen and sweep my floors. This being Spring in UB, my floors (and everything else) get dirty every day (it's very dusty here now) which gives me an excuse to not study!

This picture was not taken by me but shows how bad the dust can be here. Fortunately, I haven't been in a storm this bad yet - maybe cut the dust in this picture down 1/3 and that's what I've experienced. You can barely see buildings in the distance because it's so dusty. And all that dust gets tracked in to your apartment...and who can study when you've got all that dust laying around?!? My friend Karen sent me some Swiffer Dusters - which were black by the time I cleaned my small apartment.

Alright, back to studying...although...my shoes probably need cleaning as well...

A few more tidbits...

Here are a few random tidbits about my life so far here in Ulaan Bator!

The team I'm with have been amazing and lately they have been taking us to eat at places around the city that serve American and International food so I haven't tried too much Mongolian food yet - I think they are easing us into it. When we were at one of the only hamburger joints in UB, I asked for ketchup and got this...

A Mongolian brand of ketchup - it was a thinner consistency and not as salty. Now if you know me, you know that I have a slight addiction to this condiment so I slightly screamed when I found some Heinz in the grocery store later.

This is Hoshuur - thin dough surrounding beef, vegetables or potatoes mainly and then fried. It's a very popular dish here and I've tried it a few times - it's good. They eat with their hands here even though you may get a fork, eating with your hands is encouraged.

One of my best friends gave me a neat device that you can hang your purse from while eating out so that it's not on the back of your chair or on the floor. (The picture above is taken from a sight that sells them, the one I have is much prettier but you get the idea.) It's come in very handy as Mongolians never put their bags on the floor, it's very taboo as they believe that evil spirits will come out of the ground and get in your bag.

I put some hairspray in my hair the other morning and then took off on my 30 minute journey to my company's office in about 2 degree weather. While walking in the shadows of the buildings, the hairspray froze...then when I would walk out from the shadows, the hairspray would melt from the heat escaping the top of my head and the sun. By the time I got to the office, my hair was gross and gooey-ish. Very thankful for ponytail holders. So, I don't think I'll be using hairspray until the temp. gets over 32 degrees.

We've taken the bus a few times now which is an experience as you're usually packed in like sardines. Since everyone is wearing tons of layers and big fluffy jackets, people pushing up against you isn't so bad! Mongolians are nice as they will give their seats on the bus up for older women so I was a little disappointed when a girl offered me her seat the other night. I'm chalking it up she just noticed I was a foreigner...

The traffic here is horrendous, way too many vehicles on the roads which weren't built for high traffic so cars slam on the gas when they can find a spot to drive in and then slam on the breaks when a bigger vehicle than them wants in. Most of the cars have the steering wheel on the right side of the car even though they also drive on the right side of the road. Pedestrians never have the right of way - even on the sidewalks! So, when you need to cross the street, you go with a really big group and hopefully walk in the middle of it just in case.

I had my first real language lesson yesterday and it was very humbling. Not only are we learning new words, but learning new ways to make strange sounds come out of our mouths! It took us about two hours to really learn how to say the Mongolian words for "blue", "red", "yellow", "white", "black", and "green". I'm not even going to try to spell them for you. While they are teaching us Mongolian, they are also teaching us how to teach English to Mongolians so it's a lot of good information but can be a little exhausting too.

For the most part, I'm loving it! I'm just about over jetlag, know my way to the grocery store, the post office, my teammates apartments, the bus stop and my company's office, and am very well taken care of by my company and team! I'll be taking more video and will do my best to keep you informed of what life is like as an English teacher in Mongolia!

My apartment for the next 5-ish months.

And here is my apartment!

Other than unpacking and "nesting", I've been going on small tours with my teammates, figuring out the money (tugriks), walking my tush off, learning how to dress for the cold, trying to get comfortable on a really hard bed (I've been spoiled to a really soft one which evidently is not the case in the East), and trying to orient myself with the city. Very much living in grace but am being well taken care of by my Father, my employers and fellow newbies.

I'm going to begin language study tomorrow - they are following a certain teaching program where we will be responsible for just listening for the first several months and later begin to actually speak. It's based off of how we learn as babies - we just soak it all up and later verbalize what we've learned. I'm prepared to be very humbled and probably laughed at while practicing but this is a great thing to go through before I begin teaching ESL. Petitions for my memorization and patience would be appreciated!!

Finally!

After over a year and a half of preparing, I'm leaving on a plane tomorrow to move to Mongolia! Feelings of disbelief, excitement and fears (mainly of forgetting my passport or forgetting to pack something really important like socks) have been filling my head. I've been able to spend time with family members, friends, visiting my favorite places, catching up on movies, sleeping in as well as trying to cuddle with my dogs as much as possible.

And packing...

This isn't even half of what I'm trying to stuff into two big duffel bags, a backpack and purse - and notice that there aren't even any clothes in this picture. I've decided that I will be wearing quite a few layers on the plane simply because I can't fit them all into my bags. As far as Jonny goes (my dog in the top right corner), I'd be taking him too if I thought there was any way he could survive in -45 weather. After MANY visits to Target and two boxes of space bags, I think I've finally gotten everything packed. 

I'll be taking off tomorrow (Feb. 25th) and flying to LA where I'll be meeting two of my other teammates. We'll then be flying to Beijing and then on to Ulan Bator, Mongolia - almost 20 hours flying (not counting several hours spent in airports.)

For the first 5 months, I'll be studying the language (Mongolian) and culture. This summer, I'll be spending one month in Beijing to get a teaching certificate and if all goes well, I'll begin teaching English in a Mongolian University by the 2012 Fall Semester! Incredible.

The other side of the planet isn't so far away.

I've always LOVED this clip from the movie Contact. Besides reminding me that the world doesn't revolve around me (I know, it was a surprise to me too), it also reminds me that my Father is so much bigger than the box I usually try to put Him in.

Now it will remind me that being on the other side of the planet isn't so far away when I get homesick in Mongolia.