2010...It's Been Fun!

-November 30, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “A single cloud blocks the radiance of the entire sun” –Thoureau

Good day today. Its actually gotten a little warmer out of late (still freezing but I hope -you are- warm. (hah Emily! Used that one correctly. Your probably very proud (hehe) ) Anyways I used it to get a good run in. Long under on tops and bottom, sweatpants, running shirt, jacket and winter cap…but I made it alright. It went really well too, I really turned myself loose as runs will be harder and harder to come by.
Nothing else to really report on. Worlds AIDS day is being revved up for. I am still impressed how much this particular disease gets the attention it does in Mongolia. Not in any way saying its not serious or something that does not deserve their attention, but despite being between two countries that have a high HIV rate especially by non-tourists who travel between them the amount of actual cases remains relatively low. I have no stats to back me up but just thinking about where we are I imagine more people get infected by the black plague than HIV each year in this country. Still, good to be progressive on this right?
Ill help out, in a rather disturbing way. I know that teens have sex a lot earlier in this country than others, but ive been asked to talk about HIV and condoms to ALL my classes….i teach 4th graders! They are 10!!!! Still, if I assess correctly they will be too young to even know that this is a sensitive subject to bring up and so will not snicker and whatnot when I discuss condoms.
Not feeling as hot as I would like of late. Think my high alcohol use last week and the communal living gave me the opportunity to catch a cold bug. No matter, im the walking wounded type. Toughening it out!!! I think ill make a grilled cheese sandwich tonight.


December 1, 2010. Bagkhangai, Mongolia.
Today’s Theme Song: “Bittersweet” –By Within Temptation
Today’s Quote: “Life is not a box of chocolates, or a bowl of cherries, or a cracked kaleidoscope, or a hill of beans, or a dime at a nickel slot machine, come to think of it life is not a stupid fucking metaphor!” –That’s from me.

A few months ago, just about at the end of the summer when I was typing up the blog entry for the Hovsgul Nuur trip I had a dream. I dreamt I hadn’t gone to Thailand. I stayed after I met her that summer and got a job out near Vanderbilt as a High School History teacher, and then moved to Chicago where she was pursing her doctorate and worked the most boring job alive as a Public School History Teacher. We were married, and had a kid.
I think she was pregnant again but not yet showing. We were living in an apartment just outside the city, one of those family friendly type setup places that new families move into and we were watching crappy television shows and eating Chinese food. It must have been one of those pregnancy food craving things. We argued about the name of the next kid, though I never recall us saying what the name of what our daughter was. Like all dreams specific things were hard to look at. I remember a bundle but never saw what she looked like. She had dark hair though I do remember that. The dream went on for so long, and absolutely nothing of interest happened in it. Housework and watching tv, picking up toys, things like that. It was like watching the life of the most boring people on the planet. I never even kissed her.
I woke up, and I found myself back in my action packed adventure life of Masters Degrees, Thai Kickboxing gyms, 108 year old Buddhist monk bracelets, New York dive bars, Peace Corps Service, living in a Ger on the other side of the world from where I had come from, German Beer Festivals, marathons, ultramarathons and horseback riding around 2% of the worlds fresh water and upcoming trips and adventures that served no other limit or master than my own ambition, and that has no end to it. I was back into a real life of freedom and limitlessness…and I sat up and began to cry. Its hard to cry out of context. I let it out, I bawled. I wanted to give it all back, and have just one more minute in a made up boring life I will never get with the woman I love. I didn’t have that dream again…I guess I am kind of thankful. Id be inducing sleep if I thought I could do that on a frequent basis.
I didn’t get to spend a boring life with the one I love, and instead I got to do and see things I never imagined existed and get to do until luck catches up to me, or I find another who I am willing to lie and say “I love you” to….and it never would have happened if the love of my life had not left me…you know I seriously promise you I am not a Buddhist but if I could have just five minutes of the Dali Lamas time I don’t expect an answer to fix or solve everything but I am really generally curious what he would say about my tale of woe. No doubt he would smile and ask me to talk to him again in ten years…as though my story were not unlike any other out there which I pretty much am certain of. I miss her. I miss her so much. To those who view love as I do we bedrock know that love conquers all. We also know that’s not a good thing…
Well, it’s been another year. Four years… don’t worry I wont repeat myself from last time. I haven’t gotten over her, and its clear to me that I wont. Its not the idea of her or of love, its not immortalizing love or any other argument people have given me about how to best treat my feelings for her so that I can just start dating again and not be alone as I am. No, in the end it just comes down to the idea that I am 29 years old and short of cancer, smoking/shooting/drinking myself to death or getting hit by a bus I have a long, long time left before I leave my woes behind me, and you cant cry your soul out. So you just carry it, and you come to terms with the idea that love may conquer all, but worse still is that life doesn’t require you to be with the one you love.
It doesn’t get easier…it just gets further away and publicly more pathetic to grieve. That’s another quote that I didn’t steal from anyone…. a good one too: “It doesn’t get easier, it gets further away and publically more pathetic to grieve.” I like that.
I can only imagine what she is like right now. Long married probably. Even pregnant or with children. I hope they get her beauty, and not her stubbornness. Wrapping up her doctorate…I know where she’s getting her doctorate but even after all this time I still wont confront her despite knowing where she is. I just can’t bring myself to do that. This is all long gone, and I know that, but in the great tragedy which is the two of us I simply wont have the final chapter me showing up to her University only to have her ask security to remove me from the campus or her husband try to punch me in the face. This story is already pathetic enough, and luckily to my knowledge the people suffering is just one-sided.
Was it a test? She stopped talking to me, not the other way around. No, it wasn’t a test, she just knew she was either going to disappoint her whole family or break one persons heart. She made a practical decision, and I guess she can seek solace in happiness with someone who forgave her for cheating on him with me.
More practically though, I learned something from Peace Corps Service about love.
Running from what you were or what you cant have wont make your feelings go away. You can cut yourself off, use the internet less than once a month, travel to the other side of the world, meet more people who have never heard of you, take up a job that passes the time and run till your absolutely certain there is no edge to this world and I promise you that if you truly do love someone you wont leave your feelings behind.
I love her more than you Mark and she loves me more too. Put aside logic, quantity of time and anything and everything else I promise I can tell you that to a moral certainty. If this ever gets back to you I don’t care how many children you have or how long you have been with her…I loved her more in the month I knew her than you will if you spend a lifetime with her and somehow I know that you know that too.
Don’t join the Peace Corps if your running from something. It wont help. You can give up everything you have and go absolutely anywhere, but your brain and heart are coming with you. I didn’t join the Peace Corps to do that, but i begin to see why they ask that as an interview question.
I am still free, free in a way that I never thought possible. That sudden truth you feel when you realize just how little you have holding yourself back from doing absolutely anything that you want to do is something else. I am in the Peace Corps because I want to be. After next summer….literally I have a million things I want to do, and I seriously could do absolutely any one of them. Nothing holds me, no one brings me home. Do I even have one anymore? Do I even need one?
I don’t want this anymore. I think in some ways I did before. My bouts of sadness and misery at least gave me proof that this was real. All those nights I drank myself into a coma or sitting in my mom’s basement punching a glass coffee table screaming “FUCK YOU!” That I wasn’t in love with the idea of something, and though this wasn’t a happy ending it was in fact real. Four years like this is too much. I don’t want to be miserable about this.
It took a long time but I finally reached it. I am not sad, not full of rage at myself and the world around me, not bottomed out with sorrow anymore. No, I am angry. I am angry at her, an emotion I refused to feel for so long but now I do. So now I can do something with that emotion to change.
I want what I see in almost every single person I have ever met who hit the same problem I have. I want the ability to simply ignore all my petty feelings in exchange for convenient ones. I want to burn away every single beautiful second I can remember with Rachel and replace it with the idea that a girl terrified about marrying someone she doesn’t even really love but is just expected to decided that if she ever WAS gonna bail it would have been this guy. I want her to be a stupid bad sushi and sake dream that goes away when I shake my head and gets replaced with some sex dream about college librarians and cheerleaders. It never works…

Shut up…shut up shut up SHUT UP! GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD!!!

Ill live and be alone. Let me do that without bothering me. Is that too much to ask? I am okay with that. Hell I live on the other side of the world on my own in a tiny round tent where I don’t even have to use internet and I have enough alcohol to drink myself back into a coma if I so need to. Why do I have to feel this way every second of every day and just put on a face so I can still exist in society? Can’t I just actually be truly alone instead of always thinking of you?
I want to get over sadness like everyone else does by finding other happiness in the more enjoyable things in life and through it recognizing how little that person actually meant. I really really do want it to stop. I want to stop caring. I want to cry this conscience or soul or whatever the hell is the matter with me out and just stop caring.
No it’s the plot of “The Weatherman” in its own way. For better or for worse its over. Really really over. It may have been my fault, or it may have been her families, or her fiancé, or her friends, or she may even have been lying to me from the beginning hoping Thai women would do her dirty work for her but regardless who, how or even why, its over, really really over…and im not dead.
Life does go on…maybe that’s the greatest buzz kill out there to a hopeless romantic…You can live through pretty much anything…and life just keeps going on.
I still have one picture of her left on my computer. I probably should delete it.

Oh, one last thing and for the record I am stone sober writing this. Haven’t touched any alcohol all week. Not a drop since Thanksgiving. I wanted to see if it was making anything worse. It wasn’t. Besides…you cant buy alcohol in this country on the first day of the month!


December 2, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Well…that will do nicely. So it was last night, and I had just finished writing that wonderful tale of woe that I did just above. I needed a bit of a pick me up and so I watched a new movie I had been given by a friend over Thanksgiving break. “Inception” I watched this and realized many things but the first thing I thought was “Well…that will do nicely.”
Its perfect, now I have something to vent into. Something to watch again and again without fail and I can start to write diagrams on papers and paste them all around my ger about how everything they did could actually work. There were several other levels of thought running through my brain as I watched that, the most prominent being “wow, if I smoked a LOTTT of pot I imagine that would either make sense or freak me out. Ive never done ANY pot and imagine that movie would be the reason to start. I get the feeling when im drunk and watching that it wont be nearly enough fun.
Great Sopranos like ending btw. The copout, the indecision, the “…well, if hes asleep some will be pissed and if he is not more will be of that too…OH WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT” ending. Bravo. Gotta hand it to Leonardo right? He makes a crap movie, and then follows right up with a kick ass one. Titanic/Man in the Iron Mask and so on. His last film before this had been his documentary “11th hour” and trust me it sucked every bit as much as this movie rocked. Fun fun! And you all got to talk about it with others when you were done seeing it too! Im stuck now for a while until I can find a community of people who can talk about dreams in dreams in dreams and so on. Oh I SOOOO want to find a Mongolian who speaks perfect English and have them watch this. Blood will shoot out their ears in no time flat! Fun fun fun!!!!
No but seriously I am pretty sure I can just start watching that night over night for the next six months and by the end of my term they will find me locked away in my ger naked with a gigantic beard and cords plugged into my head from the refrigerator and the oven screaming “I CAN WAKE UP NOW!!!!!” whee!!!
So as for today. Sarangoo has apparently run off to a computer seminar in the city. Even more amusing because she does not own a computer but seeing as she covered for me over Thanksgiving I wont give her a hard time that her classes got dropped on me for the next two days. Fun fun.


December 3, 2010. Bagakhagai, Mongolia.

I cant believe I have not written about this before, and so today I am going to talk about it a little. I would like it on the record that this counts as me saying something positive about the Mongolian school system that yes I do indeed bash on occasion…or three.
So this may not sound like something school gets credit for but bear with me and keep in mind how amazing this is. I am in a city of 3000 people. We eat the traditional Mongolian diet of endless amounts of meat and maybe just MAYBE a little more fruit than usual because we are on the rail line (or I just eat it all) in the winter there is almost noone outside who is not en route to somewhere and in this part of the town we lack the facilities for recreational sports on a widescale level.
Now for the amazing thing….noone in my town under the age of 30 is fat. Not one…not a single solitary fat kid. Not even like fat fat I mean they are all skin and bone. I didn’t realize how amazing that was until I stopped to think about it. Really??? Not 1!!!!!? As they become adults I can really only think of one guy who is actually fat either. (the chain smoking gym teacher!!!) Women…well yes they have a little more meat on their bones but not one of them I can think of would have a doctor telling them that they are overweight. Not one….not ONE!!!! How is that not blowing your mind? So why is this? All we eat is meat, we cant exercise outside for half the year…how the hell are kids not getting fat? This is not the sole reason but it helps. My kids do 30 minutes of aerobic exercise each day.
Not kidding, the minister of Education decreed that Mongolian students should engage in at least 30 minutes of active exercise a day, and as a result of the temperatures outside developed a cardio routine that we can do with students in classes and hallways. Can you imagine them trying to pull this off in the American school system. Better still, imagine it actually happened??? I don’t care what they put in the burgers in McDonalds. We (in Mongolia) eat more meat and fried potatoes than that guy from that documentary that was responsible for McDonalds shrinking its fries sizes (I know your for the liberal cause dude but dammit!!! Now I gotta go to 5guys for fries!!!) and we still are all in better shape than you sedentary Yanks. If Americans did what Mongolians did and still ate the same stuff…Oh good gods….waist sizes would plummet! But heres to the old Soviet setup of “boss says do it…okay no whining get in line!” type of work arrangement.
But…as I wouldn’t be me if I did not have something to complain about ill throw out this. Today was my first time teaching 9th grade. I haven’t been asked to teach with Sarangoo this class and today I found out why. There are only two students in 9th grade. Mustive been a low year for babies way back when huh? Well obviously you don’t need 2 teachers for this but as I was subbing for Sarangoo I figure no problem, just teach. I ask them for their textbook. They don’t have em. No problem again, not all students have this, and I can pull a lesson out of my ass as that’s what I usually have to do based on having no clue what is coming up next. Then I ask one of them for their dictionary. Don’t have that either…okay…that’s a little off. I mean by 9th grade this is the time in which they really should be getting their grammar down so they can pass their English grammar exams later. So at last I ask for the all knowing and having notebook for their English class…and the two students look at one another funny. Weve had a full quarter of school and you don’t have notebooks???? So…here is how I will react to this. Ill teach 9th grade any time they ask, much like I did today, I had them write verbs on the board. So long as im not accountable for the class ill not get involved. Peace Corps is an excellent place to come to grips with an unsufferable truth that there is just so much in even day to day life that is beyond our realm and control. Still…fun to teach 2 people only…no classroom management and a lot of individual attention.
But while were on classroom management I want to bring something up. Has anyone ever noticed that the concept of “classroom management” is really a late 19th/20th century invention? There has been education from the dawn of time in some form of another but with the implementation of public school systems and the removal of corporal punishment (both of which I overwhelmingly support) it has only been in the last 100 or so years that a teacher had to deal with pains in the assess. Before then…the kid got thrown out…or did not come at all! All those great Greek philosophers talking till they were blue in the face. Let them try even ONE of my pupils as a student and they wouldn’t get a single word in!!! Seriously think about that!


December 4, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

I am sick. No fun. Good ole bug. Throat hurts, hypersensitivity and a runny nose. Too much booze last week and cold running I suppose. Looking over the Mongolia blogs of late everyone seems a little sick. Ah UB…the petrie dish of Mongolia! Nothing for it, it is what it is. Luckily I have always been the walking wounded type except when something knocks me on my ass. Then I need 2 days really in bed and im back without skipping a beat.
Still, I have chosen to spend some of the weekend in the school. I just came from there actually. Warmer and easier to maintain than my ger and it will give me a little internet as a pick me up. I am trying not to run again till this sick bout passes, but its only getting colder, windier and icier!
So, to aid in this recovery I have done something I have only done one other time since moving to Bagakhangai. You’d swear time had stopped in Mongolia as I did so too….i bought a drumstick of chicken. You see, my towns proximity to UB and railroad coupled with a winter so mild that even in December I am still wearing my fall jacket (that’s by far the most amazing thing I have written down so far!) our town has a few oranges and tomatoes for sale along with a meat that is not the animals of Monoglia (cow, sheep, goat, horse, camel) So with chicken/potatoes and carrots and spending a little time on the project I will be able to concoct some Chicken soup. I could even get some noodles and do chicken noodle soup! How cool would that be huh????? That and a liter of unpulped Orange Juice and I am pumping everything my body needs into it right?
Heres to my health!


December 5, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Most people in Peace Corps I know who live in soums love the sight of the moon. I don’t blame em, its something else. We live in towns without random lights scattered about and all that and so on cloudy or moonless nights you get a good grasp of just how dark this place gets! So when it’s a full moon and we live at a latitude where it looks like you could just grab the whole damn thing out of the sky it also lights up EVERYTHING. Its like a pale version of daytime…really! So that’s all well and good, but the time I like best is like tonight, when the moon is almost noon but the sky is clear….and the entire Universe does not seem all that far away at all! Next time I do Peace Corps in Mongolia I am going to bring a book on astrology. You can see absolutely EVERYTHING from up here…you really can.
I talked about this last summer, but it sorta slipped my notice when I was living in an apartment with windows I could not open. Every time I need to pee I go outside and look up…and suddenly whatever I was having to do a moment ago goes on the backburner…
Somethings a little strange though. Its getting warmer out. Were always below freezing but during the day its barely that and at night were barely hitting sub zero. Its December!!!! I should have trouble walking to the delguur let alone be able to linger and stare at the stars…
Damn this world rocks!


December 6, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

The best of news just arrived. My two life long friends, David and Martha. Who fell in love with one another the day they met (who I knew individually BEFORE they met one another), been together now for over 1/3 or their lifetimes and married with two children already have just told me that a third one is on the way. They are not even 28 yet and she has a masters degree, he has served in Iraq, and they are the happiest couple I know raising the salt of the earth in suburban Raleigh, North Carolina.
Those of my nature often bash the suburban lifestyle. We write it off as a haven that the scared masses feel safe in or a place lacking culture and excitement. Having been raised in the suburbs I can vouch that the suburbs are a wonderful place to grow up, but I am not sure if my adult years will keep me there. My friends however, they did not even dread it. They went all smiles and happy and their happiness is something I take great joy in myself. There my proof that when all the elements are right, love is truly a wonderful thing.
Naturally I expect the third born to be named either William or Josh (Jaina if a girl!)…and ill enter negotiations for it in the coming months, but for the time being…mazeltov you two!


December 7, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

I read in the news today that right now the east coast is suffering from “arctic weather conditions” When I inspected the weather in New York I found that the temperature at night was 22 degrees Fahrenheit…hehehehHAHAHAHAHA….oh you absolute wimps!
Seriously? That’s all you got? Hell, this is probably the mildest December Mongolia has had in MY LIFETIME!!!!!!! and it is still sub-zero at night! I call wimps! WIMPS!!!!!
Now then, on to stuff about work. Nothing much to say, the “12 Days of Mongolian Christmas” stuff is coming along. I can tell already that this will be one of those crowning moments of my Peace Corps service. It will become the viral video of the week on youtube and a thousand other ways that it will make me and my students famous without ever making any money. Very usual right!?
Better start cleaning up the ger. Peace Corps drops in for a site visit tomorrow and I want this one to go better than it did last year!


December 8. 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Site visit!!!! So I get my site area manager to finally make their way over here. My towns a little unique. I am technically part of UB but im not, and so if you’re a TEFL living outside UB but in the UB aimag (IE: ME) you get assigned to the Eastern sector (not central which does Tov Aimag which surrounds UB) We had a good laugh about all that for ten or so minutes as we went through the routine questions: You alive? You got coal? You drawn a face on a Tennis Ball and started calling him “Penn” yet? Sheep are still just livestock right? How many mistresses do you have? How big is the shitsicle in your outhouse? (hey, at least I haven’t taken a picture of it!)
I had nothing but good stuff to say and they seemed happy that I was doing alright in the ger. Every “challenge” I described has been done to death too. Like in my ger I can make either my space heater (on heating level 1)/my stove/my oven/my distiller/or my water boiler run but if more than one is running the circuit trips. Ive been doing this for around half a year now and gotten used to it but their response was that everyone has already complained about that. They also took away my non working smoke detector (that expired in 2002) And promised to bring me a new one or put it in my box.
They seem surprised by the lack of UB time I have. Apparently I am one of the first to live so close to UB and not go there every weekend or more. Nope, I like it here, and the ladies who live in the city that has a daily forecast of “smoke” must like the air quality.
So then we go to school and I get told if I give over 15000 tugriks ill get an antenna and my tv up and running. To be honest the only thing I want to watch is Russian ESPN (the biathlon should be running again) and I don’t think you can get that from an antenna, but yea ill get it. They said I was doing a great job and should continue on as is. I was in agreement. Worlds apart from last years site visit. As a soum liver much of my improvement to day to day life can be hard to demonstrate to the Peace Corps because when I do good work Peace Corps rarely hears about you at all. This I think was the first time in over a year I had demonstrated how much ive changed since I first got here. Oh the times…they are a changing…
Then the best part happened. I put down the suggestion that a TEFL volunteer from the next group should be placed both in Bagakhangai and Ondortolge. I figured an argument of some kind. Wanting only one teacher, something like that, and the only complaint I have about soum living is that you rarely have a site mate but that didn’t happen at all. They instantly agreed, and were thrilled that I was so happy here to recommend not only another volunteer but two. Outstanding! Really made the day great. Both towns got an application form and it means as I check out next summer another two will move in, and wild amusement will commence once again as 2 more noobs learn to speak Mongolian and feel the snot in their nose freeze.

December 10, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

I made a movie with my students today. I am a very creative person, even without ego I can state that, but much of my creative thought is not that original. I watch tv, I read books and when parts of them are not up to my degree of coolness I modify them accordingly. What I did today with my students is an excellent example of this. I just got all the necessary video and photo footage of the 12 days of Christmas. Now comes the editing process. That’s going to tax my laptop, don’t fall apart on me now plz!!!!
That was so cool to make with the kids.
Were going to be famous on youtube I swear it!

December 11, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

That’s month 18 ladies and gentlemen. A year and a half of Peace Corps service and living on the other side of the world in a tent and on an abandoned Air Force Base. How very far ive come despite how little actually has happened. Life can be funny like that huh?
Got a phone call from Caitlin today. Had not heard from her in months not counting Thanksgiving and figure it was time to catch up and instead she just goes “im leaving”
Its strange but I totally get why there was no buildup. Just, “Hi Josh. Im leaving” It was the absolute LAST thing I saw coming and yet I didn’t do the dance of thinking I misunderstood that general statement and waste time going “wait, like leaving your site?”. I knew she meant it and that the girl with the other Tolkein Quote for a blog in Mongolia was packing up and moving out.
If you join the Peace Corps DO NOT become friends with me! Seriously everyone that I became best buds with of the M20 group has now left service. Its like the Defense Against the Dark Arts of Mongolian Peace Corps volunteer positions. She has her reasons, and like all who decide to bring their service to an end early we respect that, but when I put the phone down I wont lie that the first thing I thought was “dammit…now im gonna be bored for the last six months!” Selfish to the end huh?
She seemed quite chipper at being back to America for Christmas and missing the winter weather suddenly approaching (it is supposed to be -40C + F during the daytime for over a week) so I guess it just is what it is. Rob left, Matthew left, and even Caitlin left. Caitlin??? She was my best mate dammit. A geek like me but better at hiding it. An awesome cook, and the type of bud who would call you on your bullshit rather than let it slide. Good luck to you hot stuff! Go to bars and wear the Peace Corps pin and pull in all kinds of hot strange!!!


December 12, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

So, we get a raise. We used to make around 194,000 tugriks a month. Now we make close to 250,000 tugriks a month. HUGE bump in salary. Everyone is pretty damn stoked about it and I will say that even on my Spartan lifestyle the amount we were making was even taking me to the brink of my salary too. Very helpful, and it means I can buy slightly more luxurious things to eat like peppers and cherry tomatoes and the like. Fun.
There is a new factor that I imagine may draw some controversy, and I am oddly related to this too! To those that reside in Ulaanbaatar, an additional 50,000 tugriks will be granted as well. Now this is interesting because while UB is its own kind of expensive those living in Aimag centers of 20,000 people or more are still pretty damn cosmo and they don’t get any additional funds.
…now for the real kicker. Technically, I am in the UB aimag area…do I get a bump? I doubt they will, THAT would piss some people off for sure. I don’t really need a whole lot more money anyway, I just want it on the record that if I play semantics I should be getting that bump too!

December 13, 2010 Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Is it scary that I cry during the Christmas episode of “community”? Seriously that shouldn’t happen right? Damn overly sensitive mother who let me cry whenever I wanted to…does it suck even more that despite this if ever against even my own good judgement I have kids of my own I am gonna be the “Quit being a wussy!!!!” type dad. Sky father and Earth Mother please let me never have children. Now I know some may be thinking that’s a terrible thing to say but since the only people who read this knew me as a kid/teenager consider this. Imagine a kid like me again….okay got it? Now imagine instead of you as parents or siblings you have ME as the father???? Yea…not quite so cute and sweet now is it? Point made…

December 14, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Sarangoo once again delegated her shit work to me today. I rarely swear or am outwardly rude like this but I call this what it is. Its paperwork in a language noone can understand typing up unit and lesson plans that noone follows and checked by a boss who cant understand what I write. Shit work ladies and gentlemen. Shit work!
I remember all the bureaucracy I went through in my old jobs back in America. There was more paperwork but unlike here at least SOMEONE actually read the forms. I always thought that stuff was so useless but now I have lived and worked in a place where the paperwork is TRULY unread or used. I now understand the difference. We don’t change, and I hate bureaucracy. But when your delegated the task of writing up someone elses paperwork in a language they cant even read to be checked off so they continue to get paid….yea you gain a great understanding of how relative everything is.
So I did the work, only insulted her work ethic as she wouldn’t even sit and watch me do it so she could do so in the future. Government mule day… it is what it is. I could use a beer but I try not to drink except on weekends. Ill make the 12 days of Christmas movie as a pick me up. THAT’S why I joined the Peace Corps, not this fake paperwork garbage.

December 15, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

Always something breaking out here. I mentioned before this country and its climate are not nice to electronics. Batteries drain, soot goes everywhere and things in general just break. I tried working on my “12 Days of Mongolian Christmas” video and when I went to transfer from camera to computer it doesn’t work. It still runs and take pictures, but something doesn’t recognize anymore when I just plug straight to the computer. It could be any number of things, and Sarangoo will give me her transport thing so I eventually get the shots, but it really always is something around here isn’t it?
Now to change the subject. So, finished the bible today. Really I did. My sci fi books are in a lull until I get “Vortex” in the mail and a handful of pages here or there over the past few months and I finally got to the end of it.
First impressions…the bible starts off great. To be expected, its Torah. Strong opening, and a lot of the early books are history lessons. Occasionally a demon here or there gets thrown into what is more or less historically accurate and the read is pretty good. Then the bible really does become the Similarion. Its just…so….damn…dry. Not creatively written, no longer following the earlier history approach, and deities go 180 for no reason whatsoever. LOTS of contradictions, none of them properly explained…and its pretty much when one guy directs a movie series and then someone else makes the sequel (think Bryan Singer in X-Men 1 and 2 and then the dude who makes the Rush Hour movies got to direct the third piece of garbage X-Men movie!)
The ending tries to save it. All fire and brimstone… lots of descriptions about burning the world alive…armies of Magog…but the ending is still so anticlimactic. One of the good guys alone can wipe out the entire army of the evil ones and the army of good is supposed to be everyone in the good graces of God?????? If there’s no chance of losing this epic battle where’s the suspense???? Seriously guys, you had a huge meeting in Constantinople about which books to include and which ones not to. No individual book edits at all?????
Basically the bible is something that if your looking for answers you will find them, pretty much because it is vague and can be interpreted however you would like things to turn out. Case in point would be that yes indeed you can find plenty of verses to bash gays, and then a few books later you can find something that encourages you to support people in their own decision-making. Childishly simple, but it gets the job done of supplying answers. How we go about interpreting it and arguing about it with one another is a problem I reserve for our stupid ways, the majority of the book is stupid on its own accord. The opening few books are a GREAT read, but then the new authors just ramble on and on without any structure at all, and it comes to an ending that is impossibly one sided.
Summary: If your stuck in a ger for a year of your life…yea go ahead and fish this book out of the outhouse between UB and Bagakhangai and thumb through it. Otherwise….go read Dresden Files…that has way better shtick!
Now I need to find a Koran…


December 16, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

It was negative 47 C last night. Okay ill say it, THAT was cold. Ive broken out the winter jacket and in the morning I need to break up the ice in my water container so it doesn’t explode. I knew this was coming, just gotta take it. Good news is that the temp will drop back down to around -30 most of the time in the coming week. Scarf back on, ugly beanie hat and winter coat to school I go. The computer isn’t complaining about the weather too much though. I appreciate that.


December 17, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia

Bored today while waiting for classes, so on a lark I started to look at UB through google maps…the result was rather amusing with what was and what was not on the map. Then I rolled it back two years to New York to see if some of the places and things were still there that I had been to before. Some are, The Kraine Theatre where I watched the New York Neo Futurists and Mamouns falafel place and all that, but something is not there anymore, and what took its place is quite comical. On the corner of 2nd Avenue and 4th street in Manhattan was a little bar that had the greatest name of all time. 2 by 4….Dive bar of all dive bars really. Blue Ribbons at your disposal, crappy pool table, Metallica and Guns and Roses non stop on the jukebox, the greatest place to spend 26-28 getting tanked. It had strip poles on the bar and for the longest while the bartender was this really funny 30 something former stripper who had the best relationship with me of “this is not a place for woes” this is where you drink yourself VERY happy. She danced on the bar rarely too…most of the time it was the odd drunk girl who usually fell off. I only made out once or twice there, this was NOT the place you went to get girls. The bartender had quite a laugh when the time it did happen the woman literally had to spin my chair around to get me to talk. Best of all it was cheap. Friday and Saturday from 9-midnight you could drink all the Budweiser you wanted for ten bucks. They made no profit off me other than tips!
So low and behold I found it had changed its name. Its now the Boiler Room. Actually the Boiler Room is a famous bar in NYC that had closed down from its previous spot and they had simply put it here instead as the owners of Boiler owned 2 by 4 as well….but now that means it’s a gay bar. A famous gay bar too! Still sounds like everything else looks close enough to the same….i guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. Its dead center East Village after all, it was just such a great dive place….no association whatsoever other than being cheap and gungy..my kind of bar…..ah well, as New York is best at demonstrating nothing ever lasts forever. Good memories of that place though, I sure as hell have that! I even met a gold painted smoking hottie bird that night from the Ukraine that night….wonder what happened to her.
…its Rachel’s birthday today.


December 18, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Wow, after all the -40 weather of the past few days now I feel as though I could sit around my get in my boxers. (ah heck, I do that anyway, OR LESS!) No but really at night its barely sub-zero and during the day the only thing that is annoying is the wind, but it is December after all!
Actually I even spent some time near sunset sitting outside. In the winter that is so hard to comfortably too. There was no wind and I just sat where you can see the nearby train station and the abandoned buildings the Soviets built to guard the place. I had just gotten to run for the first time in over a week and with the endorphins and my legs in the “feel good pain” mode I just started at the rusty old metal pieces around the beautiful Mongolian sun. Oh my my my it really is a beautiful world. I sat there and just let everything sink in, and I knew there was nowhere…NOWHERE I would rather have been.
Not going to UB this weekend, no point aside from buying olive oil and lettuce (I spoil myself this year really) and as nothing shuts down for the day of Christmas and the lovely UB ladies have arranged a Christmas party…well ill use next week for my monthly UB run. Gotta get this keyboard fixed too…or buy a garbage USB keyboard at least. I feel like this laptop of mine after 3 years of rigorous service is like the Millenium Falcon and each night I use it to edit movies that I make I whisper “hear me baby hold together”….please do..i don’t want the hassle of shipping in a new one from the states and 6 months in the winter is a little too long to go off the grid, especially when I will need a computer for job and future stuff…

Later night postscript: I just finished making the “12 Days of Mongolian Christmas and will be posting it on the blog and youtube tomorrow. I am rather proud of this. I do what I love and I love what I do. So many people “do what they have to so they can do the things you love” but I tell yea…I would…probably couldn’t do life any other way than this.


December 19, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

I had forgotten about the wind. I recall it being tough all around, but in the summer nothing beats a 30 degree temperate day then a breeze on your face. Now the wind takes -10 F and makes it -40! Ive been in Bagakhangai for over three weeks now. Im not complaining really, it just means that I am aware that my clothes are not as clean as they could be, my hair is rougher that before (caked in dirt). Next Thursday I take a day or two off to go to UB for Christmas. Why not, ive covered for so many on so many occasions they can live without me for two days around here.
Changing the subject a little, my ger is hot tonight. I am sitting around in my underwear despite the -20 C temperature and the wind which has FINALLY died down. Heating a ger is tricky business, and requires practice, patience and blind dumb luck. I overdid it but by morning itll be cold cold…just as well though I needed my water bucket to like truly thaw out anyways. Im getting pretty good at it though, and ive come to bring to an end the neverending arument on the “newspaper on bottom and top or just on bottom” debate once and for all….
Hehehe…A 60 and 90 year old in Greensboro and their brother/son just all started laughing hysterically.
Long long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth….and the Jacobs brood made fires in NC (needed about 5 times a year but routinely done in 60 F weather anyways) My father and Uncle no doubt invented this fake argument to get us kids in an uproar (or maybe just me as this sounds like something I would really be adamant about as a kid). So the argument was this….whats the best way to start a fire? Oh sure your start off with a bunch of light kindling, a few larger branches and topped off with the first dry log, but the newspaper…. Did: as my father and grandfather advocate that we put it both underneath AND above the metal bar thingy (wow ive forgotten what that is called) OR….as my Uncle Jonathan said that newspaper should only be found underneath the metal bar firewood thingy (I gotta google what that thing is called tomorrow)
Now naturally like all baseless, pointless and imaginary arguments the lines of the Jacobs household were drawn on this and for years we argued among one another to no effect. As both methods yielded fires I don’t think there was any quantitative data involved in this family debate. Except ONE time (when a ten or so year old weirdo kid made the fire btw) the upper and lower method failed and Uncle Jonathan really made sure we remembered that.
Well now I make a fire each night, and I am also the third prophet. For I have found the new way, the better way…the true way to get a fire going. Not top and bottom or just bottom….none.
How do you make a fire?
-You start with a household knife (like the one I bought a year ago when I moved here and I use it to cut bread as well)
-Then you get a hold of a log and you make slivers…really….REALLY skinny slivers. Watch your fingers!
-Then you make a LOT of them too.
-Then you set the newfound tiny kindling aside for a day or so to dry.
-You make a log cabin setup with the wood in your stove.
-You take huge chunks of coal and make a perimeter of the cabin.
-Then take tiny chunks of coal and scatter it close to the cabin and put a few final pieces on top (so it heats up the coal from the very beginning)
-Then with a single match, you set the cabin kindling on fire, and slowly add a few final chunks as enough embers form up.
-You let the coal run its course. You have made a fire using no newspaper whatsoever…
…and THAT is the secret to making fires!
The amazing thing is that you don’t even need a lot of kindling either. Ive been in town for a month or so and I am still on a single log piece of kindling. So long as you make a fire within 24 hours of the last one there will still be burning embers under the ash of the old fire. All it needs then is to be replenished with more coal with a few puffs of wind and your good to go.
I bet you three thought I forgot that little argument of ours didn’t you???

Postscript: GRATE!!!!! That’s what that metal thing is called… internet rocks! My apologies….i don’t have one of those either. Just a rectangle to hold coal and ash!

December 20, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

Hulu is such a wonderful thing. I watched an episode of Law and Order SVU. I have such the hots for Mariska Hargitay. Her shorter hair days were better though. Actually I sorta got a thing for any women cops (don’t read into that too much) anyways this SVU episode was about alcohol abuse on college campuses and rape. It was strange to see a drama of this because this was what I dealt with for the longest while.
All things I worked on while I was there about were confidential so obviously I wont go into detail, but as a Resident Director of over three years I was a counselor on some VERY high level judicial councils of sexual assault. Its not pretty, not at all as much fun to watch on TV, and worst of all very very real. Actually I know what was the worst part of it. The worst was that unlike on SVU…you DON’T know everything. You don’t know who really is a victim and who isn’t at the end of 40 minutes. Its ten different peoples stories, all differning in “certain facts” and make up a story that turns everyone into a victim or a fiend depending on who you talk too.
Worse still is I don’t have an answer, or rather my answers don’t work. For instance, I didn’t drink until I was 22, and I stayed out of college bars even after that…you can guess why that’s not something easy to sell to others. I still am not so sure what caused such a good streak in me. Not religious, parents both drink (not a lot but you get the idea) and I do indeed like the taste of the stuff and drink it a lot now too…I guess it boiled down to me having parents who taught me to respect law and authority (go Mom and Dad! Eric your in there too!)
Back to the episode though, the thing to take away from this is simple: this goes out to EVERY guy plain and simple. If she is drunk, or acting like shes euphorically happy or anything that you would lead you to believe she cant tightrope walk….she is NOT giving you consent!!!! I don’t care if she mounts you through slurred speech or not! I don’t care if your BAC is flammable. Keep it in your pants and see if she feels the same way in the morning! If she is drunk she CANNOT give you consent. There is no wiggle room here or anything to figure out. Its strange, in a country with as much alcohol as this I don’t know what the rates of charged rapes are. Probably lower, given the liberal and early consumption of alcohol, young marrying age and lack of University scene outside of three cities in this country…that might be something to investigate.


December 21, 2010. Bagkhangai, Mongolia

Over the weekend I was putting the final touches on the “12 Days of Mongolian Christmas” song. In doing so I had used clips of a movie called “Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave” I don’t know if she remembers it but back when I must have been a teenager this 40 minute movie came out in very artsy select movie theatres, one of which was in Washington DC. My mom took me to see it. I know I told her how much I loved the movie and I still do, but I don’t think I ever told her how grateful I was that she came along with me as well.
That’s what happens as you age I suppose. You finally get enough experiences behind you that you start to feel happy about the times you spent with the people you love. Thanks mom…we must be near Christmas, im all nostalgic on my blogs!
I hate Tuesdays, I dunno why but this place really becomes a madhouse, and I am only here for one class in the afternoon so im in a small room with about 20 teachers all yammering and cramming food down their throats and one of the Mongolian Language teachers has spent the last two months try to cough out her lung, very unsuccessfully I might add. In essence its just a pressure cooker of irritation, and it has been a month without pause.
They want me to stay for Christmas Eve for a party. I had to politely refuse. Peace Corps is doing its own shindig and I have been in town now for over a month. A hot shower, good beer, pizza and people who I can talk about the plot of “Inception” in detail with is going to be how I spend Christmas Eve. Besides, noone in my town is Christian anyway and neither am i…in essence it would just be an excuse to drink excessively…and I do that more than enough already and I do it better alone.
Worry not, I told them I would be here for the New Years Eve party. Thatll be…well…drunk seems like the adjective to describe that. Were nearing the end of 2010 huh??? A full year in another country….and an exotic one at that. Pretty damn cool. Hell im 30 in 2 months…and about 3 or so months after that Peace Corps service comes to an end….seriously??? December 31st ill do a bit of a reflection blog entry I imagine.
Postscript: I just looked at the weather and it seems tomorrow its going to be sunny and -40 (F and C are the same at that temp) even during the day. Seeing as I have only one class on Wednesday I think ill make arrangements for an early UB trip. I need to get this keyboard fixed anyways. Good news is that the cold at that temp appears to be a passing thing. We still have barely any snow on the ground. I love the look of Mongolia this winter. Cold and crisp but not all one singular white color. So different, so beautiful.


December 22, 2010. Bagakhangai in the bus on the road to UB, Mongolia.

Last night I treated myself to a winter solstice feast. Four beers and the rest of my noodles and pasta sauce. I even timed it so I used all of the remaining water in my ger so there is nothing to freeze in the coming days when I am not here. I have learned the true gift of a ger dweller to actually time my water consumption. The eclipse was nice enough. Land of the Blue Sky sure pays off at times. I like Solstice for some reason, probably stemming from how so many religions have made a deal about it yet it actually has a physical characteristic to all of them. It is the darkest… that’s something to keep in mind.
I think there is something to realize about this. Yes it will get colder in January and even February, but as of today we come closer and closer to the utopia which is the summer. The days will grow longer, and the yearning to run will grow stronger. Food will grow in the ground once again and day by day we creep back to our blossoming.
I think in the past week or so I have become acutely aware of how cold and dark its been. Ive tried to stay in good spirits but I know what it is, its winter in a country where I sleep in a tent. Its not a complaint, just knowledge that this is what it is. I am not weary yet, but I am glad that this is as far into the woods as I walk, every step from this and each day that passes now brings me out, and it even means the ending of my time in the Peace Corps. Not a euphoria, just a reminder that even exiles must eventually come to an end.
Life is a funny thing is it not?


December 24, 2010. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

I got to see Harry Potter 7 in the theatre yesterday after getting my computer fixed. Okay movie, but now that all movies are in 3-D they are making too many shots where something is supposed to be jumping at the screen. Its distracting and unnecessary.
Ah well…the movie itself…yea okay better. Darker that’s for damn sure. It seemed like we jumped a little too dark from the Harry Potter 6. My favorite part was something that did not even actually happen. Its where Hermoine and Harry are dancing. That was great. I don’t know why I liked it so much, but it sorta showed how when things are REALLY REALLY bad you can still find something so simple to be happy.
As I watched it in a theatre full of Mongolians I did notice that all of the camping scenes really look like they shot the movie in Mongolia. Or maybe ive just been here so long that everything looks like Mongolia to me.
So with that done I went to AB&F and proceeded to drink my weight in good beer. Ah beer….i love that beer is so often associated with someone who has bad drinking taste and when I do it here its miles better than anything drink during the other 99% of my time. Bumped into some fellow PCV’s as well….based on what I remember I didn’t act any stupider then I usually do…so that’s good right?


December 25, 2010. UB, Mongolia.

Christmas was going out to eat Chinese food and then to a comfortable bar where we drank half liter beers costing about $1.50 each. It was warm, full bellied and in the company of good friends and people who were as happy to be there if you were. I could go into specifics…but really how is that not the ideal day?
Life is good…really really good.

December 26, 2010. Bus back to Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

The cold is back, and Im not nearly bundled up. I am waiting for the food vendors who actually have tsuivan to walk by. All the ladies that have passed so far only have Buuz…in all fairness Buzz are WAY more popular than tsuivan…but its my favorite food. I have two packages this time and though I brought my large bag I am really holding onto a whole lot of stuff. Itll get better tonight when I am in my ger and I have a fire going, but right now it is all a little much, and though not hungover I am well aware I was drinking last night.
Toughen up soldier! City life has made me soft.

December 27, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.

I have to surrender my oven tomorrow. I still cry foul, and I will deny them my oven when I leave and give it to one at a similar soum nearby UB. Foul! Foul indeed! No more pizza for them…EVER!!!
Shuffled out after classes ended to go buy some water. 70 liters of water to gather in sub zero temps….again the wind is BRUTAL! Luckily that amount should tide me over for 3 weeks when I leave for 2nd quarter break. I either will just chill in UB and get my Chinese visa for March OR ill go on an eagle hunt. The eagle hunt is expensive…perhaps too expensive.
Hang on…lets do the math here. 70 liters of water divided by 21 days….even if you throw in the odd liter and a half I buy from the delguur during the day and I would say im still just around 4 liters of water a day in consumption. Drinking, cooking, cleaning, four liters total….i don’t think you could shower in America and use less than that alone! I don’t care if I take over a sewage plant when I finish Peace Corps…I have the carbon imprint of a horse out here!


December 28, 2010. Bagakhangai, Mongolia.
Today’s Quote: “On the darkest night, the stars shine their brightest”

Well, that’s about another month I guess its best to put this up on the blog. In review what is there to say about December? December in Peace Corps is hard, especially if you live in a country that does not even really recognize the holiday. December is when it may not even necessarily get depressing, but sure gets dark. Dark in a country without lights on outside at night. Its cold and your first whiff of whats to come in that capacity, and if your heart is not in it its depressing, and if your heart is in it you still know your in for one hell of a ride.
It’s the time that you just got done having a good time seeing friends at Thanksgiving and you then slowly realize that you are bummed you missed that in America, and then a month from then Christmas is a holiday you realize you will miss as well. It’s a time when every kids ABBA soaked ringtone of “Happy New Year” is like Chinese water torture, and you can’t tell if you just want the noise to stop or be a different kind of noise at all.
It’s also the heart of the 2nd quarter of school. As a student and teacher in American school before coming here AND then teaching in Mongolia it seems the same. The 2nd quarter is the toughest. The shine of the beginning has worn off, everyones a little grouchier, and the summer looks far far away. It’s the time that even those who are truly all around happy can look bummed. The third and fourth quarter are both a week less in length than the first too and the 3rd quarter break lasts 2 weeks…we have not had an official break since the 2nd week of November. It’s still in the middle of an ever so long quarter.
In conclusion, its not always darkest before the dawn. Actually it never is….its darkest halfway through, and its during that time you need to realize that every further step you are taking is not INTO the woods, but out of it. That as cold and hard as life is now every step afterwards brings warmer and longer days, and the joys of rolling green hills and the endless smell of animal droppings that you miss the smell of in the winter as everything is frozen. In essence, I have reached the mid way point of the 2nd half of my Peace Corps years, and while I don’t despair or feel stressed I am going to enjoy how each day after is one towards a brighter, warmer future.

Life is good…and here is to even better days.