what I do with my days

First: if you haven’t liked the Snapshots of Service page on Facebook yet, go do that right now. Because if you aren’t my mother, you haven’t done it. I invited everyone, but unless everyone I know ignored the invite, there’s something wrong with the page suggestion system. Link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/PC-Snapshots-of-Service/189232554467302

Now that I only have a little bit of time left here for training, I’ve realized there’s so much more I want to say about being here that I haven’t gotten around to yet. Plus I was lazy when I was in Darkhan and didn’t update that week, so this week at least we’re going to rock more than one post. Yes Kristie, Christmas HAS come early J

So another thing I realized is that I’ve never actually told y’all what I’ve been doing for these past however many weeks. That might be interesting to some people, so I’ll throw it out there. It’s become an accepted part of my life and I don’t think much about it anymore, but maybe it’s weird? I don’t know. I never know anything anymore.

My daily schedule goes a little something like this:

Depending on whether I’m going in early for a skype date with my mother that she will forget about or whether I’m going in for normal time, I either wake up at 7 or 7:30. I hit the outhouse, get dressed, eat breakfast that my family brings in for me which is usually bread and jam but sometimes it’s different, pack up my stuff, then leave the house either at 8 or 8:30.

School starts at 9am for four hours of Mongolian language class. We get two breaks in the middle (some of you know this from skype / facebook chatting) but it really isn’t as overwhelming as it sounds. Around noon I generally get hungry, but I like Mongolian so it’s fine. Mongolian has officially replaced any Russian I learned these past four years. Once I get to site, I’m going to have to step up my studying. I have Harry Potter in Spanish which helps keep that fresh, but my poor Russian ran away.

Lunch is between 1 and 2:30. Sometimes I bring a lunch and stay at school because it’s a 20 minute walk home and 40 minutes is a lot to lose. Especially now that we’re in practice teaching (more on that in another post) and everything is super stressful. Or if it’s raining – that walk is ridiculously awful when I’m wet. Then I end up grumpy and snappy and nobody likes that. Anyway, I get overfed at lunch, but usually eat it anyway because it’s usually delicious.

At 2:30 we either have practice teaching (Tues-Fri) or a cultural lesson on Mondays. Cultural lessons generally get out between 4 or 4:30, Tuesday and Friday lessons get out around 4:30, but on Wednesday and Thursday we have TEFL technical sessions with the trainers and are supposed to get out at 5:30. I don’t think we have ever gotten out on time (we may like to talk…a lot) so it’s usually closer to 6.

I then do my 20 minute walk back home. Sometimes food is waiting for me when I get there, sometimes we don’t eat until 8. I never know which way it’s going to go. If it’s later, I try to get a nice nap in. My evenings are filled with lesson planning, naps, movie watching, practicing our performance for Swear-in (it’s a secret so I can’t say more than that), and playing with Nomin. If people write me letters, I write back. Bed time is anywhere between 10 and midnight, depending on when I pass out. Lately it’s been a lot closer to 10 because of how tiring these days are. Pre-mid center days, I could get away with longer days because lesson planning was more spread out.

Weekends sometimes include river-going or mountain climbing. Usually they are chock full of naps and watching movies because being a 4-year-old’s favorite play thing gets tedious after not very long. My life isn’t terribly exciting, but c’est la vie. I roll with it.