As of Late...

So what did I do over the swine flu break of a month and a half of no school, you may wonder. Well, I nursed a Sudoku obsession that led to me doing upwards of 10 a day and having dreams that involved me trying to solve difficult puzzles.
I also read several books, one of which I am not too proud of: Lance Armstrong's autobiography, It's Not about the Bike. It not only made me wish I could too be riding bikes all the time, but after reading it, I no longer had a desire to pick up any other books. So that's just how good it was.

In trying to teach English pronouns, I am constantly drawing the “magic tree” as my ninth-grade Spanish teacher so eloquently put it.
It looks like this and can be replicated for studying any language:


I We
You You all
He/She/It They

I always took solace in this magic tree, drawing it on any and every Spanish quiz and test; that love for the magic tree transcended into my study of Latin, then German, and finally Mongolian. Oddly, it never quite worked out for American Sign Language. Since I enjoyed(enjoy) revisiting that old tree in times of linguistic doubt, I figured my students would also enjoy it. It was a revelation, really, that I had this week, that not everyone clings to the magic tree as I do. Thus, I have taken to trying new methods of hammering English pronouns into my students' skulls. Matching games seem to be my best bet so far.

I am revisited time and again by the fact that my mantra needs to be that of Okkervil River's album entitled “Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See.” I am constantly finding myself having this problem. It seems I could fall in love with a table if it was nice enough or mean enough to me for a prolonged period of time.

Jim Carl, the country director of Peace Corps Mongolia, recently informed us that there is enough money in the budget for anyone to stay a third year. So this has been on my mind. Going back to my “issue” of having an ability, and not only an ability, but an aptitude to fall in love with everyone/thing I see, I have fallen in love with Mongolia. It wasn't a surprise though; I'm pretty sure it started in 2003 or 2004, when I saw “The Story of a Weeping Camel” in the theater. It was then that the incomprehensible language, excellent footwear, comfy-looking deels, adorable kids, and ridiculously beautiful landscape first captured my eyes. Ever since then, I had a deep, secret yearning to travel to the place where camels cried. Skip forward a few years and Peace Corps was on my mind. I had always thought about doing Peace Corps, thinking that the people who did it were super awesome, but I wasn't one of them and I couldn't be. Then, while working at one of the UGA dining halls, my friend, Amanda, asked me what I wanted to do. I said I didn't know, but I knew I wanted to do Peace Corps, but I didn't think I could. She said why not. So that got me to thinking. And I started going to information meetings and talked to the Peace Corps Representative at UGA about what I needed to do to get accepted. And then, everywhere I went I kept running into people who had done Peace Corps and they always said the same thing “Do it.” At one particular Peace Corps meeting, it was the 50th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps at Little Kings Bar in Athens, a woman got up and spoke about being in Peace Corps Mongolia. My goodness. This is exactly where I wanted to go. Very exciting. I listened with a huge smile on my face. She talked about how she had to sleep in two sleeping bags sometimes and that there was this holiday where she ate more meat than she knew was possible (Tsaagan Sar – White Month.....it's true. It's a lot of meat.) And that was that. I was hooked on the idea. So I talked to my advisor and started on a minor in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, to make my application more competitive.

I started my Peace Corps application in December 2006; I turned it in in May 2007; I had my interview on July 4th, 2007; I got nominated about a week later; I began all the medical and dental work I had to do; I finally finished that about 3 months later (I think; I don't really remember).
During your interview and on the application, you can write down a preference of a region of the world you would like to go to. There are three blanks: your first preference, your second preference, and somewhere you don't want to go. I wrote no preference in all of the blanks (even though I had a secret yearning to go to Mongolia) because I thought if this was something I should be doing I want no part in the decision making process; I didn't want this to be about me, about what I wanted; I wanted others to decide. When I was told at the interview I would probably go to Latin America, I couldn't hide my disappointment. Even though I had said I didn't care, I had drawn hearts around Mongolia on my world map at home, in hopes that that's where I would be going. Skip to a few months later, December 2007, a Peace Corps representative called me and said I needed more solo teaching experience and that maybe Peace Corps just wasn't for me. I couldn't help it; I cried on the phone with the PC representative. Pissed was beyond what I was; I had just graduated from college and now I had no, completely NO idea what I was doing. So I did what the PC representative told me to, I started substitute teaching in Athens-Clarke County (I don't recommend it), I became a studio assistant at Good Dirt, a pottery studio in Athens, continued to work at Lee Epting Catering, and continued to teach Adult ESOL classes through Catholic Charities.

My desire to do Peace Corps was deterred, but not completely. I was annoyed with the organization, but still yearned for the experience. Later I discovered, that this was Peace Corps policy, to play hard to get, but I didn't know that at the time. Also, I later realized the infamous call in December of “maybe Peace Corps just isn't for you,” was because of a bad recommendation from my supervisor at Catholic Charities, whom two months later got fired. Anyhoo, still not knowing what to do really, but enjoying my time of leisure and relaxation in Athens, I had some money in the form of an American Airlines ticket that I needed to use by May 2008 and some friends in Slovakia I had always been meaning to visit. So in March I bought a ticket to Frankfurt and then a train pass so I could take the train through Vienna to Bratislava and on to Kosice. While in Slovakia, I meet some Americans who were teaching English through the Lutheran Church. They had this awesome apartment, got money to live, and Slovakia has wonderful cheese and the wine is cheap and good. I looked at the application online; it was a breeze compared to the Peace Corps one. I filled it out in about a week and then waited. Once the application is accepted, the applicant gets flown up to Chicago for an interview. This was another incentive for me to apply. At the beginning of April, the P.C. representative called me and told me there was a program leaving at the beginning of June for somewhere in Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Mongolia. That last part: “or Mongolia” was what got me. That same week, I received an email from the Lutheran Church asking when I could fly up to Chicago for an interview. I thought about the trip to Chicago and the good cheese and wine and my friends, the excellent train system of Europe, then being dirty weeks on end, learning a new incredibly difficult language, being alone (or so I thought), being away from home for 12 months or 27 months. I knew I couldn't pussy out for the good cheese and wine and train system; and since Peace Corps had called me, I had to go. So I accepted Peace Corps' offer and nervously waited to hear my fate of a country. About a week later, my roommate, Brooke, called me and told me a package from Peace Corps had arrived at our house. Opening the package that was going to tell me where I would go was a bit nerve-wracking. As I prayed for Mongolia, I tore open the envelope that revealed “Mongolia” written on it. I couldn't get over it. I was so so so happy. I was still a bit skeptical: should I do this I wondered. I accepted though, and then flew up to Washington, D.C. To see my brother and sister before leaving in May. While on the flight, the lady sitting next to me asked me if I was going into Peace Corps (I was reading some Peace Corps manuals they had sent me). I said yes, but had some doubts. She told me she had gone to the Philippines in the 90s with Peace Corps as a fishing volunteer. She told me how wonderful it was and how I didn't need to worry, because they won't have chosen me if I was unqualified. I felt as though my constant run-ins with people affiliated with Peace Corps was something of a sign that I should go and do it.

For my first few days in Mongolia, I couldn't believe I was really here. The incredulity didn't go away. It lasted for weeks and months. Then when I got placed in exactly the setting I wanted: being the only volunteer in my town, far from other volunteers, living in a Mongolian ger, having to speak the language to get by, living in a small town, I was once again taken aback. Sometimes, it is hard for people to believe something good has really come true because good things always come to an end. So accepting the good is actually accepting the bad too, because things cannot stay good forever. Thus, I was hesitant to accept the good of my situation and often would just step back and say “I can't believe this is really happening.”

Now, I have been in Mongolia for, it is hard to believe, 19 months. 19 months. That is so insane. I remember the first few months, counting them down, because as much as I loved being in Mongolia, I despised being in training. I can believe I am here now; yes, I am in Mongolia. But I still have those moments where I step back and think, wow, I can't believe this actually happened. Like going outside at night, looking up at the sky and seeing millions and billions of stars, and never having seen that many before in my life; like looking out at the road leading to Choibalsan from my soum and being able to see nothing for miles; like waking up early, while the sun is still coming up and seeing the smoke pouring from the rows of gers and houses. It's just beautiful. And I am going to miss it. Miss it. Like a ridiculous amount.

So I wonder, should I stay a third year. A third year will be incredibly different. And it will be difficult, but in different ways I think. I won't be in my soum for one. And I will be in an apartment. Running water, heat – :). I think I will actually have to teach people real English. And that does scare me a bit. But I don't know if I am ready to leave Mongolia yet. I am not sure if my time here is up. I can't just leave I feel. This place is a part of me now. When I leave, I feel a part of me will stay here. Of course, things are far from perfect here. Oh, so far. And there probably hasn't been a day that's gone by where I didn't think if I could only have, if I only were...But I don't know if I am ready to leave just yet. So I think that I should probably stay a third year. The difficulties and the differences shouldn't scare me into residing into the comfortable. So I am going to stay. (I think. Indecisiveness is one of my weaknesses, if you can't tell.) I don't know if this exactly applies, but I think it does somewhat: “We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.” -Helen Keller.

NOTE: I wrote this a few weeks ago....I do not know if I should stay a third year any longer...ugh.)