Winter "Break"

Ah, a more relaxed schedule!

Today is the first day of Winter Break. Well, it's a break for the students... except those that are preparing for the local district Olympiads and other school competitions. They are here at school, hard at work on practice materials.

Mongolian teachers are also at work, finishing grades and working on planning.

I'm here too--I've grades to finish as well and also want to help out with the students getting ready for the English Olympics. One of the Mongolian teachers has more experience and materials for them, but I'll check their writing and hope I can give them some pointers in that area. Essay questions tend to be quite general and often have a pretty short word-count, so they probably shouldn't be too flowery in their writing. There's not the space. ;)

We all had a good weekend this past weekend: Javkhaa did some grocery shopping, we all (finally!) got to church at the same time ;) and spent yesterday afternoon with Javkhaa's family. His parents made "piroshki", which are yummy, deep fried dumplings made with yeast dough and a meat and cabbage mixture inside. Mmmm! Thanks to the Russians for such a good recipe. ;)

more to come--my English teaching colleagues are stretching! ;)

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ahh!!!! so good!

I've been having periodic neck pain for the last few months and Saturday night it got quite severe. Yesterday I actually went to a Mongolian natural medicine doctor highly recommended by my sister-in-law. Waited in the corridor for almost one hour; there were lots of toddlers there to be seen, and a few adults as well. He massaged my neck a bit and put on some warming gels and it helped somewhat. I think I just need to stretch more (and more regularly!) and... hopefully that will help. The exercises we just did were great! :)