February to March update

March 17, 2016

It's tournament time, and I am absolutely ready. I won't whine about the seeding my team – UK – got, because I still think they're capable of winning it all if they play to their potential. It was a... poor decision on the part of the committee, though.

So, it's been a while since the last post, mostly because very little has happened in the past month. Work and some play, work and some play. I lost my phones during an impromptu soccer match at the Uvs Lake Ice Festival, which was unfortunate. And no, that's not a typo – I had a phone my dad had given me to listen to music and take pictures, and my PC-issued phone. The phone fell out of my deel pouch (the chest area, supported by a tied belt) and into the snow, and was shortly thereafter covered. We searched for it to no avail. 

The rest of the Ice Festival was a lot of fun, though the name conjures up what is probably not an accurate image. It was essentially this: “Hey, look, the lake's still frozen even though the sun is out, and the cold won't kill you! Let's go hang out by the lake, drink vodka and eat food, and play tug of war and cards!” To which someone else responded, “Tiishdei!” (“Of course!”)

The morning was kind of funny – there had been a sports competition at my school the day before, and once it ended, my teachers all went out and drank. As a result, most were too hungover the next day to go to the lake at 10 am, which is what we had said we would do. [For my part, I played basketball with my team (FOR NINE HOURS) the first day, but after an embarrassing incident during the last sports competition, declined to play volleyball on second day.] I showed up to the school at the appointed time to find only one of Korean friends there and literally no other teachers. At one point, she tried out a word I had taught her (or I like to think that I taught her) that is a vulgar substitute for poop. Eventually, some others showed up, though, and gave us a ride around noon.

Uhhhh.... what else? A quick run off of recent things: It's still cold outside, but not very cold anymore, which is nice. Until very recently, I had been able to workout in a decent weight room in the city, but they unfortunately decided to start charging. That's a bummer. It's only the equivalent of about $15 a month, but still. Free is cheaper, and I'm on a volunteer's salary. Emily and I have started taking Mongolian lessons again, which we really enjoy and need. I found a beer (at the recommendation of a fellow PC volunteer) that's sort of a wheat beer and which I really like (mostly because it's not a lager). If someone tried to sell me a hoppy American Ale right now, I'd probably offer them my right arm. I don't know what they'd do with it, but it might end up on the table.

In the near-future: this upcoming week and weekend promises to be interesting (though not in that order). Tomorrow morning, I get to watch UK play LIVE for only the second time since I've been here, and in the NCAA tournament to boot. On Saturday, all five Uvs PC volunteers (PCVs hereafter) will be together to celebrate St. Patty's day with our Korean friends and, if they come, a few Mongolian friends. On Sunday, a representative from the US Embassy will visit and deliver a seminar to the English teachers in Uvs. On Monday (I think), we will have dinner with them; we had dinner with the consulate last year and that was a lot of fun, so I expect this will be as well. On Monday and Tuesday, Uvs will hold its annual Academic Olympics, including an English Olympiad, which we've been preparing our students for for some time. Tuesday, I actually get to help grade those tests, which I'm looking forward to. I don't know why, but I like grading, and since the grading is blind, I don't worry about being partial.

Anyway, thanks for reading.  

The Winter Blues

February 24, 2016

Happy birthday, sister! Try not to let it go to your head.

Evidently, February is the month that "the winter blues" finally got me, and good (although for me, it's more like "the winter anxieties"). When you're rooting for the temperature to hit 32 F because that's almost 100 degrees warmer than it was for two or three weeks and is a reasonable temperature to be outside in, when a sunny day tricks you into thinking it's warm because you haven't seen much sun in the past two months, when you look forward to being able to walk to school without your breath freezing on your glasses (not fogging, freezing), and when you look forward to snow because that means it's warm enough for moisture to form in large enough amounts to count as precipitation -- that can wear one down.

To be fair to Mongolia, February is usually my least-favorite month (although some years January takes the cake), and I've struggled with winter from a mental-health perspective for as long as I can remember. Nonetheless, this one has me thinking more and more about what I can do to overcome this feeling of malaise, and my sometimes desperate desire to see something green.

Emily recently provided me a link to a blog which she follows somewhat religiously called "Mr. Money Mustache" about a dude who managed to save up enough money to retire when he was, no joke, 30 years old. The money part of it is less interesting to me, at least at this point in my life, but the blog's author focuses a lot on mentality, and the post Emily recommended to me is about one of the first habits listed in the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" -- in this case, identifying the things that stress you out or cause you consternation, and trying to separate them into groups of "can control" and "cannot control".

I've made a list of such things; for instance, I cannot control whether UK wins the NCAA tournament this year, no matter how long I go without washing my favorite UK shirt. I cannot control whether the global economic system collapses, I cannot control the condoned and lauded anti-science views of half of the US electorate, and I cannot control the length and intensity of the Mongolian winter. I can control, however, my posture, how often I write, my tendency to overschedule, and how much time I spend playing video games.

I've found it helpful and incredibly centering to think of things in terms of what I can and can't control. If nothing else, it helps me to realize that there are things that are well within my circle of control that could (and in some cases eventually will) be impossible for me to do. For example, I'm young, physically fit, and reasonably intelligent, so many of the problems that I see in my life right now can be overcome. Some day, I may have a stroke and be unable to speak, or lose a leg in a freak roller-coaster accident and be unable to run. But today is not that day.

That being said, there are some things which I'm less sure about; my tendency toward addiction (see video games), my failing in learning Korean, and my continual battles with my bowels notwithstanding. Which category do these things fall in? Where does mental disease fall into this, and what are the lines there? I.e., do I have a mental disease in anxiety, or am I just undisciplined?

A more difficult question, for me, revolves around climate change. As most of you know, I am firm in the knowledge that this is the most important threat facing humanity at this point. Yet is it something I can control? Of course not. I can advocate for serious climate change action and legislation, I can vote for people who say they will uphold the international agreements to which we are already party, and I can take steps to limit my own carbon footprint. But ultimately, much of that lies so far outside of my sphere of control that it sometimes feels pointless to even try. 

And we come full circle! I despair about some of the things I cannot control because they seem to be every bit as important as the things that I can control. I can rationalize all day about why it's in my best interest and the best interests of those who I love for me to do everything I can to fight against climate change, but if I'm focusing on things I can control, the problem becomes far more complex than that (damn you, life, resisting simple dichotomy!). For example, is it my responsibility to do something about climate change? Two of the most important goals are to stay healthy and happy, and I think of that as a thing that I can control. Am I wrong in the face of something that will undoubtedly impact both of those things?

Short answer: no, probably not. Cancer can also kill me, and there are thousands of things we know of that cause cancer, aging notwithstanding. In some places, being outside is one of them. A supervolcano could erupt, an asteroid could impact Earth, or a Coronal Mass Ejection could destroy the electrical infrastructure around the world. Should I spend my life advocating for preparation in the face of these things which will, statistically, definitely happen?

Is it my responsibility to stop climate change? Well, in a way yes, but ultimately it's everyone's responsibility. I can do what I can to advocate for change, but if it's just me, it's pointless. I can scream and shout on the steps of the Capitol about preparing for an asteroid impact, I can hem and haw on street corners about the dangers of speculative investing and negative interest rates, and I can set myself on fire to simulate what might happen if the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupts, but it's just leaves in the wind if I'm the only person trying.

Take a more concrete example: I want to make Emily happy in life. Is that a thing I can control? No. I can control how I treat Emily, how I act toward her, but if tomorrow something terrible happens to her, she's probably going to be sad.

Ultimately, this "can and cannot" exercise proved extremely helpful to me. Not only by way of categorizing, but by giving me a perspective on my own anxiety, and the frankly illogical impositions I've put on myself. Long story short: give it a try.

Thanks for reading. Here's a picture of Emily with a dead fish in a bucket as a reward for your perseverance:

Tsagaan Sar Pictures

Tsagaan Tsar is, as you might know, the Lunar New Year. This will be a quick one-off post to share some of our experiences during the week-long event.

Officially, actually, the government allows for three days to celebrate the holiday, but in the countryside where herders mostly live, it can go on for about a month.

In our experience, it went something like this: day 1, kids visit parents' and grandparents' homes. Day 2, younger siblings visit older siblings' homes. Day 3, older folk visit younger folk's homes. Day 4, friends and coworkers. There's nothing strict about that setup; we visited families every day except the first, and actually visited a friend well after day 4; rather, these are the general guidelines.

When you get to the ger or apartment or house or whatever, you immediately greet the hosts: first the men, oldest to youngest, then the women, oldest to youngest. Technically, if you're older than a child or something like that, they're supposed to greet you. The greeting itself is a quick thing; hold your arms out as if you're carrying a box and meet the other person in the same fashion, younger person's arms on the bottom, then touch cheeks on both sides and give a normal greeting. Sometimes, the oldest will hand you their bottle of tobacco, which typically you wouldn't actually take a whiff from, only sniff near the cap, then hand back. The bottle itself is usually a very expensive crystal or bone or jade or something bottle, filled with a fine powdered tobacco that you would snort. I've done it once or twice, and it's a craaaazy head rush.

After that, it's eat, drink, eat, drink, eat, eat, eat, drink, drink, drink. Traditionally one eats buuz (pronounced more like "boats" than "booz"), a steamed meat dumpling kind of thing. All the while, you're drinking milk tea and being handed shots of vodka, typically by the oldest male host. Thankfully, they don't expect you to drink the whole thing (or even any of it, necessarily), as most Mongolians use double shots or larger.

Eventually, you'll exchange gifts, and eventually, you'll leave.

Anyway, here's some pictures. See if you can tell which ones involved the most vodka.

More pictures and semi-random thoughts.

Can a thing be semi-random?

A few more pictures, and some quick updates:

It is now -40 during the day and -50 at night. The doors to the porches are literally frozen shut -- the condensation from inside the apartment (cooking and breathing and whatnot) freezes at the base of the doors over night. I actually went to a store near us, and on the inside of the store's door, the lock had been frozen. We're not talking about a keyhole lock or something like that, but a normal kind of lock you'd expect to see anywhere.

Also, there are a few manhole covers around the city, and they spout steam. The steam does not, however, usually make it all that far -- it forms a sort of vent of the sort you'd see when someone on a science show tells you that life probably originated around hot vents spewing sediment at the bottoms of the oceans. A spout, of sorts. It's neat.

Other than that, Tsagan Tsar (Lunar New Year) approaches, and it is now dark as late as like... 630. So that's cool. That's up from 330-4 earlier in the year.

In any case, here's some pictures:

We had our creative writing competition this past weekend, a wild success that saw something like 86 students in our aimag center alone. I forgot to take pictures of that, though, so here's a picture of the main road in our city.

ACTION SHOT OF EMILY TEACHING!


ACTION SHOT OF ERIC GETTING WAY TOO CLOSE TO THE BOARD! HE NEEDS A HARICUT!

A feel for how foggy/smokey it gets overnight when the temperature dips below -40. It's usually worse earlier on.

See if you can spot the windows leaking heat.

A few of our kids from the WriteOn classes Emily and I taught together.

The school I work in. ... oh, sorry. In which I work.

An only-slightly obscured view of the mountains to the... either North or South or East or West of our apartment. One of those.

A view of my (Eric's) walk to school.

Frozen windooooowwwwww.

Another view of my walk to work. It is followed immediately by the next picture, which is the "interior" of that break in the fence.

The break in the fence. Two people attempting to go through at the same time always turns into a dance.

And lastly: Mongolian ambulance is bigger than your ambulance. 

Super amazing and enthusiastic blog post

January 17, 2016 (Sunday)

Still very, very little happening around here. I've been re-upping on my Korean lessons, which is good, but starting at the end of next week, there will be no classes (for me to teach at the college) for threeeeeeeee weeks. This is because there is a national holiday in February called Sagaan Saar, the celebration of the lunar new year. The actual holiday takes place over about three days, but my school operates under the department of labor in Mongolia (not the dept of education). That's how they do, you know?

I have no idea what I'm going to do. Work on clubs and lesson plans, I guess, and get really good at Spades again. If I could find some wood to carve, I'd start making a mah jong set, but I don't even know where to look. Ah well.

It's finally dipped into the -35 to -40 degree range, which is somewhat exciting in its own way. I will say, though, that there are still kids outside (when it's sunny) playing soccer. I can remember times as a kid when people wanted to cancel classes because it hit 0 outside. One of the many consequences of an overly litigious society, I suppose.

A funny observation: up until the past few days, I've been warm enough in my apartment that I've been able to wear shorts (albeit with long socks and slippers) and not get cold. The diving temperatures outside have made that impossible lately. Just think about that: the construction and insulation is good enough here that, until it hit -35 degrees, I was able to wear shorts inside without getting cold.

In Mongolia, they measure the winter by a series of nine nine-day periods (i.e., 81 days), in which things get progressively colder until about the 4^th period (which I believe we're in right now). I've made up my own system: comfortable without slippers and in a light long-sleeved shirt; comfortable with slippers and a light long-sleeved shirt; comfortable with slippers and socks and a light long-sleeved shirt; comfortable with thick socks, slippers, light shirt; comfortable with thick socks, slippers, thick shirt; and the current temperature, comfortable with thick socks, slippers, pants, and a long-sleeved shirt. It's a major consolation that February is generally warmer and sunnier than January (still in the -20 to -35 range, though).

Um... let's see. This past Saturday, Emily and I taught together for the first time (outside of Monglish night); a seminar on creative writing. We taught one class of younger students and one class of 11^th grade and up students, each two hours long. In the younger class, we got through far less of our material, but in the older class we finished almost all of it. We focused a lot on writing a good introduction. It went well, we think, even if we did step on each others' toes once or twice during the first lesson. A little of that is to be expected. We'll do it again next Saturday, then the following Saturday we'll have a creative writing competition (under the auspices of the WriteOn International competition, a Peace Corps project started in, I think, Georgia).

Our weekly Monglish night meeting was BIG this week, with probably 15 people. That might not seem like a lot, but in the past, it was five or six people sitting around on the couch in our apartment. Monglish night has fast become one of my favorite things to do, because it's specifically not a class. We're just practicing English with a bunch of people who want to improve, playing games and not taking it too seriously. It is incredibly refreshing. I am wondering, though, if maybe breaking it up into two groups might help things flow, if it keeps getting bigger.

UhhhhhhhhhhHHHhHhHhhhHhh otherwise I've been keeping an eye on the markets' continual dive, and reading doom-and-gloom reports about 2016 and the end of society as we know it. One way or another, 2016 is probably going to be a bad year economically: the first few weeks of the year serve as predictors for how the rest of the year will go almost 75% of the time. I also read a report from Lloyd's of London, among the most respected insurance companies in the world, predicting... well, predicting bad things. Food supply shocks and resulting food riots, water shortages and an increase in instances of disease, and in general failure of governments and societies to adapt quickly enough to any number of climate-change driven catastrophes. Lloyd's thinks that, if we continue with business as usual, human society by 2025 won't be recognizable as such.

Okay, I'll back off of that. It's occupied a lot of my time and thinking lately, though, so I couldn't resist a little bit of morbid speculation. I am getting well off the tracks here, though, so maybe this is a good stopping point. yeah? Yeah. 

Oooh! Pretty Pictures!

January 5, 2016

Lot of downtime lately, which is why updates have been less frequent. Only a few minor and (seemingly, only seemingly) unrelated observations, then some PWITTY PICTOWS. 

I accidentally typed 2015 when I started this entry.  

Amy and I go to the gym a few times a week, and have noticed an influx of new people over the past fourish days. Apparently, resolutioners are just as much a thing here as they are in America. 

-18C is -0.4F. From there, each degree drop in C is accompanied by a 1.8 degree drop in F (e.g., -19C is -2.2F, -20C is -4F, and so on). You can also take -40 as your starting point, as it's the same in F and C. It may very well work above freezing, but I'm too lazy to check. 

Mongolians do not care for bluegrass. 

Dungeons and Dragons is hard to play online, but still fun. 

I am not very good at writing poetry, but I still do it. 

Emily has a pie pan now, and is currently (as I write) making a chocolate pie. 

That first breath you take when you go outside in -30C weather kind of hurts and will trigger coughing. 

Wearing glasses in the Mongolian cold is somewhat impractical. Your glasses will both A) freeze over as you walk to wherever you're going because it's too cold to leave your face exposed and the water freezes as soon as it has a place to collect, and B) fog up so badly that you can't see when you get into a building that has the slightest bit of moisture. 

The king wears a king hat and lives in a king house. 

We miss having a cat. 

We miss our friends and family more acutely during the holiday seasons.

I might like advising as much as I like teaching. This is encouraging. 

January is the coldest month in our city. However, the winter has thus far been warmer than average. I blame El Nino which, as my Dad and I discussed, is supposed to last anywhere between 9 months and 2 years. If it lasts two years, maybe we'll make it out of here with two "mild" winters where it doesn't get colder than -35!

A big white dog followed me from just outside my apartment all the way to school one day. It was nice, but I felt bad that I didn't have anything to give him. 

And now, pictures: 

Ice frozen on our window that NEVER MELTS but sure looks cooooool.

The decorations in the main square in Ulaangom.

My school's Shin Jil (New Year's) party. The expression on that guy's face kind of says it all.

Emily's good side.

Emily's other good side.

Emily, Amy, and my foot.

Emily cooking while Amy studies the wall intently.

The mountain view from our apartment. In the winter, we're so often encompassed by clouds of smoke that you usually can't see them. If I didn't know the mountains were there, one could probably convince me I lived in the clouds.

 Emily, Grace, and the back of Amy's head.

 One of the streets near our apartment.

The full size of our bathroom. I'm not kidding. I'm standing with my back against the wall.

 A gnarly bruise that I got I-don't-know-howing during the New Year's party.

 Emily in front of her school.

The interior of Emily's school.

Emily posing in front of the sign just outside the Foreign Language Library.

A picture from training in which the photographed were totally sober.

My favorite Mongolian picture so far. Not only for the dudes, both of whom are awesome, but also because of the colors.

A view from Grace's apartment of our city in the snow.

Look! Yoga! I'm the one doing a flawless downward-facing dog in the background. Emily is the one clad entirely in pink and red.