The PET Journal

For fun I thought I'd put a copy of the Practical English Teaching (PET) Journal up on my blog. It's a journal that is put out for Mongolian English teachers. I spent much of the last two years working on the design, layout, and editing of the PET. This edition here is supposed to be published early this fall.

There are a few issues with this online edition, the most noticeable being that shadows were made quite dark. If you wish to see this full-sized, please select "open publication" beneath the picture.

Enjoy!

Get your own - Open publication

Thing # 6

For graduation, the girls decided that they wanted to go to a photo studio where you dress up. It was actually fun. I am disappointed though, that I didn't get any fake hair like the other two teachers. Anyway, I'll miss crazy schemes like this...

Happy Thanksgiving

I decided that Thanksgiving was the perfect time to start posting again, and since Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday (those of you needing a little practice with “th” pronunciation and those of you who can never remember when Thanksgiving really is, repeat after me: Thanksgiving is always on the fourth Thursday of the eleventh month.) I thought a Thursday Thirteen would also be appropriate. So here you go—Thirteen things that I’m thankful for here in Mongolia…
1. Snow on Monday and Wednesday this week, but not Tuesday. If it had snowed Tuesday I wouldn’t have been able to fly home from the aimag where I’d been teaching a seminar. This way I get the beauty of the snow without the messed up travel plans.
2. I’m thankful that I just had the opportunity to visit my friends and students in the town I used to live in.
3. My apartment, in spite of the over abundance of carpets (more than seven in the living room alone—on the walls, on the furniture, on the floor…) and despite the fact that the only thing coming out of the taps this time of year is liquid ice…which brings me to point number three.
4. I’m thankful for boil-coils and for hot water in the radiators. For those of you residing in countries and cities with hot tap water, I’d better acquaint you with boil-coils. They look like this and are basically an exposed heating coil. Not only do they heat your bath water to an acceptable temperature, but they also can give you an adrenaline rush as you flirt with electrocution (should you forget to unplug it before testing the water temperature).
5. The jar of peanut butter in my fridge and the Girl Scout cookies on my table. Yum! Plus, one can justify eating lots of foods like this in the winter in the name of “keeping warm”!
6. Layers of clothing and my cozy down coat… Even though the layers and coat make me feel decidedly unglamorous, they do keep me comfortably warm.
7. As much as I dislike the cold and the winter, I’m thankful for it because it makes things like spotting the first green blade of grass in May so very exciting.
8. I know I’ve talked about scotch tape before, but I just want to say again how much I use it! It works as an art supply, it works for fixing things, it works for putting up stuff in the classroom, it works for taping things to students foreheads, it works for picking up cat fur off the carpet… Yes, I am thankful for the abundance and cheapness of scotch in this country.
9. Students who are eager to learn are another thing I’m thankful for. I’ve had classes with people who didn’t really want to be there, and so I know how special it is that my students this year want to learn and are eager to participate.
10. Teammates and co-workers who have welcomed me and accepted me here in my new town. Not only that, but they like to have fun and can be silly. Case in point: the “occasion elephants”.
These lovely candle holders were given to two of my coworkers as gifts last year…and now we make sure that they show up at all of our special team occasions. Isn’t tradition great?
11. A playmate for Tom my cat: For five years, Tom was only ever in contact with people, and as a result developed a rather skewed view of himself. Here in our new place, he has two cats in close proximity that he can hang out with. He pretends that he hates playing with others, but then I see him get a gleam in his eye as he eggs his fellow felines on.
12. Good nights of sleep—with my down comforter. Self-explanatory.
13. Fun Thanksgiving celebrations with students, that of course includes the Thanksgiving tradition of gift giving. Our festivities were complete with the reading of Thanksgiving essays, a play, and lots and lots of yummy food.
13.5 Mongolian potato salad. Yum! (available in abundant quantities at the festivities mentioned in point 13.)

A Random Assortment...

Olympics: There was actually a Mongolian news crew present at the 2006 Olympics in Italy. In fact, there were probably more Mongolians present there to report on the events rather than participate in the sports. This time around the Mongolian athletes didn’t do so well (in the biathlon, I think, or maybe it was cross-country skiing), but we’ll be back in ’08 with some excellent wrestlers, I’m sure! Back to the news crew… It was really fun to see them interview athletes in both Russian and English (of course it was then loosely dubbed over in Mongolian). I particularly enjoyed the commentary about various athletes because it gave me lots of practice with numbers—height, weight, birthday, etc.

Olympics (academic): Not a big fan. I may or may not delve more into this topic at a later date. At present I need to finish writing a test for the (secondary school) English Olympics, which will be held this coming week in my town.

Nephews: Maybe I’m biased, but I really think that my nephew is actually getting cuter as he ages—and he was a cute baby to start with! I cannot wait to hang out with the monkey this summer.


Milk: I find it strange that in the land of meat and dairy products I had to go to seven stores today before I found milk. Seven!

Lights and Leakage: I finally replaced light bulbs and put the light fixtures in our bathroom back in place today. New year’s morning we’d woken up to find water dripping out of the light fixtures that are in the drop ceiling in our bathroom. This time it wasn’t even the result of the people upstairs flooding their bathroom—rather it was due to warm weather and melting snow. On January first. In Mongolia. (Have I mentioned that the weather has been strange this year?) Unfortunately, the people who live below us are also having light fixture issues. It seems to be a yearly occurrence that while we are in Thailand, our apartment will have some plumbing issue and will flood the apartment below us. Last year our kitchen sink decided to back up and over flow—even though it hadn’t been used in a month. This year a pipe in our bathroom decided to develop a hole and become a geyser. Needless to say, the people downstairs don’t like us much—even though none of the water leakage has actually been our fault.

Public Notice

This is the time of year when I disappear under a big pile of homework and teaching. I will emerge in a couple weeks, hopefully unscathed for the most part, at which point in time I'll have more stories for your education and entertainment. Thanks for your patience--all five of you.

Scotch

My coworker and apartment-mate, Danielle, and I entertain ourselves by writing songs about life in Mongolia; it’s become tradition for us to perform at least one during our organization's Fall training each year. This year's hit was “Scotching Fiend” to the tune of “Dancing Queen”. There seem to be certain phases that everyone goes through as they adjust to living here, and one of those phases involves an obsession with scotch tape. Scotch, as it is called here, is between one and two inches wide, comes on big rolls, and can be used for anything. Last spring I went through a phase where I was scotching everything; especially any teaching aides that I created—to make them last, you know! Anyway, this scotching phase is what gave birth to our song. Enjoy!

Scotching Fiend
I can scotch, I can jive, having the time of my life
See my skill, watch me work, I am the Scotching Fiend.

Friday night and I need to know what is the best route to go
For fixing the toilet, for picking up cat hair
I think I need some scotch…

It’s a great thing to keep close by
It works for anything; just give it a try

Covering your papers, filling window cracks
I’ll never go back

And when I get the chance

I am the Scotching Fiend,
Giving things such a lovely sheen
Scotching Fiend, cover those papers—keep them clean
I can scotch, I can jive, having the time of my life
See my skill, watch me work, I am the Scotching Fiend.



The Scotching Queens, I mean, Fiends...





For those of you who also struggle with scotch addictions, you'll be happy to know that you can now get your very own "Scotching Fiend" shirts! Once again, Mongol Mama is the place to go.