The Story

A lot of people, upon hearing that I moved to Mongolia, responded with "Mongolia!?  Wow!  Why Mongolia?"  Well, basically, it was a lottery.  I was very sick and tired of all the bullshit in Korea, and I desperately wanted out of there.  So, I went to the nearest PC Bang (internet cafe/world of warcraft den), looked through Dave's ESL Cafe and eslteachersboard.com and a few others, blanketed the ESL industry with my resume (as long as the school wasn't in Korea), and I sat back and waited.  I had decided that the first place that offered me a job would be the place where I would move.  So, a few days later, I got an email from a school in Mongolia that said simply, "Okay, we like your resume.  We'd like to hire you."  So I started preparing my visa for Mongolia and I started packing, and that was that.

Was this a poor decision?  In some ways, yes, in other ways, no.  Mongolia, itself is really nice.  I actually really like Ulaanbaatar, and all of the people here.  It's pretty cheap to live here (well, as long as you're not too free and easy with your lifestyle).  I think it's going to be really fun to live here (even if the winter is going to be fucking cold).  That's the good.  The bad: it's only October, and it's already pretty chilly.  That, in and of itself, is not that bad (I'm Canadian, after all-- I'm used to chilly weather).  What's bad is that I'm lucky if I have hot water once every three days.  In the past week, I've taken exactly two showers, and both of them were cold.  I'm usually a showers-every-day type of person.  The reason why I've only had two showers in the past week is because every time I turn on the water in my bathroom, hoping to take a shower, the only thing that comes out is cold water.  Since it's chilly outside, and since my place is not heated, I just can't bring myself to step into a freezing fucking shower (when I was backpacking in SouthEastAsia, I took cold showers almost every day, but that's because the guesthouses that only had cold showers were cheaper and it's a WARM climate-- even if the water is cold, at least all the air around you is warm).  So, in the past week, I've stood shivering in my very cold bathroom almost every day, holding my hand under a stream of cold water, trying to decide if the freezing cold water on a freezing cold air backdrop was worth it, and the only two times I came to the conclusion that it was worth it was when I was so filthy I could actually smell myself.

But that's not the worst of it.  The worst is actually a situation at work.  I should preface this with the following: in general, I like my students.  I also think that my coworkers are pretty nice.  But, when I was hired, I asked if there would be books and resources for me to use at school once I arrived in Mongolia.  The answer was a resounding YES!  So, imagine my surprise when, on my first day here, I sat down with my principal and my co-teacher and they explained to me that my co-teacher and I would share the book that we would use to teach the students.  I thought that was fine.  That's generally how it's done in Korea, as well.  Then, they explained to me that actually, just my co-teacher would use the book to teach the students; I could LOOK at the book to see what topic she was currently teaching and prepare my lessons totally from scratch based on a stupid, measly topic.  I just started laughing at them.  I said, "No, it's not going to work that way.  I teach 30 classes a week, my co-teacher teaches half that amount, so if anyone should have to create their own lessons for every single lesson, it should be the teacher who has fewer classes."  They said, "Fine, we'll find a different book for your co-teacher to use, and you can use this one for the older classes."  Wha??  You can find a different book for my co-teacher to use, but you couldn't have found a book for me to use?  Something smells funny.  Then, they tell me, "But for the younger classes, you really do need to make up your own lessons each time."  I say, "That's fine, just as long as I'm able to print off worksheets for the kids, I can handle making up my own lessons for very young children."  SO... today, I finally get all my shit together to print off a bunch of stuff for my classes, and they lead me to a room with a printer connected to a computer that DOESN'T WORK!!!  I say, this isn't working.  At first, they treat me like I'm a computer illiterate retard, until they realise they can't get the fuckin' thing to work, either.  Then they lead me to a different room with a different computer, and they won't even let me use that one because, according to their demented perceptions of the situation, I just don't know how to use a computer.  But, as it turns out, even on this computer, it will only print the first page of each document.  Ummm, I need all my work, thanks, not just a fifth of it.  So now, I'm hyperventilating and considering refusing to go in to teach the younger classes since the school gave me no resources and no access to print or make my own resources.   Yeah, I'm kind of livid right now.

Anyway, here's a picture of a newspaper stand I saw on Peace Ave the other week.  I might walk down there as soon as I log off.  I need a long walk to clear my mind and calm myself down.  Arrrrgh!

Newspaper Stand on Peace Avenue in Ulaanbaatar