blue_lotus13 | Rest needed for the weary....

Yesterday I edited for Mongol television English news. The people who run the news show are a bunch of 20 year old Mongolian students. They write out the news stories, and I proofed their stories on the computer, and corrected their English. I found the whole experience to be quite fun. I took one broadcast course in school, so I really enjoyed editing the broadcast stories. (Even though I hate doing broadcast journalism like radio and tv.) After I corrected the stories, I helped them on their pronunciation and watched the taping. The students were pretty cool. One guy, Baisa, studied in Alaska for a year. He is having a hard time being back in Mongolia and doesn't know why people like it here. One of the things that he prefers about the United States is the variety of soda pop. He wishes that Mongolia had Dr. Pepper. Anyway, I had a great time chatting with them about Canada, Mongolia, Alaska, the tv show "Northern Exposure", bear encounters (a hot discussion topic for any Canadian-Asian cultural exchange) the Lonely Planet guidebook, and vodka.

After that, I went to Andy's for the Wednesday night movie ritual. We ended up watching a French film called "Taxi". It was a pretty cool movie and I'd like to see it again because I arrived late and missed a lot of the plot. I also missed a lot of the plot due to the way the movie was translated. Apparently someone who did not know English had created the English subtitles. They were all done in Confucius style jargon, and were grammatically incorrect. One line was "and there you go all over like pork spread." There were also numerous references to a "red buddhist nun." I can understand French, but I was either laughing or reading the subtitles and trying to figure them out, so my comprehension was just screwed. Jen and I decided the subtitles were the equivalent of "Yoda on acid."

I need to sleep. I haven't been able to sleep, which is common for me during a transition period. I'm exhausted, so I'm going to try to crash for a while longer, than get up and go to the palace of the former Buddhist king. Tonight a bunch of us going for dinner and then a club called Marco Polo (I just wrote Marco Polio- heh) where we will see contortionists and apparently some strippers. This is my last night out. I'm not going out tomorrow, I'm just going to finish packing/last minute things.