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.

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.


In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

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Good and bad....

I have cancelled my own going away party. I'm not feeling well. I'm dizzy, headachy and generally exhausted. This is not unusual. When I get stressed out, I tend to get a 24 hour bug, just to make myself slow down and take it easy. (I guess this would count as "bad".)

Good- Have remedied situation by telling people that I will meet them tomorrow night at the British embassy for drinks.

Bad- Problems with bank card, yet again. Finances are stressing me out. I seriously wish that D would hurry up and sell my car, leaving me free of a financial tie to him. I have realized that to sell it now, I'm going to have to sell it myself.

Good- Problems with money can be solved by changing American dollars into tugriks and paying the bill I need to pay that way.

Good- Some benevolent expat sold "The Order of the Phoenix" to the used bookstore in Mongolia. So I definitely have stuff to read on the plane.

Bad- The evil spammers have found my hotmail address. I never used to get spam, for one of two reasons-

1. My address is my full name, which is a very unusual name. As far as I know, no one else has my name.
2. I registered myself as an 80 year old, retired Egyptian who does not speak any English. This means that my MSN news is all centred around Arabic politics and entertainment, but that's fine with me.

The moral of the story is...

It's really hard to leave a place that you've grown to love, in spite (or perhaps because of) its imperfections.

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I have a human roommate and a canine roommate now. The canine roommate is still a puppy, and has never been in the city or in a house before, which is sort of interesting. Her name is Scooby. She doesn't quite know what to think about the apartment, and is just sort of sitting here looking at me. The VSO volunteer is a girl from Toronto. She has a very strong Ontario accent. I can't tell you what the Ontario accent is, I can just tell you when a person has one.

Overall, it's been a relaxing, people watching, day dreaming, getting stuff done kind of day. Exactly what I needed.