A Ray of Light

So here's a news flash for you all - the world isn't ending yet, no matter how much it feels like it.

This morning I got up late for my walk.  I went to bed with a headache last night and hadn't quite kicked it, so I hit the snooze button a few more times than I should have and eventually I made it out under the tempestuous skies.  I was in my ninth lap around the track when it started raining, and as I rounded the far side of the soccer field, the end of a rainbow appeared, right over the back end of Zaisan hill.  It literally stopped me in my tracks.

One reason why I like to be alone when I take my morning walks is that this is my time to talk to my Heavenly Father.  This helps me to get my head and heart straight for the coming day, get the things that are bothering me off my chest, and renew my determination for the things I gotta do (like stop eating so many frickin' sweets).  The state of the world in general has been weighing me down a lot lately, and specifically the events that are playing out in the US, and this is the subject I was warming up to as I was on my ninth lap.

Whether you're religious or not, you've gotta be asking yourself what on earth is up with this year, but if you're familiar with scripture at all, you should be trembling in your boots.  Horde of locusts: check.  Flood: check.  Famine: in the forecast.  Plague: checkity check-check.  And last week left me feeling like civil war was on the horizon as well.  This is a fucking scary, shitty ass year.*  But there's this relatively obscure** doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that in the year preceding The End there will be no rainbows.  One of my many LDS Facebook friends made a joke sometime since this year started, asking if someone was keeping track of rainbows, and as I stood in the rain, watching the full arc of the rainbow shimmer into existence over the valley where I live, I thought, okay.  So not this year.  Not yet.

Since the world's apparently not going to end just yet, that brings me to point B.  This goes out specifically to all of you who call yourselves after the name of Christ.  I don't know any other religious group who is as intolerant and hypocritical as y'all are being right now.  I've seen a lot of straight, white, cisgender people whose words and actions are not in line with the teachings of Christianity.  I'm trying not to turn this into a rant, so I'll just remind my fellow believers that Christ himself said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."  You may be thinking to yourself, "I've never ___ed*** anyone, and I'm not racist," but it's not enough just not to cause harm to each other.  Specifically I'd like to ask my fellow Saints, for whom part of our baptismal covenants is to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort if they can say that their thoughts and actions are in line with this principle.

To be fair, I'm probably not the best person to write this post.  I'm cranky and I kind of hate people - for the most part I've loved social isolation because there are far fewer people to annoy me.  But the thing is, we have to take action.  This morning I felt moved to start taking action by writing this post.  If you're wondering what you can do, one colleague suggested donating to an organization that fights against injustice - he specifically linked the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Another friend posted screenshots of a 2014 article about how to protest without going out.  Whatever you can do, do it.  My American readers, we come from a nation that rose from revolution.  If you were educated in the American school system, chances are you learned about the Boston Tea Party, and how this act of destruction helped to forge our country.  Remember that.  And ask yourself if the last line of our pledge of allegiance - with liberty and justice for all - is a fact or a myth.  Because the struggle toward that ideal is what has made our nation great, and the fight is still not won.


*I was going to write this without any obscenity because it's one of my rare churchy posts, but sometimes you just can't express things properly without swearing.
**That happens when you've had ongoing revelation for the past 200 years.
***Insert hurtful action here

Grey Skies Over Mongolia

"Choose your last words,
This is the last time.
'Cause you and I -
We were born to die."

The mournful strains of Lana del Rey floated across the valley from the other tourist camp as Five and I descended from our hike up to the source of the hot springs.  We - along with Engrish - had made the long trek out to Tsenkher because a.) I'd bailed on the school ger camp the previous weekend (because 24 hours is too long for me to be with my coworkers) but still wanted fresh air, and b.) I've been working on my exit plan, and wanted to be sure I got to go again.  A year goes by faster than you'd think.

I hadn't even gotten through my first year in Mongolia before I started to consider that maybe, perhaps, I would stay until my brats - those kids who were in my homeroom class my first year - graduated.  At that time, I'd never stayed longer than two years in one place at a time...and two years really felt like stretching it.  But I liked my school, and I loved my kids, and before I knew it, I'd been here for four. When you've been in one place that long, it seems like you could stay forever.  Or that's how I feel, anyways.  Going on five years, what's another?  Hell, another five, even?  My seventh graders get on famously with me...maybe I should stay and see them graduate.  Shouldn't I hold onto a good thing?  How do you know when it's time to leave?

Well, I know.  I can tell because my blogs have slowed to a trickle.  I don't get excited about going out and coming up with new stuff to do. I can tell by the way I feel the cold.  On the way to Tsenkher, we stayed the night with Enkhaa's friends again, as we did the last time.  When Engrish and I went with Geek 3 years ago, we had a measly dung fire that never got started properly, but I was warm enough.  Maybe I brought my sleeping bag that time; I can't remember, but since it's a pain to roll up, I probably did the same thing then as now - left it at home and shivered in the cold.  This time it was the longest night I can remember spending in a very long time, and it was only winter's opening maneuvers.  It snowed for the first time the day I started writing this. I can tell because I tear up anytime I hear a stupid song like "Born to Die," talking about endings.  But what is life except a series of endings?  You might as well embrace it and live a badass life with as few "ragrets" as you can manage.

The skies on the ride out to Tsenkher were cloudy, but Enkhaa the Fearless kept slogging through a week's worth of mud til we made it there.  Five kept insisting, "There's a bit of blue sky - let's chase it!" but although I appreciate a good Austen novel, I never really identified with Marianne.  Grey skies suited my mood as I contemplated the coming year - the hassle of finding a new job, the challenge of finding new challenges for myself.  It's ironic that I've chosen this life, because I hate moving, hate upending my life, and as much as I love diving into a new place and experiencing everything it has to offer, it scares the shit out of me, thinking I might flop.  Ever since my year in Bahrain, I wonder if I'll be able to find new friends, if my school will be a good one.  And that's assuming I can even find a job.  For the first time in my expat life, I'm not okay with going wherever the wind blows me, and I can't just go back to GDA failing all else, which was my old contingency plan.  This year, the wind damn well better blow me to Japan...but if I can't manage that before my decision date, what do I do?  Sign on for another year?  Or have a little faith?

Well, we did eventually get a little sun - even before we were on our way back, which is when I took this photo.  As amazing a driver as Enkhaa is, I admit I was a little worried that if it rained too much while we were in Tsenkher that we'd get stuck there, and so I prayed.  I prayed we'd be safe, I prayed we'd have a little sun, I prayed that I wouldn't be as cold the second night as I was the first (Five and Engrish claimed they weren't cold that night, but I think they're crazy.  I would have been cold even with a sleeping bag).  And everything was fine.  I'm Mormon, and I do believe in a higher power, that our prayers are heard by a being that cares for us, so I guess I shouldn't be as nervous about leaving Mongolia as I am...but I am. 

Home for the Holidays

They say there's no place like home for the holidays.  Well, I could probably think of a few places that would have made pretty fine holidays (warm, sunny places), but a promise is a promise, and let me tell you, people, family is far less likely to freak out on you for skipping off on a Himalayan adventure (as I would like to, this summer) if you've paid your dues at Christmas.  And I love my family, so, you know, no big.

Like I mentioned on Saturday, I thought about doing a series of blogs about Omaha, but it didn't happen.  So here's a whirlwind blog of Christmas in Munchkinland.  For starters, you've got my mom and her "peeps."  Every week or so these "ladies who lunch" do lunch - in Glenwood, or elsewhere, and sometimes see a movie.  They're kind of like the G-wood chapter of the Grub Club.  Of course, there are a few less choices in a small Midwestern town of 5,000 than there are in bustling UB, but they have a good time and are always happy to see me, in spite of the fact that I'm a total brat.

Then there's the Winter Quarters temple (oh yeah, and my new haircut.  I was starting to get snarls the likes of which I have not seen since I was ten years old, so I chopped it off and sent it to Locks of Love).  Here in UB, Mormons in good standing are supposed to go to Hong Kong for the temple.  Me, I'm more of a Seoul girl (much cheaper, and oh, the memories), but the Winter Quarters temple is sort of my temple, so of course I had to visit.  And while I was there...

...I had to check out the gingerbread display at the Visitor's Center.  Mormons are sort of into crafty stuff - heck, we were scrapbooking before it was popular (I need a pair of hipster glasses for that statement).  This makes sense - if you're not going to spend your free time boozing and picking up men, you gotta do something (the men of the church play sports - Mormon basketball is one of the world's most dangerous sports, especially if you've got a lot of Tongans and Samoans in your stake).  Anyways, as I was saying, we do crafty stuff, including gingerbread.  Now, when I was a young, innocent single Mormon girl, my singles branch, the good ol' Independence 5th, had a Family Home Evening once a year dedicated to making gingerbread houses for the visitor's center.  They were monstrosities, often made of graham crackers, unless Sister D and Sister P were feeling ambitious and did a whole lot of baking for us (and they often did).  But they were made from scratch, one way or the other.  None of this prefab, cookie cutter gingerbread house business.  As you can see, there were plenty of AWESOME original designs, but also far too many that came out of a box.

 

But then, I couldn't help myself from picking up a prefab gingerbread house to decorate with the Princess.  I mean, she's just so damn adorable.  And just try to stop her from eating that candy.  You know she's thinking about it.  The Princess lives in Utah with my brother Shaggy and his wife, which I find hilariously ironic since I'm the Mormon.  And until I sat down to write this blog I hadn't even considered that it might seem I was trying to indoctrinate my adorable niece into the crafty Mormon lifestyle.  I'm not, Abby, I swear!

I also got the chance to catch up with my high school AP English teacher, Drim.  She's retired now, or else she would have brought me into school to tell her World Lit classes all about my adventures (I know, she's done it to me before).  As it was, she threatened to call the town paper and tell them to do an interview with me, which seems bizarre to me, because even if I AM a little Iowa girl living in Mongolia, to me, that's just what I do.  No big.  After lunch at the Spaghetti Works I took a stroll around the Old Market, and wandered into my favorite part (not least because it is inside), the Passageway.  It sort of reminds me of the galleries of Paris, now that I've been there.

I have had felting on the brain, and decided some felting needles and wool roving would go a ways toward alleviating my night time boredom, so I finally tried needle felting.  Ariel there was my second attempt - I made a dragon for my first, but it didn't turn out as well.  Practice makes perfect, they say.

But the best thing of all about being home is, of course, the kids.  Bunny here was born the Friday before I came home and she is just about as sweet as can be.  I still had my UB cough for a week or so after I got home, so it took me that long to see her.  And it's still a little strange to think that my Babysis had her own baby.

The Dirt Devil is Shaggy's own personal mini-me, in my humble opinion.  Shaggy's hair was never that red, but he DEFINITELY had that mischievous gleam in his eye.  Dirt Devil doesn't talk much yet, but he's got the most infectious giggle.  I'd have packed him up in my suitcase and taken him back, but he's his momma's boy and it would have broken his heart <3 br="br">

And finally, our Princess.  Words can't do her justice, just take a look at my sibling's faces.  She just LOVED her princess dresses from her grandma - she danced around in front of the mirror on her tiptoes while the rest of us laughed so hard we cried.  Like I said.  Too.  Damn.  Cute.  I miss those kids already!

Rainbow Connection

I've been on Rapa Nui (otherwise known as Easter Island or, if you habla espanol, Isla de Pascua) four days now, and this is the first chance I've really had to sit down and write something about the experience. My hotel, which advertised itself as having wifi, doesn't necessarily have wifi that WORKS, so only now, when I'm kind of getting bored (note: five days on a small, windswept Polynesian-cum-South American island is too much. Three would have been plenty), have I decided it's worthwhile to lug the computadora down the street to the one restaurant I've found that has complimentary wifi. So here I am.

Okay, so, it's taking forever to upload that one photo, so we'll do fewer pics with this post. Basically, after a short nap (I took the red-eye from Lima, and arrived shortly after 7 a.m.) I left my room to grab a bite to eat and was dismayed to find out that those damned weathermen had been correct - it was raining. It slowed and stopped (I've come to realize this is a pattern here), and I set out in search of my first moai. I came to them, at Ahu Tahai, just as it started raining, which did NOT make me very happy. I begged Heavenly Father to make it stop, and it did - eventually. Which was great. Then the sun pushed its way out of the clouds, and lo and behold, a rainbow appeared over my new friends. The same thing happened yesterday.

Now, I'm not all that fond of getting rained on, especially not while wielding a $600 phone/camera. But without the rain, you can't have rainbows. I believe in God, that there is a governing force in the world, and that sometimes we have to deal with something less than wonderful in order for something beautiful to happen. I realize this is true even if you don't believe in God (to save those who don't the trouble of pointing it out to me). Nevertheless, I was happy for the reminder to be patient in my trials...and for the beautiful pictures.

You Turn the Screws

I don't really suffer from stress...I'm more of a carrier...but now I'm stressed. Sheikh Rattlen Roll wants to know that we are spending his money wisely, so he has called in the Grand Inquisition - an audit team led by this harpy who last time she came around got the old principal sacked.

I bet she eats art teachers for breakfast.

Anyways, my stress level over this visit has been mounting throughout the last month. That sick day I took last week? It wasn't a total sick day...I actually went in for a couple of hours because my head of school had a brainwave about my schedule and I was supposed to discuss it with her. This is the person responsible for pulling me out of the KG classes after three months, and who, a month later, informed me that I needed a certain number of contact hours in my schedule...a number I was no longer achieving because I was no longer teaching KG and didn't want to take any more time away from the classroom teachers. And this individual told me pretty much point blank that if I didn't make up the hours and the auditors wanted to know why they needed a lower primary art teacher, she would have to concede that they didn't. Well, my Head's brainwave was this: I'm going to be teaching KG again. Both year groups. Every week.

Ayayay.

So in addition to trying to get my classroom sorted out and my schedule sorted out I've been trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with them and trying to make it look good enough so that if the Harpy stops in while I'm teaching, she goes, "Oooh! Aaah!" And I have not been entirely sure that was going to happen. So I went in today - a SATURDAY, for the second week in a row, what is to become of me??? - to try and figure things out. And this is what I came up with:

I'm going to do something that looks cool. F*ck the PYP. The Harpy doesn't give a rat's ass about PYP.

Not that I actually feel much better. I've still got the Sunday Night Panic in a pretty bad way, and am hoping Socrates will actually follow through and go on a walk with me tonight, because I need my mind taken off this. He did a pretty good job of talking me down before I left the school. Here's something that I sometimes forget - there are two kinds of people in the world: those that blame themselves, and those that blame others. He reminded me of this by telling me to turn it back on my Head if my teaching is brought into question, and tell the Harpy that I have been messed around quite a bit in the last couple of months. See, I am one of those that always blames themselves. I feel like I have yet to become comfortable with the PYP, and I am not satisfied with the work my students have done this year. I like to have control, I like things to look good, and I have had to give up a large portion of my control because the PYP is supposed to be student-driven. Meh. But there are other factors that go into the equation, and that's something I need to remember.

More to the point, as my friend Poonam has pointed out, "It is in Lord's hands." I need to have a little more faith here. It would not be the end of the world if RAKESS decided my services were no longer needed. It is a great big world out there, and if I can't get a job with an international school, I can always get a job teaching English, or I can go back to the states, and in a couple of years, I'd have the experience I'd need to move up to a DODDS school. Whatever happens in the next two weeks, I know that my Heavenly Father will take care of me.