Is it really May already?!

First—I want to share some quotes from my 8th-graders’ paragraphs on famous people. Sometimes I really want to put up quotes from my students’ essays, but I’m worried it’ll look like I’m making fun of them. I’m not! They are all really bright, and in general their English writing is pretty darn good. But I don’t share the good ones because they aren’t adorable and amusing. Sometimes when you use an English-Mongolian dictionary you get some translations that don’t really work. Here are a few of those….
-On Chinggis Khan: “Chinggis empire was very sensible, friendly, brave and usually angry. So this person was hero.”
-On a Korean boy band: “They could perform for delete Korean old, boring art.” “Kwon Ji Young’s appearance = blond hair, many snazzy clothes, brand sneakers. Tae Yang’s appearance = cool R&B style, triangle hair, warm-hearted.”
-On Linford Christie (a famous runner, I guess): “He loved her grandmothers very much. She was greatest. The water came from pipe near our house. He had a very small bucket. He was very fast rain.” Mostly I knew where they were going with their essays and I can see where poor translation of a few words slipped them up. This one…I really don’t know. I assume they copied something from the internet, but not in its entirety.
-On Ariunaa, a famous singer: “Her throat is very cool. And her job singer is very nice job. She is very warrier and humane. It her character is very nice character. OK? She is very beauty.” And the last sentence: “Maybe her children become singer, but her children become not good singer. Maybe…”
Speaking of my students being funny, I had the following conversation with a 10th-grade boy:
Student: “Do you speak Mongolian?”
Me: “No. Not really.”
Student: “I can!”
Hahaha. Congratulations, dude.
The other major extracurricular work I do with my students is translating their NBA cell phone updates. A lot of them are very interested in the NBA so they signed up for news updates to be sent to their cells, but of course they’re all in English. My translations are extremely unhelpful, though. I don’t know anything about basketball, so it’s the blind leading the blind: “Well, some guy—a coach maybe?—is saying that some other guy—I think a player—is doing some stuff...related to basketball…. No wait, he’s saying he went to jail….”
My students, especially one 8th grade class, are always begging to learn the lyrics to pop songs in class. I gave in to them last week because I had my computer with me and my CP chose a song called “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum. So now I have 8th-graders singing, “It’s a quarter after 1, I’m a little drunk and I need you nooooow.” Nothing weird about that. Their other top choice to learn was Katy Perry’s “Firework,” though, and I’m actually glad my CP decided to go with the country song. I looked up the lyrics to “Firework.” It opens with, “Do you ever feel like plastic bag?” And it doesn’t get better after that.
The 7th-graders took a vote as to which song to learn. Their top choices (in case you’re interested in Mongolian adolescents’ musical taste) were…
-ABBA, “Dream”
-Justin Beiber, “Baby”
-“We are the World”
-Bruno Mars, “Grenade”
-Westlife, “I Have a Dream”
-Owl City, "Fireflies"
-Train, “Hey Soul Sister”
Aside from work, things have been pretty tame. The weather is awful—it’s so dry that my skin is cracked no matter what I do and you can’t walk outside without getting pelted with a face-full of sand. But what did I expect when I volunteered to live in a desert? Of course it still manages to snow somehow. We had a pretty bad dust storm last weekend and I had the brilliant idea to run my errands during it. No one would be out to stare at me! I got about 100 yards from my home before I realized that it was a terrible idea, but I had too much pride to go home. So I just held my sweater’s hood as far over my face as I could and walked into the wind while bent perpendicular. I had just put on chapstick, and the sand and dirt immediately glued itself to my lips, which I’m sure looked very cute. It was true that there weren’t many people out and able to stare at me, but the shop owners gave me extra weird looks as if to say, “Look at this foreigner…doesn’t even have enough sense to go inside during a dust storm!” Well, I’ve learned my lesson now. When I got home, even though I had been wearing a shirt, 2 sweaters, and a coat, I somehow had a small beach’s worth of sand in my bra. How did that even happen??
I also got a new kitten last week. I was definitely not in the market for one after Hermes died, but one of the janitors at my school offered me a kitten, and I couldn’t refuse, knowing they would most likely drown it if I didn’t take it. Apparently, this woman is some sort of cat-loving weirdo who actually owns a pet cat. Very unusual. What I didn’t realize is that the kitten is only a month old! It didn’t even know how to eat solid food. She gave me the cat at school and I was swarmed by elementary school students while trying to get it home. I had to cut the show-and-tell short though, because I found that 7-year-old boys tend to grab living things by their necks.
The central heating went off in my town on May 1st (and it’s sooo cold!), but before that, as usual, my radiator was leaking. I felt really bad, but I had to ask my landlord to come over yet again to fix it. While her husband worked on my radiator, she asked to learn the “Firework” song. So I looked up a version on youtube that had the lyrics and we sang through it a couple times. I was worried she might ask me what the lyrics mean. Because I don’t understand them any more than she does. Also, they both LOVED the cat. What?? Apparently the fact that this one is both extremely tiny at the moment and white makes it more appealing to Mongolians. Hermes’ problem was that he was black. What a bunch of cat racists! My landlord explained that baby cats are “hurhuun” (a word that can mean “cute,” “good-looking,” “handsome,” “pretty,” etc.) Adults are "muuhai" ("ugly/bad"). She held the kitten in one hand until it fell asleep. Her husband threw it in the air repeatedly and scared the crap out of it. I don’t know how his daughters made it to 7 and 5 years old. They left after the first few minutes to get a tool from home and came back with ice cream and snickers bars, 2 of which they gave me. So they came over from 9-11pm to do me a favor which they wouldn’t be paid for then also brought me ice cream. Who does that? Why are people so nice here?
And on top of that, I had a REALLY big flood from another radiator the next day. They had to come over again(with 4 other guys) and we all got soaking wet with metal-y water. Their solution was to take the radiator off the wall. I guess that’ll do the trick. I asked my landlord's husband what he thought happened to cause the huge leak. I guess he understood my question to mean, "Why is this radiator so shitty?" He answered by pointing at it and saying in English, "China."
Well, that’s about all that’s going on over here. Next weekend hopefully I’ll get to go to Kharakhorum, the ancient capital. I’ll let you know if that happens and how it goes!
Finally, I want to say Happy Mother's Day to my mom, who has made all of this possible by sending me goodies constantly! I really might have gone home by now without the shipments of nutella and peanut butter m&ms (not to mention Paris vacations). Every time I get another package or letter from home, my coworkers say, "Wow! Your family really likes you, huh?" Yeah, I guess so! :)