There are three weeks left of pre-service training at our
current sites before final center days, and I am so tired. I am doing well
altogether, but I am very tired every day. This second half of PST is very
busy. We had our first practice teaching yesterday. My partner Mikey and I did
pretty well, I thought. Similar to micro-teaching, practice teaching has us
teaching a beginner, intermediate, and advanced class. By the end of practice
teaching, we will have taught 24 classes. Right now, it’s 3 down, 21 to go.
This week, we will teach on Thursday and Friday. Next week, it’s Monday,
Wednesday, Thursday, and the following week, it’s Monday and Wednesday. Unlike
micro-teaching, we are now using a book to create our lessons. This makes life
a little easier, but we still have to spend a good amount of time lesson
planning.
In addition to teaching, my group has been collectively
working on a community project. We are at a good place with this right now, but
work will pick up on this over the next three weeks.
This weekend, my group is going to Ulaanbaatar (UB), the
capitol city. We are taking the train to get there because it is cheap, and
there are special activities we must do while we are there. I am both looking
forward to and dreading this experience. UB apparently is known for its
pickpockets, especially during the summer. And the time that we spend in UB is
time that we are not getting to lesson plan for classes or study Mongolian.
However, it WILL be nice to get acquainted with the city and go somewhere else
for the weekend and eat different food. I just know this weekend isn’t going to
make me any less tired.
Learning Mongolian is, as always, slowly progressive. I wish
I had more time to study, but these other things have a higher priority. Next
week at the end of the week, we have our language proficiency test, which I am
already nervous about. I’m sure it will be fine, but I wish I could just know
everything already. I want to have one of those things like in the Matrix where
they slip that thing into the back of my head, and I’m fluent in 3 seconds.
That would be ideal.
Caleb visited last weekend. On Saturday, my group and some
of our host family members and Caleb and I went to a really nice monastery
(pics later). We got to take some cool pictures and do some hiking. This was a
really neat experience. I look forward to doing more things like this with just
Caleb and I when we get to our permanent site. This was also the last weekend
Caleb and I got to visit each other before final center days. This will be the
longest stretch we’ll have apart, which to me is a pleasant surprise. I thought
we would see each other much less over the course of PST, but altogether now,
we’ve seen each other six times. I know these last three weeks will go by
really fast with all the stuff we’re doing, so I of course miss him a lot, but
there is plenty to keep us both occupied.
Outside of all the Peace Corps stuff, I’m also spending time
with my host family. My family are very nice people. I help with dinner
sometimes and talk to them as much as possible. As an introvert, some days I’m
more enthusiastic about hanging out with them, but other days I just want to go
to my room and sleep (which I haven’t done! I’m being a good hostee and
spending time with them! Except for right now… I’m sitting in my room alone
writing a blog… Oh well…).
It’s tough to find a balance right now between sleep,
family, Mongolian, practice teaching, other projects, and personal time. But
there are just three weeks left before we go back to Darkhan for the last week
of PST. I will be reunited with Caleb, and we will soon after be departing for
some unknown new place in Mongolia. Just three weeks left!
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