2022.10.12. It’s all starting to come together

Had a very busy morning running errands, basically.

First, I went to the office next to our building for my ‘proof of address’ papers (and the lady asked for ID pictures of my husband and me which I did not have with me so I also had to run home for them and back to the office), then I spent quite a lot of time (and money) at the bank, transferring money to the university for different fees (the lady had me do it in 5 different transactions since it was 3 fees for me and 2 for my husband). Then, I went to the university’s administration office, where I handed in all documents, finally. Now, I only have to wait for them to tell me that my residence permit and my working permit are ready and I can move on with administration and also get a Mongolian bank account and such.

Right from the administration office, I went to meet Munkh at his department, where I had the chance to ask more questions and he also brought up most topics that I’d wanted to cover so we pretty much cleared the air about almost everything that we have the answers for, for now. He said he would get back to me about our living situation once he knows more, and with some questions he directed me to Otgontuya which was fine since I was going to meet her right afterwards.

And just as we were stepping out of the office with Munkh, we bumped straight into Otgontuya, on her way to her office, which was just super convenient. She gave me keys to the teachers’ corridor and to the room where my desk is, and also some small chocolates to share with my husband – isn’t she delightful? More importantly, she also gave me a few answers and a few things to ponder upon. And a promise that she would get back to me once she has more answers for me about my classes.

As you can see, I now have three people (in positions of relative power) who all have promised to give me information, and currently, I do not owe them anything since I’d done my share of the process. And that feels really good, even though it’s only for a few days and then I’ll have a lot of work, probably. But for now, I am kinda free, and so I took the afternoon off. I went for a small grocery trip (only bought rice, canned mangos, and a bottle of juice) and got the man who works in our building to come to our flat and try to fix our heating and hot water (since we haven’t had hot water or heating in two days now). He let some air out of the system and that seemed to do the trick for the heating, but it was back to cold again within an hour or two, and he did nothing for the hot water.

Btw, just a quick recap of the answers I got today: I’ll need to do some research (possibly on the difficulties Mongolians have when learning Hungarian) and probably also give a presentation on (and maybe publish) this research at the beginning of the next semester; I’ll also have to do ‘public work’ which can be helping out at conferences or university events; I’ll have a class of at least 30 students from next week, 3 times a week, learning beginner’s level Hungarian; I’ll also have to do some lectures on Hungary/Europe; I’ll have another group of students (rumoured to be a group of 35 miners who have some kind of a contract to go to Hungary); I can teach a Hungarian language course for people outside the university but not this semester, only the next one. I think that’s about it. Things are starting to take shape, finally.

Like I said, I’d taken the afternoon off and (once we had food and not-so-fixed heating) spent some time watching YouTube videos and chilling out.

Midnight snack: chocolate from Otgontuya and tea