2023.02.19-20. + 21-26. - Week of Tsagaan Sar

This entry is all about the days surrounding the single day we spent actually celebrating Tsagaan Sar the Mongolian way (which was a Tuesday, and I've written a separate post about that). But since most things stopped (or at least slowed down drastically) for over a week for the Lunar New Year celebrations, our days have been quite chill and uninteresting (the best kind of uninteresting, mind you).

2023.02.19. – Getting into the holiday spirit

Spent the whole day chilling, mostly reading and writing (I finally wrote a fanfic again).

The Monstera we bought a few weeks ago is not dying on me yet
- it even has a new leaf just uncurled! -

2023.02.20. – A chill but busy Monday

Had a lazy morning, then went for a swim. Weather is nice, -10-ish degrees and sunny, the icicles actually started melting and dripping on the sidewalks. Had a meeting at the embassy in the afternoon where we discussed language courses and how to get the uni to actually start my courses (the electives) and a potential video of my students reading Petőfi poems or sg like that bc it’s Petőfi emlékév. I spent most of the evening reading.

Many people being away for Tsagaan Sar means I had the whole pool to myself for a good 25 mins.

At 11 pm I got an email that one of the proposals we’d made for the grant has been accepted (with less money being granted, of course, than what we planned for) and now I need to send them a new proposal changed so that it fits the funding until tomorrow. It’s kinda infuriating that they give less than 24 hours to do all this (18 to be exact) with no warning whatsoever. I won’t even be here in UB tomorrow, we have a day trip planned to the countryside. I have no idea how we’ll manage to pull this off. I won’t even have proper signal outside the city, let alone internet, probably. This is gonna be a disaster. But I am not cancelling on the families who were gracious enough to invite us over for Tsagaan Sar, even though we are strangers to them. Fuck it.

It's not just the pool that's empty. This road (that's the university btw, on the other side of the road) is usually crammed with traffic, like, standstill. Look at it now.

2023.02.21-23. – rest

Did basically nothing (okay, went for a swim but that’s about it). Read a shitload of fanfics, made some fairly simple meals. Just chilled.

2023.02.24. – Getting some stuff done while still chilling

Had a swim, then went to the Embassy bc I needed to get a document altered, printed, and (once signed) scanned, to send to the Ministry at home (for the grant - we got an extension bc of Tsagaan Sar, thankfully). In the afternoon, I did some lesson planning for next week, and also spent some more time reading fanfics, chilling.

Weather's getting so nice! Up to around -10 degrees most days, and still super sunny.

2023.02.25-26. – chill weekend (probably the last one for some time) and ABOVE ZERO DEGREES

Had my usual Saturday morning swim with the team, where a teenage girl joined us for practice and afterwards we had a nice convo in the changing room – she’s a senior at high school and she told me about her future plans; it was nice to talk to someone who actually speaks English (she goes to the British School here). After I came home, it was just chilling, watching Moana with my best friend (we used to watch so many movies together while on a voice call on Messenger, but not since we moved to Mongolia and she stayed at home, seeing as there’s a 7-hour time difference now), and some more reading.

Tsagaan Sar is over and suddenly so many people came to practice!
(This is not even everyone.) Last week it was 6 or 7 of us, I think.

We had a lazy Sunday morning, followed by more chilling, and since the weather was super nice today (PLUS 3 degrees! Spring is here!), we went for a walk. Well, we went grocery shopping, but we walked to the store and back, actually enjoying the nice weather, coats unzipped and all. In the evening, I got some work done (organising already scanned course book pages and looking through two more books, noting the pages to be scanned for my classes – it gives me freedom that my students don’t have a coursebook but it also kinda sucks).

Can't believe it went above 0 today. Spring really is here.

Found these passion fruit Raffaello's today at Emart