And lo, a plan forms

My weekly schedule for the foreseeable future:
Monday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council, 4 pm staff meeting
Tuesday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council
Wednesday: work 10 to 7 at the Arts Council
Thursday: 3 to 4ish pm language hour at SUIS, meet/drop off documents for my Mongolian advisor Dolgorsuren to inspect
Friday: 2 to 3ish pm language hour at SUIS building 2 (school of civilizations), try not to freeze on the long walk there and back

Thursday/Friday mornings: read/translate things, do errands, etc.

I'm not super pleased to be going to SUIS and SUIS #2 every week, since it is a distance to walk and it's going to get coooooooold here. But it sounds like these will be opportunities to practice my Mongolian/bring thorny problems to a regular group as well as get to speak English without feeling too guilty. And who knows, I might break down and start taking taxis on Fridays.

My advisor also seems to understand that when February rolls around and I start doing interviews that I will scale back these language hours drastically so I have more time/flexibility to offer my dissertation research respondents. I'm hoping by that point too the administration at SUIS will feel that it was sufficiently worthwhile to 'sponsor' me.

In any case, the people I will be working with most closely for most of the time, Dolgorsuren and the ACM staff, are all excited that I'm here and working patiently with me to communicate. I have great hopes that this research will actually be collaborative and have a life here in Mongolia after I leave.

I'm currently still on track to get my survey mailed by December, which is the first big hurdle. I also have a feeling that I'll need to break my reading/translating/discourse analysis up into chunks of time as opposed to day-long sessions, but that's not the worst either. At the very least, the point is to get my hands on as much as possible, and if need be I'll work on translating and doing discourse analysis next year back at the U.S. And then whenever I am craving tacos or a teriyaki chicken sandwich....

Let me tell you this, if I do end up getting my research leave in January, you can bet I will have all my meals planned out well in advance. This is not to say that I haven't had tasty food in Mongolia or that the grocery hasn't provided, but there are some things you just can't get in Asia. And of course, there are then some things here in Asia you can't get in the U.S. I fully anticipate strong tsuivan cravings to haunt me for the rest of my life.

And on that note, I'm going to go make dinner :)