Wake up at 9, skype briefly with the folks (camping in the everglades) while munching some raisin cakes, don my "spring" coat (Eddie Bauer's microtherm down parka, recommended for 20 to 40 F as opposed to my LL Bean ultra warm jacket, recommended for -50 to 0 F), and walk over to the red ger art gallery (located on the first floor of a bank). i pass the "Totoro" graffiti on my way and remind myself, yet again, to take a picture of it sometime...it is really cute, and it has an umbrella painted right below a downspout.
arrive at red ger, make myself a paper cup of tea, say hey to my co-workers, nod to the young leaders program folk, and settle into my folding chair. the morning's presentation is on emotional intelligence...i write a few notes about mongolian words that seem like useful vocab, amuse myself by the cyrillic phonetic spellings of "linguistc" "analytic" "motivation" etc, take participant observation notes about the other people. talk ends, short q & a, and now it's lunch time! from somewhere, ganaa has produced sturdy paper plates with two teftell (meatballs stuffed with rice), rice in a light tomato-esque sauce, and potatoes with carrot shavings. we all chow down and then are notified that the afternoon's speaker won't arrive until 2. my co-worker takes me next door (still in the bank) to an auditorium (dating back to the communist days when the building was a theatre, not a bank). the cleaning lady tells us to wait a few minutes so she can finish mopping the floor, and then we can use one of the two ping pong tables (somewhere oyunaa has procured two paddles and an orange ping pong ball). she finally agrees to let us on the floor, and warns us that it still slippery. ping-pong playing ensues, and i realize i'm not that bad at ping pong but i'm pretty lousy at keeping score. we decide to play til 12 (though in practice that seems to be 13, and on 12 you are notified of your imminent loss with a russian-sounding word i forget already and get to serve), and i lose to oyunaa and to one of the young leaders.
at 2, we head back to red ger for the second training of the day, on achieving emotional balance. we hear about Paul Ekman's theory of emotions, which brings me back to undergraduate and the class I took on "The Nature of the Emotions" in the History and Philosophy of Science department. The speaker is re-using slides from an earlier presentation, and lucky for me they're in english so i have a much better chance of understanding his mongolian explanations. we all do an exercise where we relive an moment where we were angry and write down our feelings...supposedly staring into a hand mirror facilitates this process. we were all instructed to bring a hand mirror, so one guy took the rearview mirror of his car. i discovered fortuitously that my card holder's interior lid is reflective, not that the mirror was really helpful for anything besides making me feel silly. we then all share our feelings...mine is very brief, as my mongolian vocabulary really isn't deep enough for such a topic. the presentation winds down, and sheets are laid out on the floor. we all learn to meditate, in traditional Buddhist fashion. first we lay on the floor and focus on our breathing. then we sit in semi-lotus style, backs straight and heads slightly bowed. i learned that the left hand represents knowledge and the right hand represents compassion, and the left hand then goes under the right hand (knowledge supporting compassion? if i interpreted that correctly, that's really beautiful). meditation style three, we do walking meditation, all of us in a big awkward and improperly timed circle. very brief q & a, and the training is over. we break down the tables and chairs, gather up the trash, and head out.
it is now snowing outside, nice fat flakes that are mostly melting once they hit the ground. we walk back to the office, where apparently we are having a party to celebrate that women's and men's days were this month. lots of fruit and wine again, but this time the men have ordered pizza and picked up some overly decorated (yet still delicious cakes). lots of laughing, but finally it's getting late. i leave with three of my co-workers around 10:30, linking arms so no one trips in the snow and the slush. they walk me all the way to my apartment staircase and we hug good-bye until the ethnojazz concert tomorrow. then i head up to my apartment while they turn south to catch a taxi in front of the state department store and head to their respective homes.
i grab a quick shower, confirm plans with a friend to go get massages (using my women's day gift certificate, fingers crossed it all goes smoothly and is actually relaxing) and then brunch at french bakery (finally open after their two-ish months off for winter holiday), and unwind on the internet a bit.
hope your friday is good too, however you're spending it.
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