If you've never heard
Gregory Alan Isakov, you should check him out. Excellent chill out music.
Anyway, what happened? Thanksgiving happened- in a blur. Lots of good times with friends. I made my amazing mashed potatoes again, and despite making something like 5 pounds of it, it was eaten so quickly I barely got any. And best thing to come out of Thanksgiving week: OLD BLAIN (sorry real not-old Blain!).
IST happened as well, which was pretty darn exhausting, I must say. I'm glad I was able to be a trainer, but I'm not sure how the summer people do it. Six weeks of that? Oy. It was nice finally getting to meet the new healthies for a longer period of time, and I got some good ideas for projects as well. Oh, and I totally had my camera the whole time but didn't use it. Bad bad bad Kate.
Speaking of projects, I have about 8-ish months left. How nuts is that? It feels so far away, yet at the same time it feels like I just got here.
Katie L (fellow PCV, full-frame camera owner, and all around awesome person) made a good point in her blog- there's such thing as a "third quarter phenomenon" in which:
...I took a screenshot because it wouldn't let me copy and I was too lazy.
Read the rest here. This completely explains the weird frustrations that I had a couple months ago. It's been better lately. I've been talking to other PCVs and I even had a chat with our country director, Ellen, about it. I'm glad to hear astronauts feel the same way... makes me feel a little more human.
So. I never did give ya'all a tour of my new place. Something about what I saw today made me want to:
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| SOMEONE had a little too much to drink and lost his head. This was in my hallway today. |
So anyway, here's the rest of my place:
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| My kitchen! My new place is a studio. This is possibly the cleanest it's been. There's also a bookshelf to the left. |
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| Turn around, and it's my bed and my desk! Nice and cozy. I can now watch TV and cook dinner at the same time. MULTI-TASKING WHOO. Also, I have Christmas stuff up now. |
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| Turn a little more, and here's my clothes area! (?) |
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| My awesome runway carpet from the hospital, complete with mysterious black stain. |
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| My... uh... coat and random stuff area. I have no more large room to hide all of it. |
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| BATHROOM. |
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| Hallway outside my place. Scary. |
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| Door on the end of the hallway, to keep it nice and warm! How smart! Alas, two problems: 1) I'm too tall for the door and 2) now the neighbor kids play in the hallway instead of outside. |
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| Neighbor kids' doing? Kinda cute. |
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| Someone's been drinking! |
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| I'm now in the 3-8, WHAT UP NOW, 4TH BAG?! |
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| So have you ever wondered how our heating gets to our apartments? Wonder no more! They shovel coal into a large fire at all times of day and night. That's right- Titanic old school style. Those are steaming piles of coal bits. |
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| And here's my work! My commute is about 30 seconds, or I imagine 15 if I run. Also, that sand pile in the right-middle is currently where I get Mika's litter under the cover of night so people don't look at me weird. |
And one bonus picture from the Erdenet seminar I forgot to add:
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| Pharmacy for the WIN. |
