Nothing's ever good enough....

That's not true. Just sometimes I feel like it. I have this awesome digital SLR camera that has everything I want on it (except a better ISO and aperture range and video camera), but I want a new one. That has the better ISO range, aperture range and a video camera.

I also have an amazing little laptop that I did heaps of research on and got the perfect one for Mongolia and my job. It is great, but now I'm too scared to take it anywhere and I want to buy a netbook to take away on field trips with me. Which is silly.

Our microwave's broken too. One day the door just stopped working... It's a bugger because I'd made a lot of ready-to-go-in-the--microwave dinners. Now I'll have to 'stir fry' soup with rice and spagbol (although I imagine the mutton spag bol will be there a while).

When it rains at home, you get wet from the rain. In Mongolia (UB particularly), you get wet not from the rain above (it's hardly rain), you get wet from cars driving past you and driving through puddles just to SPLOOSH you with all the water they possibly can. Most do it on purpose. Sometimes it's unavoidable.

I watched 10000BC last night. I can safely say it's one of the worst movies I've ever watched.

We've got moths eating our clothes. Annoying! All my good clothes are getting holes in them. I thought it was the washing machine, or the hard water, or the strong washing powder. But it's not. It's moths. And I can't find mothballs. I'm sure I've seen them somewhere. I'll have to have a proper look. And if I have to get those stinky ones, so be it. I'll just wear extra perfume.

The Australian government sent some safety/security people too. It was great. I mean, they'll do nothing to help us here now (it's for future people), but it makes you feel like they're doing something. My Mongolian friend met them and said quietly 'oh wow, I can't believe they've come to make sure your work is safe. If was overseas I know that the Mongolian government would never care'. She also said one of the security guys was sexy. The 'sexy' one was also my favourite - mainly because his fiance's father is someone high up in Arrow and we talked CSG and it made me so happy. He was actually interested and he had some interesting stuff to say. Ahhhhhhh nothing like a good rock talk.

I'm suppose to be reading my journal articles. All those ones I downloaded in December last year. Yup, it's June. They're not very exciting, and they all are saying the same thing:

Mongolia is having trouble post-Soviet era

Mongolia has thin, highly degraded soils

Mongolia doesn't know the best way to manage soils

Mongolia has a 80% inhospitable environment