15degrees and loving it

I played hockey last night. It wasn't so fun because most people who play now are used to playing ice hockey. And ice hockey is very violent. I got hit in the eye with a ball and tripped over. Boo. I'll give it another try and if they're that silly again, I won't bother. They all have great skills too, which is the worst part - if they used their skills to tackle me instead of just bowling me out of the way, it might be fun!

We have a puppy. It's not mine. I don't want anything to do with it. It's about 6 weeks old, will grow to at least the size of a kelpie and will be living in our apartment bathroom. It is currently locked in the second toilet. I hate it. I hate that it's locked inside. I hate that it'll get big, and never be able to run around outside. I hate that it will pooh everywhere, and stink the already too-hot house out. I hate that it was abandoned but I also hate that we have to have it. I wouldn't have let it happen - except I'm leaving in 4 weeks which means it's not my responsibility. I think it would be happier if we took it to the vet to be put down. It'll be loved until it's too big and naughty, because no one's trained it properly. And then what will happen with her?

So I'm beyond even being angry. I'm super disappointed and really sad for the puppy. She'll be loved for now, and that's good.

I looked at jobs again. There's a really cool looking job in Sydney, in the city. I'm starting to get really excited - I'd actually love to be living in Sydney, close to Lai and Philli and I could be friends with Eve again and Tegan might come back, and maybe Ebony will be at uni in Sydney..... And I can drive home more regularly. But rent - OH rent! It will be ENORMOUS! Compared to sunny old Brisbane, anyway.

They're got my resume now, so it's a waiting game. They'd want me to start before Christmas and I said no - hopefully that doesn't affect too much.

Flights to Bayan Ulgii are booked. I'm going to Ulgii during my last week in Mongolia. I'll see glaciers and mountains and eagles. Cool dude. Then I'll get home - around the 6/7 November. Woo! It is exactly 31 days from now, which is still 1/6 of my time here to go by - but it doesn't feel like much. It's going to be a shit fight - leaving work, doing my exit interview (read: more yelling, name calling and bullying) BUT I will be going home at the end of it.

The photos above depict today - it's 15 degrees outside and really beautiful.

Olive oil

Olive oil on your face two nights in a row is too much. My eyelashes keep sticking together and it’s really annoying. I did try olive oil on my hair as well and will report back tomorrow on those results.

More good reasons that I am going home early:

• I no longer get out of bed before 8am, because there’s no reason to
• I’ve run out of meat in my freezer (or, I will have when I leave)
• My gym membership expires on the 1.11.2011 (around when I will leave)
• I fantasise about walking up the aisle in Woolworths
• A glass of cheap wine tastes amazing
• I’ve exhausted Gossip Girl options. I can’t find season 5 to download
• I don’t want to go to the gym any more
• I eat enough for three, just because I’m bored
• I’ve run out of carrot juice face moisturiser

I decided today I’m not doing any more of my project proposal, because I don’t know what else to do. And no one’s going to yell at me about it either. And I’m not doing any more work on my seed database a. because I hate it and b. it’s too much work and there’s no point even starting it. Which leaves me with presentations to do, which I am happy about.

Now I just have to wait until Eznis Airlines (a local Mongolian airline) decide on their fares for November. That’s right. I can’t book my flights to Ulgii because they don’t know when they’re flying. It’s four weeks away. Ridiculous. I’ll wait two more days and if I still can’t book the flights, I’ll have to skip my trip to the west and come home early. Which is secretly what I want to do anyway.

I’m taking last orders for Mongolian things too. I’m not actually bringing anything home that I didn’t bring with me in the first place, with a few exceptions: deel material, Nate’s blanket, a pair of slippers, one hat, one scarf and one painting. I’m not buying things for anyone mainly because there’s not that much to buy, and also because dad took care of that.

I’m pooped. All that working between 11am-4pm, and the olive oil hair mask and Korean curry that I cooked has made me sleepy. It might also be a sugar low, after consuming 5 cupcakes, a large slice/s of carrot cake, two cups of green jelly and four pieces of chocolate.

AFL, cupcakes and olive oil

AFL Grandfinal from Mongolia–Ulaanbaatar

The AFL Grandfinal was on Saturday. My only experience with AFL was at the Gabba, when I lived directly across the road from it. I packed up at what was half time – assuming the two hours and two halves I had suffered through was enough. Turns out it was only half time, and there are four quarters in a game, not two halves.

I rocked up late to the party knowing I didn’t want to suffer through that much football again. Good move. We had a Mongolian made meat pie that was actually pretty good and I got a bit tiddly on a few glasses of white wine. Half way through I pulled out my bag to check my phone for some reason. It was ringing – Nikki called. It was Nikki’s 22nd birthday yesterday and will forever more be known as the day that Nikki got engaged. Big news, so weird receiving it in the midst of an AFL game in Mongolia. But great nonetheless.

The first of every month is no-alcohol day. You can’t buy it anywhere, unless you’ve prepaid for your event. We prepaid and got our game drinks. But no after parties. I was home at 8pm, in bed by 8:30pm. It was great.

I slept in this morning, went shopping at Mercury for some vegies, fruit and cream cheese. I met two of my Mongolian friends – bought them back to my place and we cooked up a storm. They wanted to learn how to bake. So we made cupcakes and a carrot cake. Drank wine, grated carrot.. I passed on the baking know-how. We ate our cake – with extra cream cheese icing.

And then I had a shower. My skin’s drying out with the weather so while I was washing up, the olive oil sitting on the bench was screaming at me…….. Instead of fighting it, I lathered it. All over my face. Initially it was amazing – my face moved with ease. Now I’ve got a very very oily face and I’m not sure what to do with it. Soap will just give me eczema. It was a good idea to start with.

Blood donations

I didn’t go to work on Thursday. I watched an episode of Gossip Girl in the morning and that was it. I couldn’t move. I didn’t get out of the house the entire day. I didn’t get out of my pyjamas, which is about my favourite thing ever. None of our bosses are at work so no one is even going at the moment. I have a lot of work to do but I couldn’t be bothered. If I don’t get it done in time, I don’t get it done.

I did make somewhat use of myself on Thursday though. I cooked a brownie cake – that was really yummy, a spaghetti bolognaise sauce and a Korean curry. The curry was much nicer than the spag bol, so it’s all gone already.

I managed to get myself to the gym on Friday morning and then on to work, albeit by 11am. I didn’t do much. My project proposal has hit a wall because I don’t have time to do raw data research, or to create a budget – which means I sit there and stare at it, trying to make it better without doing the things that will take too long (this proposal is something that you could write a PhD on, or have a team of 3 people working all year round developing the concepts for it).

My presentations are boring. I have one and a half up my sleeve so I don’t have to write one on Monday. But they’re boring. That’s how Mongolians like it though – lots of text on the slides, no pictures, no interaction. Just facts.

The Deputy Finance Minister came in to our office. We’re located in the Ministry of Finance because our project works directly with the Mongolian Government finance bodies to lend and give money to Mongolian people. He speaks perfect English and is very friendly and charismatic (unusual in Mongolia). He was going around to all offices to make sure everyone knew about giving blood. There was a blood donation bank up on the 8th floor.

My heart started pounding so bad. In Australia, I’m that annoying person that makes everyone give blood. I organise blood donation days at work, I try to give blood every three months and take at least one person with me. I don’t like doing it . I have really shitty, often non-existent veins which means I usually get poked at least twice with that epic needle in order to find some blood. And even then, they’re so skinny that sometimes once it’s in, the blood doesn’t flow because the needle had sucked on to the side of my vein, not allowing blood flow.

So I know I should have given blood, but the thought of doing it in Mongolia make me queasy. Everyone was so willingly heading up to give blood. No one tried to make me. I went up to check out the setup – if it set me at ease, then sure, I’d do it. There was nothing wrong with how they had it set up. I guess you’re ruined for good though when you’ve given blood somewhere like Australia where everything is private, sterile and comfortable.

People kept piling in to the conference room. They had a set up of tables that you went to, one by one. Once you filled out your form, you waited in a line of about 20 people for your turn. A doctor takes your blood pressure and assesses your sheet of questions like – do you have the Australian Antigen (which I later found out is just Hepatitis B, and whether you’ve had the vaccination or not), have you had sex with a prostitute, do you take drugs – all that stuff.

Your blood pressure and information sheet determines how much blood you give. Some people only want to give 100ml. My friend gave 350ml. I’m sure in Australia we give 470ml, but I guess our setup is a bit different.

From the doctor you move along to the finger pricking man. I hate that part the most. There’s no chair for you to sit on. He just sits on the chair, cuts open your finger with a disposable cutter (without changing his gloves between people) then gets this fat needle to draw the blood and put it in little containers. He does some tests – not sure what, and you move on to give blood.

There were two chairs (as in, normal desk chairs) and two nurses for giving blood. It would have taken all day just to get through the 20 people I saw. Mongolians are happy waiting in line. There’s no way I’d do that. You sit on the chair and the nurse gets out her needle. I didn’t see gloves change here either. The blood bags were all sterile, but I couldn’t see where the needles were coming from. I assume they were sterile but sterile is a relative term. The needle is attached to the blood bag, which is sitting 1m lower on a small chair with a set of kitchen scales. The blood bag sits on the scales, gravitationally filling with blood and occasionally being measured for weight. I don’t know how that worked – denser blood couldn’t be assumed as 1gram=1millilitre, but the doctor figures out your blood giving in millilitres.

Anyway. That’s it. Once you’re done they wrap up your arm and off you go. There’s no resting, or tea drinking afterwards. Swoosh bang, see you later.

I’m getting very lazy. I got home at about 4:30pm and watched some tv on my laptop. And that was it really. A lady came around to look at my sewing machine. She told me it’s too expensive (I’m selling my $500 setup for $250; I’ve used it three times). She said she can get the same machine for $120 on Amazon. I told her if she can get it that cheap TO MONGOLIA, go for it. I chose to get my machine IN Mongolia because we LIVE in Mongolia, it’s easier and cheaper to buy products already available rather than having to organise delivery – and then pay the tax that they’re likely to dodge you on just because you’re foreign (IF you get it at all). All these stupid things – she said she’s going to Belgium next week and will see if she can buy a machine and then bring it on the plane back

She doesn’t even know how to sew. Nothing. I had to show her how to thread the machine, how to press the foot, why to finish off edges….. There are SO many reasons why she shouldn’t get a machine outside of Mongolia. But good luck to her. She’ll let me know next week if she wants to buy mine. There’s no way I was selling it to her for any less than $250. For less than that, I’d rather find an organisation or person that would use the machine til its death and appreciate it because it has helped them make money.

Today is the AFL grandfinal and whilst I couldn’t give a shit about AFL, I’m happy to go to the expat party in town. It should be fun! I was going to find out who’s in the grandfinal and dress wearing whatever colours I have for one of the teams but I couldn’t be bothered.

The arrival of winter

This video is what I saw when I finally got out of bed at 8:10am this morning. It was due to snow today but I didn't think the weather man would actually be right about it.
Yesterday was rain, the day before was 22 degrees. Today is a balmy -1 and it's windy and wet and snowy which makes it that much colder. The air smells the same as it did when I lived in Canada - which is the first time I've actually ever been reminded of it. It's a combination of snow, wet ground and petrol fumes I think. But it's lovely. The air is fresh, the pollution can't be seen as the clouds are hovering below the line of pollution.

I've got flights almost booked for my return home. It still pulls of a lot of strings. Should I stay? Should I stop somewhere on the way home? Maybe I will have enough work to do.. All that kind of stuff.

Hockey last night was a lot of fun. I think I was a bit too rough. There was one guy that was being very forceful I guess. I forced back and it was the last time he tackled me. But all in all it was good. And then today I met my Mongolian friends for lunch. I'm going to teach them how to make cupcakes on the weekend.

I'm not feeling it at work anymore. I finished as much as I'm going to do on one project yesterday. I've almost finished with my tourism proposal because I don't know what more to do....... Maybe I just want to be outside in the snow.

Older videos (and some new ones)

Mongol weddings

The Gobi - snapshot

Bulgan Soum - Opera singer

UB from above

Tarring the road out my window

Stanmore Phoenix hits Mongolia

Dormitory

Stanmore Phoenix hits Mongolia

Buggershitpoohdamnshithshit

Remember how I was trying to decide if I wanted to work as a geology recruitment-er? I decided to take one step at a time and actually just go overseas again, play around and get to the real decision making when I had formal offers on the table.

I was contacted this morning by the recruitment guy I met. I was waiting for a formal offer from them so didn't harass them. Turns out they were waiting for me to decide if I wanted to take the step into recruitment. And I don't know what to say!

If I work in recruitment, can I still call myself a geologist or do I have to say I work in Human Resources or something boring like that?

I know if anyone else was asking me the same question, I would say do it! Take it! Do something different!

It's always tricky though. Working where I was in CSG was something of a dream for me - I never imagined to work in the Oil and Gas as it was reserved for the very smart and very employable and dedicated people. I weasled my way in and I love it! CSG is very contentious at the moment and I guess that's what makes it fun. Most people seem to hate the idea of CSG but I see it as an alternative to the terrible-ness that is open cut coal mining. It's not the best alternative, but it's a shift in the right direction. To be a part of that is cool. I got to collect data that we analysed to make the science of CSG make more sense. And to make it safer, and more efficient. It was a pretty crap job when you roll it all into a ball. I worked all hours, all days, nursing multiple babies (rigs) that never grew up and stopped crying (calling at all hours). It was really exciting to be making on the fly decisions - big, expensive decisions.

It's really tricky to explain, but having been in Mongolia, albeit for only 5months thus far, I just can't imagine going back. It was a great job. A great lifestyle once I figured out how to work it around work. It was a great location, awesome colleagues. The only bad thing was my job, but that will never be the same as we drilled enough wells to collect enough data to analyse for the next six million years. So I wouldn't even be going back to a similar job.

So it's not my job that I hate. I just can't imagine going back to that place. And while I love that place and everything that goes with it (oh man, money is so nice!), I just don't feel it. Going back to that same place would mean that what I've done here in Mongolia is obsolete. Whilst I admit I haven't done much actual work, I have learnt a lot. It's not that, either.

I don't think I'll ever be able to explain it. There's lots of 'reasons' and rationalisations that make it sense for me to not go back to the same company in a similar position. But it's not those either. It's a feeling of going backwards, of not accepting and recognising what I've done in Mongolia. Of not being challenged again. I love a challenge. They usually come with tears but it's really boring to go back to something easy. Somewhere I know everyone and people have already pigeon-holed me in to something I believe wasn't truly me. It would be going back to a situation where people will think I have just been on a holiday. I recognise that most of my time in Mongolia was spent in the countryside and in Russia on holidays, but there is nothing about my time in Mongolia that spells holiday to me. It's been this amazing eye opening, heart wrenching, gut wrenching experience of a culture that isn't given the credit it deserves and suffers at the wrath of being located in between massive political superpowers.

SO, if I'm making the easy options, I would say YES. YES, take that recruitment job. Give it a go! It won't hurt and if everything stuffs up, go back to uni.

I can't imagine spending the rest of my life as a technical geologist. I could be the person that tells you about geology. The person that explains the science of CSG and how we're working with so many stakeholders to make it work. How CSG is an industry that will only work if we work with the people and the science - so there's no point pissing off one of the major stakeholders. I could be the person that organises events and speaks publicly about things. That inspires people to be a part of the change of the energy industry.

I don't think there is an all encompassing role that I could actually get paid for. Which therefore means I should quit while I'm ahead and do something different. I'm so reluctant to do that though.

Bah.

Yesterday I tried to do more of my project proposal. I had a friend look at it and she's told me about what needs to be added. There's a lot of technical jargon involved and I'm not so sure I want to do it, can do it, or have the time to do it.

My cousin was also playing on Bondi FM. At 8pm Australian time, which is 6pm Mongolia time. I tuned in to their livestream and had to suffer through poetry reading that didn't do much for me before Ryan finally popped on. I was so excited! Technology has helped me so much over here, but it never ceases to amaze me. I was listening to my cousin play his guitar on the radio, over the internet in my friend's loungeroom in Ulaanbaatar. I was glued next to the speaker so I could hear properly. And then when he said HI to me I jumped up and down like a little kid and clapped my hands. It was the coolest thing ever. His stage name is Stanmore Phoenix and you can see him here:

http://www.facebook.com/stanmorephoenixmusic

And then I walked home, had Japanese for dinner because I was too lazy to cook, watched some Glee (it's the only thing left on my laptop), took some portrait photos of my neighbour for a job application and went to bed.

Melbourne weather?

This week is going to be: beautiful picnic day today, warm enough tomorrow (might rain), snowing on Wednesday and really cold on Thursday and Friday.

p.s. I swear the next person that stares at me at the gym for over one second is going get a f-ing fist in the face. I’m really, really, really sick of being stared at. People come and stand next to me and stand there and stare at me. I hate it.

Photo Albumn–outside days before winter

		Out and about in UB–frolicking before the winter VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL