Semi-Important Information

This is the website address of the school we will be teaching at:

http://www.ueis.edu.mn/

At the bottom of the main page, there is the mailing address for the school, as well as the phone and fax number. If you need to get a hold of us and can't via email, this is your "Plan B." We will also be using the school address as our mailing address. So all of you kind folks that want to send care packages, this is the address to mail to.

Also, we just learned recently what our teaching assignments will be, and the schedule looks like this:

1.grade 10 hours per week ( 10 students) :Jessica

2.grade 10 hours per week ( 9 students) : Jessica

4. grade 8 hours( 5 students) :Clayton

5.grade 8 hours ( 5 students):Clayton

6.grade 8 hours ( 6 students) :Clayton

10.grade 4 hours ( 22 students):Jessica

11.grade4 hours ( 14 students) : Jessica

So I get 28 hours and week and Clayt gets 24. Not bad! Everything is falling into place, slowly but surely. Our car has been deemed a "total loss" after the accident, which works out great for us -- no more car payments! And, after much distress and worrying, we learned last night that our wonderful friends Paul and Tia are moving into a new apartment and they will be taking our cats! We are so excited and grateful for this! They've promised to send us photos of them every month (was that a joke?) -- anyways, everything is going great. so far.

Goodbye Hedmans!

well, actually, we will see them this coming Sunday, but this past weekend was our last official visit to their home in Charlottesville. We brought Kazu with us, and he enjoyed the all-american experience. We had a big early thanksgiving dinner, went for a walk in the woods, took turns shooting a paint-ball gun, and playe d a hardcore game of badmitten, where small children mocked the failure of their own teammates. All in all, another awesome time. See photos below for proof!

Saying Goodbyes, Part 2

Saying Goodbyes, Part 1

So this past weekend was our goodbye weekend for Hilton. It involved all the great things we will misss for a year: stuffed shells made by dad, drinking beers and playing pool with dad and brian, spending time with mom and kevin, visiting with my big brother and his family, watching cable tv and sleeping in a real bed. :) This weekend its off to Jamestown for another round of goodbyes.

Here is Brian and Clayton at the fine Arlington Restaraunt Bar, in downtown Hilton.


Here I am enjoying a rest in the jungle during our thrilling game of billiards. best part -- this is at the Hilton Bowling Alley.


Here's dad, me and brian, all trying to look tall in front of the house.


me, mom and kevin at mom's house. Helen, the woman who lives with them, is out of view, asking Clayton for the 5th time how long we will stay in Mongolia (she's 96 years old.)


clayt and me with my big brother's kids -- nelson, sara and rachel.


Clayton here is taking advantage of an unhappy looking pumpkin. This is in the Willow Inn parking lot, in Hilton, after we ate our last Willow Burgers.


Here's Brian and I, looking good and feeling great at the Arlington Restaraunt.


Sorry this alot of photos and not a lot of text. We wanted to include some photos from our last month home on this blog too, because we will look at it too when we feel homesick and want to see your familiar faces! Only 20 days left! We finally have our health reports back from the doctor, and tomorrow will send them along to Mongolia, and they will begin our Visa processing, Everyday the apartment becomes more empty. The landlord told us today also that our apartment has been re-rented, which is good nes for us! It appears that everything is working out well so far. Lets keep our fingers crossed until our feet touch land in Mongolia!

Backtracking to this past weekend...

We had a great Halloween! A bunch of us went to a house party and then out to a bar in DC where we danced like maniacs. Just wanted to share the photos with you. Clayt and Paul were sorority sisters, Tia was a cat and I was supposed to be a nerd but everyone thought I wasl Velma. Also, several people asked me if i was supposed to be Ugly Betty. !!! No Comment.

the photo below is one of my former students from Japan, we helped him celebrate his first American Haloween. So, this is a photo of him at the bar with a guy dressed up as...read the name tag.......its just SO wrong...but a little funny?

Mongolia? You know its freezing there, right?

So, this is our first attempt at a blog. We'll see how it goes. Hmmm... i feel a little bit of pressure to say profound and insightful things, but for starters i'll just give some facts and ongoings with us right now.

Someone is coming to look at our apartment tonight in an hour and a half. So, naturally, i'm slacking a little when i should be cleaning out the cat box or something. Our apartment is so empty right now. I'll have to post before and after photos for you. We had a yard sale on saturday, and departed with many random items we have accumulated over the 5 years we've lived in this area. It feels weird and still doesn't seem real that in 29 days from now we're going to be on an airplane on our way to Mongolia.

BEFORE:


AFTER:



So, for the sake of those who didn't hear the whole story and just to recap, lets start at the beginning. Clayton and I want to join the Peace Corps. Once you are nominated for an assignment in a specific country, it usually takes about a year before you leave to begin your service. So, clayt and i decided that we should try to do something in that year. Nominations happen every three months, and the most recent nomination cycle is happening right now. This means if we are nominated this time, we would head somewhere else in about a year. If we are not nominated (they say only 40% of couples are nominated the first time) then it will be even longer before we go.

Clayt and i applied to teach English in a few different schools, in Turkey, Japan, China and Mongolia. We actually got in touch with this school through one of our friends Salih, who sent an email out to some turkish schools in various places, asking if they needed english teachers. then salih gave us the school director's email, and told us to send our resumes.

So, things progressed from there. We had to do some negotiating about the length of the contract, but in the end we agreed to something that satisfied everyone. Our contract is for one year. They will pay for our airfare, they will pay us a monthly salary, and they will also pay for our furnished apartment. Not bad!

We got our tickets in the mail yesterday -- we fly from DC to NY to Moscow to Ulaanbataar. Its only a total of 17.5 hours of flying, but we also have 10 hours of layover time. We leave november 29 at 2:30 pm and arrive December 1 at 6:30 a.m.

ok, thats all for now. I'll have clayt do the next posting and hopefully he will have something more exciting to say.
-- jessica