People's Choice

My poor neglected blog. Anyone reading this has nearly missed all of my second year of service. Unfortunate, because this has definitely been the easier and more rewarding of the two.

Now the fourth quarter of school is beginning. For me, this means a lot more time, as the fourth quarter has no Olympics, no education center evaluations, and therefore really not a lot of work going on besides preparing older students for graduation tests. My school also recently got Internet access, so with my extra time, I may be hanging around the computer lab more often. These two facts, as well as my growing anticipation for finally coming home, may lead to me to clock a few more hours on the Internet. In which case, I'll try to catch you up on some of the more interesting moments in this past year.

But, before I do, here's the news briefs:
- Dude's pregnant. I'll be a grandma in a week or two.
- There's only a month left of school!Whoo hoo
- I was awarded the "People's Talent" medal

And for full-coverage of the medal:
Just a week or , a city-wide obsession is coming to an end. For nearly a month, my school prepared for and then performed a competition show. This competition included every organization in our city (schools, government offices, military, police, etc.) Yes, this is a nice idea. And, yes, it was fun to watch and fun for the first week or so of practice. But what it really gave me was a deep appreciation for SYT. That's right, Summer Youth Theater. It boggles my mind to remember how efficient the practices were and how dedicated everyone was to the show's success.

During this month-long process, there was definitely some dedication. But that dedication wasn't quite channeled into successful practices. For two straight weeks we practiced everyday, from 10ish to 7ish. And still, after all this, there were things still being learned on the performance day..

I was in four performances: Mongolian solo song, Mongolian solo dance, group chair dance, couples Latin American dance. The Mongolian song was a traditional song put to a poppy beat. It was everyone's favorite. The Mongolian dance was fun. I'll bring the music back and show you all. The chair dance was made because I showed the Pussycat Dolls "Buttons" video to the choreographer, so she made a sexy little dance in which we throw our hair back about 100 times. My neck's still sore. And the Latin dance was choreographed by me and Jess.

We preformed our school show 2 times. Then I was invited to the next two rounds. The third show was the competition of the bests. And the fourth show was a gala of the best of the best. I got a medal, about $13 and a DVD of Mongolian folk songs and dances. For the most part, it was worth it. But I'm glad they restarted this Soviet-era tradition during my final year. I'm not eager to be a part of it again.