I'm always the last one to know

One of the problems with being the only native English speaker that works at the school is that I never have the foggiest idea what is going on unless I ask. Unfortunately, I have yet to ask. This means that I'm always finding things out at the last minute.

I could understand conversations about upcoming events if I was concentrating on the conversation, but those conversations are so mind-numbingly boring that I never do. Once I stop paying attention to a Mongolian conversation it is very unlikely that I will start paying attention to it again, so from that point the whole thing is doomed.

I was in class this week, and when I looked at the schedule / attendance sheet I noticed that the term project would be in a few days. I told the students that the project would be due the next Tuesday.
The students gave me blank stares. "There's no class next week", they said.
"No class?" I asked, incredulously.
"No, there's no class", they replied.
I couldn't believe them, so I ran downstairs and asked Itgil the receptionist. Sure enough, there was no class. The entire school was being used for an evangelistic series (which I knew about) so all classes were canceled.

So... I'm going to try to find someone to stay with over the week, or perhaps several people. I want to spend a few days with people that don't speak English so that I can practice my Mongolian.

In other news, there was an interesting activity day today. Seven people came, which is a pretty good number. No one came up with anything to do, so I made pizza and we played cards. For the first time since I've gotten here everyone actually HAD FUN. It's amazing. It was probably partly due to a different mix of personalities, but I think it's also because I'm more used to people now, so I make guests feel less awkward.
We played Uno, a Mongolian game I don't know the name of, and a Chinese game I don't know the name of (there's one Chinese student). Both of them were great fun, so I'll have to play them with people when I get back to the US.
After about two hours I commented that it was almost three, and people took the hint and left.
Awesomeness.