More deets

Every other TA seems to have a blog and post awesome pictures so here I am getting internet peer pressured into updating this. Here I go:

My fridge is full of vegetables from all over the world (Dutch leeks, Australian beef, Egyptian olives, Jordanian nectarines)! And my school is full of students from all over the world (Syria, Yemen, Pakistan - okay not quite as far flung as the food). Shopping for the former made me realize that I really must kick this habit of living in countries that are not arable and import all food if I am going to eat local. The selection here is magnitudes better than that in Mongolia, however, and occasionally I can find produce that is cheaper than in America even! (3 lovely gala apples from New Zealand for 4 QR = $1 and change!)

Also, notably, today I spent more than five minutes outdoors during the day for the Very First Time. The event was a steamy walk/swim through the humidity to the grocery store in the City Center mall about a quarter or half mile away. Every time I step outside I find myself sighing emphatically, just once. Perhaps this is a reflex to force deep breathing in order to get a few molecules of oxygen in amongst the gulps of air that is 95% water vapor. Walking this meager distance made me feel even more sorry for the countless day laborers that built and continue to build the skyscrapers (which I imagine to be mostly empty; how many people live here anyways?) surrounding everything and the silent men mopping the underground parking garage at Education City each evening. The parking spots absolutely glisten.

Haven't taken many photos yet - it's at night that the city really comes into itself, I think, and I never seem to have my camera then. The setting sun is pretty incredible here, also - since the humidity is so thick you can look straight at the sun without hurting and it's just a perfect yellow circle in the shimmering hot sky, dropping slowly between scaffolding and lit-up crazy buildings.
I think it's the only natural beauty I have spotted here yet.

That was a segue to an apology for getting you excited about photos in the first sentence. Eventually.