Imaginary birthdays

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Thursday, May 31, 2012

I have this student who is fascinated with imaginary numbers and since today was his birthday (and the last day of classes) I thought we'd celebrate with an imaginary theme. Sadly, the frosting got a bit messed up (ALWAYS wait until your cake is fully cooled...) but hopefully the math message makes it through:

Happy 17i⁴!

Hot pot!

Meat & Veges--Yum!

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Sunday, May 27, 2012

It took us almost three years, but last night we finally got out to The Bull, Ulaanbaatar's finest hot pot restaurant. It was a lovely evening and good food, too. We might have taken a taxi home, but the traffic was so bad that we ended up enjoying a pleasant walk home through the warm and dusty streets.

When walking is faster than driving you know the traffic is bad...

Thanks to friends for babysitting!

The condiments

Probability, Mongolian-style

A box of shagai - or sheep ankle bones

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Thursday, May 17, 2012

Today it was time for probability, Mongolian-style. A Mongolian colleague loaned me her box of shagai, and the students got to work trying to establish the theoretical probability of throwing camels, horses, goats and sheep.

It's a noisy experiment with all those ankle bones crashing down on the tables, but it's a fun twist on the boring old dice rolling and coin tossing.

Turns out horses are least common and goats fall most often...

The Magic Ger

The inspiration for it all

Terelj, Mongolia
Sunday, May 13, 2012

We woke up early this morning to a snow-covered world. A and I decided to write and illustrate a story about our nighttime adventures.

First there was The Magic School Bus, and then there was The Magic Treehouse. Now we bring you The Magic Ger...




The Magic Ger

The Magic Ger in a spring snowstorm

Once upon a time, a family stayed at a ger camp in Terelj named Heaven's Envoy. Although it was May, in the night, there arose a great wind.

Amidst the swirling snow which fiercely covered the valley, the ger rose into the sky...

As the ger left the earth, the family awoke. They noticed a swaying sensation, but the Papa said, "Don't worry. It's just the wind."

Mama said, "Papa, maybe you'd better check." The daughter said, "I bet we've taken off to fly to the moon."

"Ok," said Papa, "I'll take a look." As he opened the ger door, Papa gasped.


All he could see in every direction was stars. The hills, valleys, rocks, and gers of Terelj had vanished...

Papa watches the stars and earth float by...

All through the night, the Magic Ger floated and boated through the air.

At times, the family slept. At other times, they got up and peeked out the door to stare in amazement as the cosmos floated by. Stars, moons, planets, galaxies: they glimpsed them all.

At last as dawn began to break, they noticed that the ger began to grow colder.

Three hot chocolates on the ger table

With a gentle thud, the ger landed back in Terelj, and Mama got up to make a fire.

Papa made hot chocolate, and the daughter lay in bed and re-counted stories of their wonderful night in the Magic Ger.

The End.

Snow & flowers

Terelj, Mongolia
Saturday, May 12, 2012

 We made it out to Terelj today despite some very weird weather conditions--and there we found many more signs of spring--amidst the patches of snow.

Azaleas!

And what are these lovely yellow flowers?

Tiny signs of spring

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Saturday, May 5, 2012

It was a blistering 28C/82F today, but still, signs of spring are few and far between. With no spring rains yet, the hills above UB remain brown and tired. But as we played in the garden at a friends' place today, the girls found tiny signs of spring...

Send a secret message

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Time again for sending encrypted messages in Grade 10 as a way to practice matrix algebra. I was particularly pleased by this year's crop of messages...