May 10th, May 10th, May 10th

I have accepted an offer from the University of South Dakota and I will be starting my PhD program in Clinical Psychology this coming August! Chris and I will be moving to Vermillion, South Dakota this summer!! We're both looking forward to moving back to the States and I'm especially excited about getting started on a higher education.

I have 5 more teaching days (Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) before I can say that I'm done teaching. I'll essentially be on vacation from May 11th to June 9th and on June 9th I'll start my long journey back to the United States. So, there are a few things I'd like to do in Mongolia before I leave.

1) Get a Mongolian haircut. For about 15 dollars you get a neck massage, a hair treatment, and a supposedly fantastic cut. Chris did it earlier in the year and he ended up getting green goop put in his hair and then he was stuck under a hair dryer for awhile. Oddly enough, I'd like that experience, and since I haven't cut my hair in nearly 10 months, I think it's kinda necessary at this point.

Sometimes I braid my hair and my students are always so surprised.

2) Go to Lake Hovsgol. It's the deepest lake in all of Mongolia, takes approximately 3 weeks to go around it, and it's supposed to be absolutely breath-taking. Wikipedia says that  the lake area is a National Park that is bigger than Yellowstone! The drive to get there is over 24 hours, so Chris and I will be taking a plane with a trip time of only an hour and a half :)

3) Hike up the Zaisian Monument. I live in Zaisian, which is the "rich part" of Ulaanbaatar and maybe 15 minutes away from me is a beautiful monument that offers a great view of the city. It's a small hike up and it's ranked highly on TripAdvisor, but I just haven't made time for it...yet.

4) And directly to the right of my apartment is a mountain. The last time I hiked that mountain I was diagnosed with appendicitis the next day, so I'm jokingly a bit concerned about what organ will go next (gall bladder, maybe?) But it's time to make the hike back up the mountain and say good bye to Mongolia and the city I spent 10 months in.