The first day of school in Mongolia is celebrated with new school uniforms, new notebooks, and many speeches.  At 8 in the morning teachers, parents, and students (lined up by class) all gathered outside in the school courtyard.  Awards were given to teachers for last year’s work, several dance and music numbers were performed by the students, and the 11th graders gifted the tiny 1st graders with pens and notebooks.  At the end of the ceremony a 1st grader symbolically rang the first bell of the year and all the students headed into the school for their first classes.  As I don’t have a homeroom class, I was done for the day, but most teachers spent the morning welcoming their students and handing out textbooks.  The morning ended with a live televised address by the president of Mongolia which in true Omnogobi fashion was cut short by a power outage.  It probably wasn’t that interesting anyway.