Essays of a Peripheral Mind Speaking other languages

摘要

Here is an example of a serious commitment to your college education. In order to simply attend a university, you need to successfully complete your secondary education and pass your entrance exams, then get on a horse with a few belongings, ride fordays to reach a rail line, embark on a 5- to 7-day train ride across the continent, attend classes taught in a foreign language you may not know very well at all, and seldom visit your home before your education is complete. Early in October 2006, I metDr. D. Avaadorj (Fig. 1), a soil scientist and member of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences working out of Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. I'd guess he was in his mid-60s and still very active in his discipline, in fact, still working at fieldsites across Mongolia on extensive campaigns to collect data and apply his knowledge to solving his country's resource use problems. His intense curiosity and intellectual capacity were quite in evidence and obviously lifelong traits. I hope to have hisenergy at his age. He had begun his formal education over 4 decades ago.