Tsenguun from Mongolia

We were told to create a fictional modern day teenager living in Mongolia. Because, we could have chosen a partner, I worked with Sonya. Basically, we came up with a sixteen year old boy named Tsenguun. He studied in an average Mongolian public school; however 2 grades lower than he is supposed to be. It is because he had worked with his mom at Narantuul Market for 2years before going to school. He is a very mature boy, who has a goal to accomplish and a willingness to learn a lot. Well, there is a peer pressure from his friends persuading him to smoke, skip school and etc. His father is an alcoholic; but his mom works all day for the living of three of them.
What topic did you pick and why?
The theme of our podcast is "A Day of Tsenguun's life". We didn't want to choose a regular theme like music, peer pressure, poverty or anything similar to those; because our fictional character was someone who had a lot of difficulties. So we wanted to include parts of his conflicts into the podcast.
How would this teenager's experience, outlook, and desires be different from their parents'?
Well, since he had rose in a community where his father doesn't have any goals in life and his mother working like a dog just to find some money for food; he understood life is not an easy thing to deal with. Because he is very mature, he actually becoming the opposite of his father by having goals and standing up for his believes. Even though he has goals to achieve, there is something similar between him and his father - disliking towards living. Tsenguun doesn't enjoy his life that is why he decided so many things to do; meanwhile his father hates life and spends days just by drinking.

• Name: Tsenguun
• Age: 16
• Religion/Beliefs: Buddhist
• Household background: Average income, average neighborhood
• Education: 2 years later, in a low grade. He is very good at Chemistry and Literature
• Family: The only kid in the family. Father - alcoholic, doesn't bring any income. Mother - works as a meat seller in a market; the only person, who works in Tsenguun's family.
• Interests: Basketball, Chemistry, Literature. Also he is very creative.
• Life Challenges: Peer pressure, family fight.

Here is the script I wrote with Sonya.

A Day in My Life
It has been a very chaotic day; not very different from other times. My parents just had a fight. As usual my mum is lying on the bathroom floor crying. My dad is tired after beating my mum. For my sake I hope he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night, asking me for another bottle of vodka. I am worried about my mum because when she comes home her second job starts; taking care of this alcoholic jerk.
My name is Tsenguun and I am 16 years old. For 2 years I worked with my mum in Naran Tuul and because of this I am in grade 8 this year. All my friends are in high school now; it does not matter to me, but I guess it matters to them. I love going to school especially because I am good at chemistry and literature. I want to be a well educated engineer, so I can support my mum.
My mum understands my interests and tries her best to help me anyway she can. I can see her struggling to put food on the table every night with the little she can get. Her goal is to see me successful in life because she has not experienced it herself. For me success is not what we have right now.
Today my friends asked me to skip school but as normal I turned them down. They are not bad kids; they just like to have fun. We all love sports particularly basketball. Today after practice me and the guys had a smoke behind the gym. For a couple of moments my life seems perfect, but I can’t escape reality.

My classmates also had the same duty and they had their product podcast same as me. So we put all the podcasts in one file and started listening to them as part of our investigation. It was very fun and as the same time useful for our final product. So I listened to 8 podcasts total and some of them were just completely unclear, while others were pleasant to listen. I found one of them a little too long and with too much repeatition of statements. So the best of all was Suugii's. Her podcast was very clear to liste and understand; however the aim of the podcast was not stuck to the idea of adolescence in Mongolia. A small critisims can be made because of its lenght; it was a little long. But despite all of the content mistakes, the actual podcast was very pleasant to listen. So I asked her what technique as well as recording function she had used. Well, she said that she had used her laptop as a recording source. The distance between the laptop and herself was not close and was not far either, so it was just an average lenght. She said that the reason why her podcast was clear is that she had practiced the speech for 4 times. So reading over and over again is actually helping to make the podcast better. I think, it is one of the procedures I should follow while creating my final product.