This morning I woke up bright and early for my interviews, yet again. I made my way to the UB deli for my free breakfast, but it took almost 50 minutes to fry up 2 eggs and toast. So I was now getting concerned as I only had just under an hour left to establish a good working connection. I tried yet another Internet centre this morning and found that the rates were good (600 tugrik/hr) and that the Skype actually worked! I called mom and dad and talked for bit to catch up since it had been a while, and to test out the connection. It all went well so it looked like it would work.

My first interview was for Lismore Base Hospital, up towards the border of norther NSW and Queensland. My second was for Port Macquarie Hospital, about 4 hours north of Sydney. Both interviews went well but were extremely impersonal and just asked the same boring questions like "What kind of doctor do you want to be?", "Why do you want to come here?", "What three words describe you and why?", and What are your strengths and weaknesses?" BORRRING!!! Anyway, they're done now and I should hear back 16th June with the results. I also go into the lottery so if neither of those work out, I'll be assigned a hospital based on my preference selections. In between the interviews, about 30 minutes apart, I found a few new interesting web sites designed to help you keep track of your personal health issues and medications. There are obviously some privacy concerns but it's quite interesting. Google has one at www.google.com/health, and Microsoft has one at www.healthvault.com. The Microsoft one apparently will tie in to medical devices to help you and your doctor monitor everything from your medication supplies to various things like heart and glucose monitors. It's worth a look.

After the interviews, I headed over to meet up with the SOS guys since they had planned to go to the infectious diseases hospital. The taxi drier couldn't figure out why I only owed him 1,500 (max) for a journey of 3.5km at 350 tugrik/km. I even showed him the math but he was sure I owed him 2,000. I ended up giving him 1,800 after a few minutes of arguing. Next time I'm just not paying any more than what was agreed upon because I'm sick of the taxi BS. I will gladly tip an honest and safe driver, but ONLY if he is willing to accept the agreed fare. So my new rule is, I will pay taxi drivers who are happy with the greed fare an extra 500, but any driver that wants more will get nothing extra. It's only fair to reward the guys that are being honest and not the ones that are scamming people. t least it wasn't a 4,000 tugrik fare like the first time!

At SOS, I caught up with Dr. Philip, but he was a bit swamped today. He wasn't going anywhere today so we agreed to meet up tomorrow at 2 t which time well go over to the infectious diseases hospital for a bit of a look. On the next day, the plan is to go to the remote mine site clinic. I went off to do some more work at the French Cafe for a few hours instead. While there, I overheard a conversation about hip replacements and found out that there's a woman from France who's lived here 2 years and is running an NGO (non-government organisation / charity group) dedicated to Health Prevention and Physiotherapy. She's a physio by training and is out in the countryside usually training the locals on how to care for people after they've come back from the hospital. However, she is also very involved in teaching preventative health care to the locals who often end up spending their life savings on a single hospital visit in UB that ends up with the worse off back in the country with no follow-up support. She's also looking at the excessive salt issue closely and is trying to teach people bout the problems of hypertension. When I ran into her, she was educating a local woman about the process of hip replacements and what is required after such a surgery in order to get full recovery. I think that later in the week we'll plan to meet up in the cafe so that I can learn a bit more about what she's been seeing out in the country and hopefully I may get an opportunity to actually visit one of the remote clinics and see what her organisation does to encourage preventative health care, the only thing I think will really work around here.

Anyway, after that I headed back to the guest house and spent a few more hours working and typing up this blog. Now it's time to go out and see if I can find a place to help translate my poster. See ya!

Well, I'm back now. It looks like the lady that works in the front of the office here at the guest house would be happy to have the extra work. I think that this will work well since she can ask me questions as she goes.

In the late afternoon, I got my first real patient here in Mongolia - a computer!! Catriona mentioned to me that her boss had a computer problem and I gave her some diagnostic tips and so the next day at the office she confirmed that the problem was indeed what I thought. She brought it home to see if I could look at it and it was heavily infected. Seems like there's no escaping! But I feel really bad for him because he's had several of the top computer guys here in Mongolia look at it but they haven't been able to fix it. Anyway, I'll take a look later tonight.

For this evening's weekly Hash House Harriers, we headed out past Zaisan Monument (photos from a few days ago) to some hills. There were about 35 of us today and we had a great hike. I tried to hike with some of the other people but they were too slow so another guy and I paired up and we headed off to the oovo at the top. We were the only ones that ended up making it to the top, and it was a spectacular view! We saw lots of cranes and eagles flying around, and the eagle had its eyes on a little dog that someone brought. It even swooped once! There were a few new people since last week, and many familiar faces. I got some good photos and hopefully one of the sunset that turns out well.

After the 2 hour hike in the fresh evening air, some of the guys headed off to the bar but I went back to eat a quick Thai dinner around the corner and work on fixing the computer. It turns out that I stayed up until 5 am trying to fix it and it's much better now but still has a little ways to go. I didn't mind staying up because I didn't have to be anywhere until 2 pm the next day.

So I could say g'night, but it's really morning! see ya!