Update #3 coming at you:This past week, I spent my time at a hospital in Bombay run by a spiritual group called the Brahma Kumaris; this is a religious/spiritual organization, recognized by the UN as an official peacekeeping group, and it was interesting to see how they influenced medicine in the hospital.For one, it was nice to always see smiling faces on the medical staff - not only did their demeanor keep the patients more calm, but it also helped ease the constant tension usually found in a hospital.Also, as part of the healing process, the group offers lessons in meditation and peaceful living; I usually don't believe in that hippie stuff but the meditation was very cool, and apparently they've proved it helps in healing (which I don't find surprising given that lowered stress levels probably help in healing).

At the hospital, not only did I get to see some cool stuff, but I got to do some fun stuff too!I'll start with what I saw - everyday we saw a cool surgery, in addition to the usual outpatient stuff.One day we saw a guy get half his jaw removed (a marginal mandiubuloectomy), because he had a pretty ridiculous case of oral cancer (unfortunately, a hugely popular thing here amongst the lower class is an Indian form of chewing tobacco).We also saw a few cleft palate surgery, the removal of a huge metal rod out of a guy's femur, a lady with a platelet count of 1,000 because of malaria (normal is usually 150,000 - how she hadn't hemorrhaged out was still beyond me), and a man who's big toe was so infected that when they went to amputate the bone, it crumbled into a gooey paste - good times.Oh, in one instance, we saw a patient who had such bad lung cancer that the doctors didn't know how he was still standing up (better still, he still didn't want to see an oncologist because the hospital was 30 minutes away).I got to write orders in patient's charts, take staples out a guys leg post-op, and poke all sorts of weird lumps, bumps, and abscesses.Still, 3 weeks down, and I was disease free!

In addition to the craziness at the hospital was an equally crazy week outside of the hospital!On Thursday, I went to Juhu beach (a huge beach in Bombay) because thousands of people were immersing their Ganesh idols into the ocean as part of the 10 day celebration I mentioned last week(There were so many people on the streets heading to the ocean I couldn't even take a cab, I just had to walk).Friday, my cousins and I went out to an amazing restaurant and then went to one of the most exclusive clubs in Mumbai called the China House and I happened to meet Vivek Oberoi, a pretty famous Bollywood star.Btw, drinks here were not cheap - a gin and tonic was like $12 US dollars; still, it was awesome to see the Bombay high life.The next day I went to a party at this other club where I met a ton of ex-pats from the US and Europe (god bless Facebook and its random groups), including kids who wrote for Reuters, the New York Times, and a bunch of I-bankers and jewelers.Sunday, I went to a place called Elephanta Island, where nearly 2000 years ago, priests carved an entire temple into the side of the island to worship the god Shiva.It was unbelievable, but in traditional Indian fashion, there were some bumps along the trip - our boat stopped working on the way there, and on the way back we were hit with such hard rains that people questioned whether the boat would tip over or not.I got off of that boat without one dry patch on my body, and it seems I may be coming down with a cold as a result (what are the odds that when I'm outside the hospital I end up getting sick?).

One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that the past three weeks there has been a world cup cricket tournament going on in South Africa.While it wasn't believed that India would be going anywhere because three of their best players had opted out of the tourney, they ended up winning the entire thing yesterday over their archrivals, Pakistan.I have never seen craziness like this before.Everyone on the streets were waving flags, had their faces painted, and were screaming like mad - it was probably what Boston was like in 2004, except this was the whole country, including a city of nearly 19 million (oh, speaking of which, if any of you could send me sports updates, that would be great. The internet connection at the cyber café I use is unbearably slow and it doesn't load ESPN).

Speaking of slow connections, I apologize that I haven't been able to put more pictures.I have taken a ton, but like I said, the internet here is terrible.I'll be going over my cousin's place to load some more this week, so stay tuned.

To those who walled/messaged/emailed me on my birthday, many thanks!Oh, and keep the updates coming; I love hearing what you all are up to!