less of an entry than a very long ramble

I have to start this post out with an exchange I overheard between Tais and Phuntsok:
Tais-"In Tibetan, do you have the expression 'he could be my father'?"
Phuntsok-(confused expression) "you mean like in another life?"

Anyway, the other day Dr. Pradham asked me to clean out the "surgical cabinet." It seems that things are cleaned on the basis of having someone tall enough to reach them, so often when I go to clean things, the top shelves are much dirty than lower shelves. It makes me feel useful. It was odd for me to be handling suction caths, lidocaine, amniodarone, and so forth in here. I'd gotten used to extremely simplistic medicine, so it was strange to see 'modern' medicine here gathering dust. All the time I've spent at the center, the only medicine that I've seen being given is salve and even that is just a mix of honey and turmeric that anyone could mix up in their own center. In America, those same patients would be packed so full of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, steroids, cardiac meds to protect their hearts from the steriods, and whatever else the drug companies could push the docs into pushing into the patients, yet everyday the patients here get better without all that crap. It's such a ridiculous waste. I'll stand behind most paramedical pharmacology because it gives people the choice of coming back from the dead-which is cool (I'm only half joking), but when you have commercial on day time TV putting ideas of all the horrible things that people could have into the uneducated masses heads telling people to go to their doctor start popping these pills- it's no wonder that most of the country is fat with DIABETUS (that one is for you Mike) and depression, because no one can take responsibility for themselves. I'm gonna stop here because this isn't the direction I wanted to go with this entry.

The weather here is beautiful. Yesterday we had a fantastic thunderstorm. Miki and I sat out doing work while it rolled in. It had been thundering all day, but it didn't rain until late afternoon. The lights kept getting knocked out so Miki and I had to use lamps to read by as we waited the storm out.

I didn't bring any music to save room on computer for pictures, so I'm starting to miss familiar music. I've even gone so far as to get on myspace just to look up bands that I like so that I can listen to any music that they have posted.

I've been very busy, but I'm enjoying it. I started taking yoga with Miki in the morning and it seems to be giving me more energy.
Time for class, I will write again later.