The good and the bad...

I'm in a good mood today. I have realized that for the most part, I'm really happy.
-I love my apartment and Mongolia
-I like my work
-I am excited for the future
-I have a great and loving family and a wonderful dog
-my career continues to grow
-i am mostly healthy
-my depression is in check
- i feel challenged and am learning lots
- i have lots of good friends in real life and online
-i have incredible opportunities right now

And [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] I got your card. Thank you! It's so cute.

I am finishing up "Life of Pi" for the second time. Then I will release it a la bookcrossing, since my aunt gave it to me for that purpose. I love this book.

The bad news is that I may have an ear infection. My ears are sore again, so I went to the doctor today. My ear drum is swollen. I have to go see a specialist. She's a Mongolian doctor but she speaks English and was trained in the States. But aside from the pain, and a little worry about my ears, I'm in good spirits.

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My ears hurt. This week I have to plan our trip to Zavhan and Uvs. We are going to fly there, and rent a driver and car to do more interviews. Doki is already contacting our apex organizations so they can tell us which coops to visit.

Ingrid is going to Moscow tomorrow. She bought a SARS mask for the plane. It has super long straps on it. You could almost use it as a sling.

She was going to buy granola bars for me in Russia for our next trip, but we've decided against this because I have a nut allergy. My hypoglycemia is quite bad when I'm on the road. In the desert, you can't buy food so you have to pack your own and have it available in order to take the edge off. I keep on trying to phone the ear doctor, but I can't reach her.

Just a little trauma...

Well, I went to the ear doctor today. First of all, I couldn't find the clinic. There are no addresses here, so I just had a general description of where it was.

I wandered around trying to get people to tell me where it was. Finally, I wandered into a hairdresser's and they let me use the phone and I called the doctor to ask for directions.

He gave me some, but they weren't very good. So I wandered into a bakery and this woman who spoke English finally gave me directions.

So I walked into the clinic and showed them the name of the doctor I wanted to see. They led me into the clinic and opened the doctor's door. It turned out she had a man in her room with his pants down. (How nice- insert sarcasm here.) I think she was giving him a needle in the ass.

Anyway, it turned out that the doctor I wanted to see wasn't there. It was another ear doctor, but she couldn't really speak English. She had to use a phrase book to speak with me, and then she got another woman to come in and speak English with me. Then they poked around in my ears, and looked in my throat etc.

She then said that it looked like I've been scratching my ears, which I haven't. The two of them put some steroid drops in my ears, which felt good, but it hurt like hell when the woman was putting swabs full of steroids into my ears.

I have to put drops in my ears and go back on Wednesday, and I'm supposed to keep on trying to call the English speaking doctor. I found the whole experience very hellish and I was feeling weepy and weak as I walked back home. It was just stressful and sort of scary.

I went to get pizza for supper because I wanted spinach and the chance of me finding it here is low because of the vegetable shortage. Usually I get spinach and mushroom pizza, and this is what I asked for, but they made me 2 pizzas, one spinach, one mushroom. I didn't even care. I just took both of them. Thank god I cancelled my language lesson tonight.

I just need to relax.