been a busy bee

It's been quite a busy week for me, both with school assignments and social activities. Here's the day by day update of the past week.

Friday: Practical of tooth #30. This involved "waxing-up" the mandibular first molar in 3 hours with no references or help from the professor. This is how they test both our knowledge of tooth anatomy/occlusion and our "hand skills". Practicals are kind of a big deal and require quite a few extra hours spent in the sim clinic practicing.

Saturday-Monday: Spent studying for a HUGE anatomy test.

Tuesday: Day of the HUGE anatomy test. The first part in the morning was a written exam. Pretty basic, considering it was the 12,405,867th one I've taken this year. The second portion was an anatomy practical. In the anatomy lab, the faculty had set up about 40 different stations that each had a different structure tagged. Some stations were cadavers that the professors had "tagged" by either tying a string around it or sticking a pin in it. Other stations were labelled skulls or diagrams. It was a bit tricky, having to fill in the blanks (with correct spelling) with each anatomical name. I'm happy to report that I aced each part though! (Some of my classmates definitely did not do so well. Serves them right for skipping out on lab or not participating. It's not my favorite way to spend an afternoon either, but you need to do it to learn.) It's nice to see my effort finally paying off. We also had our second flag football game on Tuesday. We played the other D1 team that was SUPER serious and comprised of a bunch of large guys that played college ball. My team is a little bit rag-tag and only out to have some fun. Needless to say, the other team gave us zero respect and treated us quite rudely. Initially, it looked like we were going to have to forfeit because several of our teammates (mostly med students) decided not to show, and we did not have the minimum 5 people to compete. Luckily, our team captain recruited a few guys from the master's program to play for our team. (They had just finished playing their game, which had been on the same field as ours.) And these guys were GOOD. We still lost the game, but only by 2 points. The other D1 team was SO surprised because they anticipated blowing us out of the water and they just barely beat us. That's what they get for being so cocky!

Wednesday: After class I went to the mall to get some new shoes. I needed a pair of black heels. I eventually ended up at DSW, where I found a pair for $50. The shoes were okay but not exactly what I had wanted. I was also a bit bummed about the price. For $50, I want to LOVE the shoes. However, I had exhausted my options at the mall, so I decided to buy them. I decided to do a quick lap through the clearance section where I found the EXACT same shoes (well, 1/2 size bigger) for $30. Suddenly I liked the shoes a lot better. The full price pair went back on the rack, and I went home much happier with my identical (and cheaper) shoes.

Thursday: Putting together a case study presentation on oral cancer.

Friday: Presenting the case study on oral cancer.

Saturday: Odontoblast 2010! This was the dental class "prom" that was held in the plaza in front of the auditorium on campus. It was decorated with all kinds of lights, tables, and flowers. We even had a red carpet! Everyone (including faculty) got all dressed up to socialize, eat a nice catered dinner, and dance. (Well, dance as best we could...the library is also on the plaza, and a bunch of students were sitting inside studying. We could see them working hard through the floor to ceiling glass windows while we were outside "playing".) Afterwards, we all headed to Sangria, a "luxe lounge" across the street from campus for the after-party. Overall, it was really nice. My favorite part was seeing what everyone was wearing, since I only ever see people wearing blue scrubs.

(Note: I am wearing my new shoes!)

Sunday: Went to a spring training game with my roommate. This stadium is SUPER close to my apartment, although I had never been there before. Now I know why. The place was PACKED. We got lawn seats and there was hardly a spare inch of grass for us to spread our blanket. (We actually couldn't...we had to sit on it folded in half.) Apparently, there are quite a few Cubs fans in Arizona! Despite the crowded conditions, it was a perfect day to get some sun and watch the Cubbies beat the Mariners. A nice family from Wauconda took this picture after the game. (At this point, the grass had cleared out quite a bit...still fairly crowded.) After the game, we walked across the street for lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ so we would not have to sit in traffic to get out of the ballpark. That plan worked like a charm!Monday (aka today): More waxing in the sim clinic. Afterwards, my friend Brynn talked me into spending some time studying in the anatomy lab with her for our test next week. There is a assigned rotational system for actually doing the dissections, but the anatomy lab is "open" for us to study the bodies pretty much 24/7. (The door is always locked, but our school ID can be swiped in front of the door to allow us access at any time.) Anyway, Brynn had been in lab on Thursday (which was not my assigned day last week) and suggested that we study some "prosected heads" that the professors has introduced that day. I was thinking that maybe that they had done some different dissections on some of the cadaver heads (because just as there are 100 ways to skin a cat, there are 100+ ways to dissect a cadaver). I was wrong. Brynn led me over to a large plastic rubbermaid tub on a table in the middle of the room. She opened the lid and took out a plastic garbage bag. Inside that garbage bag was a head...a human head...one that had been removed from the rest of its body. This head was DECAPITATED! According to the label on the box, there were 6 more heads just like it in the box. While these "prosected heads" were partially dissected, they very much still looked like people. It was very creepy and took me a minute to get my bearings. Heads! In a bucket! We looked at about 3 of them before we had seen all the structures on the list. Hopefully I will not be going in the head bucket again anytime soon.

So now you know why I have not updated my blog in about a week. I've been busy as a bee! Thanks for everyone sending me emails letting me know about what's going on back in IL (and NC). Some of my favorite reports from home include the mundane day to day stuff. Life doesn't have to be exciting to be interesting. And...back to studying...