Is it a platano? or a cross section of the spinal cord???

I've recently been having to get used to a new phone. Last Saturday I was on my way to a mobile clinic and we heard a noise on the roog...like a clunk clunk clunk.... I looked back at my friend in the back seat and asked what it was.... she responded: "well what was black and on top of your car? what ever it was I just watched it smash into pieces on the interstate!" ... I thought about it for a moment (it was about 6 am... so my brain was not working to it's full capacity) ... black on top of my car.....black on top of  my car... then it hit me... "MY PHONE!"  .... such is life....

We started finals this past Wednesday...almost done now with my 2nd trimester of dental school!  yay! That means starting Saturday we get 2 weeks off... i'll be heading to Belize for the first part of break and then back home to the great northwest to finish it off! (found out yesterday there was an Ebola outbreak in the northwest! cool! i recommend the book The Hot Zone for anyone interested in epidemics of awesome viruses!...I think the outbreak happened a few years ago though... I've always said... If I was a virus... I would want to be Ebola.)

Back to finals.... I have been studying alot... the funny thing about USC is that the stuff you study... probably won't show up on the test. I can usually tell come test time though when I've started to study a little bit too much... normal everyday things begin to change and morph into whatever i'm studying... take for example this plantain chip:

It may look to the ordinary person like a normal plantain slice.... but to me... it's the cross section of the spinal cord..... look...i'll show you:

see it? you have your gray matter in the middle...the white matter surrounding it... here's a tissue sample of a cross section... now you'll get it for sure:

there ya go. plantain.

A dead watch

About 2 years ago I decided to get a watch. When I first bought the watch it took me quite awhile to get used to wearing it. I'd wear it for a few hours at a time and then get annoyed by it and take it off. Little by little though I began to wear it more often. Eventually, I overcame the nuisance of having a foreign body attached to my wrist and wore it all the time.
This past August I had to get the battery changed, which meant the watch was no longer water proof. It took me a few weeks to get used to taking it off before showers or getting in the pool. I once forgot to take it off and the watch completely shut down. I was devastated, but not defeated. I took the battery out of it and let it sit on the counter for a few days to dry out. It was a success! I put the battery back in 4 days later and the watch worked!
As of 3 days ago now though my watch has found a new home in the drawer by my bathroom sink. I don't know what happened to it, but not even a new battery could revive it. I was assisting during night clinic at school and knew it was getting late so I quickly glanced down at my watch to try to figure out when I could leave in order to get home and get in bed. To my horror, when I looked down at my poor little black NIKE watch, numbers were flashing everywhere. It was as if it had been possessed. I let out an audible gasp, followed by an "Oh No!" which would seem like no big deal, except I was assisting one of our residents at school... which meant we were working on a patient... and a patient never wants to hear one of the dentists working on him say, "Oh No!" Take my word for it... It's not a good thing... they kind of freak out a little... they may even bite the person that currently has their hand in their mouth...which is exactly what happened....once I explained that there was nothing wrong with the procedure being done the patient relaxed again and allowed us to continue working... the resident I was with wasn't as quick to forgive though... I guess a little understandable... you see... when a someone bites hard enough... they can break skin... and bruise fingers... even through gloves... my bad.

School this semester has been quite different from the previous semester. First semester of dental school they start you off easy... there was only one day a week when we had to be to school by 8 am... the rest of the days we weren't there for more than 4 hours, except Thursdays... we didn't even have class on Thursdays. That was quite lovely. Then this semester we thought they really turned the tables... 8 am class everyday! what? and we only had half days on Monday and Fridays! and to make things worse... during February... they made us go to class on Thursdays... so so sad. My classmates and I adapted though. We decided even though it was alot to ask of us, we would make the effort to go to class, do lab work, study, and succeed. Well, they've done it again.... our summer schedule came out this week, and just as we thought it couldn't get any worse.... it did. 8-5 E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y! WHAT????? they must be crazy! The whole reason we are all going to school to be a dentist is so that we don't have to work everyday... don't they realize this??? In every preclinical course we have they remind us we need to keep the setting as professional as possible... "you wouldn't listen to your ipod while working on a REAL patient... now would you?"... or, "you wouldn't eat with gloves on while working on a REAL patient...now would you?"...and my favorite, "you wouldn't put your feet on a REAL patient's chest while working... now would you?" .. My question now, "you wouldn't work on a REAL patient everyday...now would you?" so why make us do it now? (in all honesty though I love being at school... I have nothing better to be doing with my life anyways).

I bought a bike today

So after a wonderful hike and bible time with some amazing ladies from church... i set out on a mission: I was going to buy a bike.

I recently ran to school thinking it would be a nice 5 or so mile run. but when I arrived in no time at all I tracked the distance the next time i drove... only 3 miles. 3 miles! that's it??? and it takes me over an hour sometimes to get home??? I found this to be unacceptable. My solution? buy a bike. With a bike I decided I would be able to maneuver around, through, and possibly even over traffic. So today I finally set out to buy a bike.

I arrived at a bike shop near school (meaning that all the bikes were once previously owned by USC students, but had been "donated" involuntarily to this used bike store. My price range was $60-80. I thought this would be reasonable. Upon entering the store a nice Hispanic man approached me and asked how he could help me. I told him I was looking for a bike, and I wouldn't be paying more than $80 for it. He chuckled and told me his cheapest bike would be $90. So i decided to have a look at it, figuring I could do a little bartering. Well... this bike wasn't worth $90... it was worth about $.90 ... so I asked him to show me his next best choice. He showed me a nice, green, slightly rusted mountain bike for $95. I looked at it, decided I liked it, and told him I'd take it for $75. He laughed. "no" was his response,"$90." So I told him (respectfully of course), "no, $80." And then we starred, who would win this battle of minds... I knew if I held out I could get it. So I couldn't give in, I continued to stare intently into his eyes. Finally, he broke! luck at last! it was at the higher end of my price range, but still within it.

As I attempted to put down the kickstand so I could go inside and pay I realized there was no kickstand... bummer... The wheels in my head began to turn.. no kickstand...that means I have to buy one... that means it'll cost more... I quickly yelled at him, "there's no kickstand! I'll have to buy one!" and he turned and said, "yes, you will." Not satisfied with his response I told him it would cost me an additional $10 to buy a kickstand. He again turned to me and responded, "no, $15." I was outraged. Paying $80 for an old, dirty, beat up and disgusting bike and then having to spend an additional $15 if I wanted a kickstand??? This was NOT ok. "I'd like it for $75 then," I told the man. And again, we starred...and again...I won! I got the bike for $75 and have no intention of buying a kickstand. I left the bike shop feeling powerful and proud, my new-used, awesome green, amazing and beautiful bike following beside me.

As I approached my car I realized I had one more challenge: getting the bike in my car. This proved to be the hardest challenge of the day, and at the end of it, I had failed. I'm sure the men standing at the car repair shop next to where I parked had a good laugh seeing me try multiple times and ways to fit the bike into either my trunk or backseat, and multiple times failing. Feeling defeated I realized one of my good friends from school lived only a few short streets away, and luckily she allowed me to leave my new best friend in her backyard, but I'll be back for it.

So the war is not over. The bike will lose. He will come home with me. And we will make many memories together. I am excited.

Here's my food for the day.... I like to try to cook... so here are my attempts:

Breakfast:
Banana, egg, soy chorizo with onions, spinach, and mushrooms...yum!!

And for dinner:
Salmon and green beans, cooked with  salt, pepper, and a small amount of cyanne. And cous cous, garnished with artichoke hearts...

I own 4 pairs of glasses yet I can't find a single one

 I have worn glasses for as long as I can remember. Without them or my contacts everything is a complete blur. Basically I'm blind. I recently purchased 2 new pairs of glasses, in addition to the two I already own, because I have a habit of misplacing them. They don't get lost, just set somewhere and left. Eventually I cover them with dirty scrubs, books, and random papers, and from there....they disappear. Not for good though, they turn up every couple of weeks are so.

I have this problem quite often though, I misplace things and can't find them when I need them.  When I do find them I place them somewhere "safe" so that the next time I need them I will know where it is... but when that time comes... the items are nowhere to be found. I have met several people with this problem though, so at least I am not alone.

A new fear of mine since I have recently purchased a disgusting amount of dental equipment (most of which I honestly don't even know what it does) is that I will misplace something that actually costs money. I've found that the smallest things we had to buy going into school cost ridiculous amounts of money. When we originally picked up our bur blocks (basically a metal block with different types of drills...) from IMS (instrument management) I thought, "this is great! they gave us so many!" but I soon found out that during our first year they would basically tell us to use ONE of the burs.... the 256...what they don't tell you is that as a new student you'll go through one 256 bur in about 30 seconds because you have no idea what you are supposed to be doing...each bur costs somewhere around $1.25 or some ungodly amount for a small piece of metal.... so you can imagine how the bills rack up... $1.25 for every 30 seconds... and then you realize you have an 8 hour lab.... that's about $72,000 a lab session... no wonder I'm broke.

Now back to the 256,...I've developed a love hate relationship for the 256.  I have now learned to appreciate, and love my 256. I don't care if you like your 330...and don't you dare try to make me drop my box with a 699... I like my 256... but not one of those group order 256's that's only 3mm long... I like my 4mm 256... why? because I know once I have it 1/2 way in... I have the perfect 2mm depth for my amalgam... ah yeah. The first time I used this bur though I hated it, but that was because I had yet to learn how to respect the bur. Before I got used to it, a simple prep for a filling turned into a complex crown prep. But after a lot of  late nights with Rex (my "patient" in SIM lab) I grew to love my 256.

This is Rex

Rex has got to be the most trust worthy person in the world. Who else would allow a 1st year dental school student to work on them??? Rex acquired his name thanks to my favorite little brother (he is also my only brother).  The first time I sent baby brother a picture of Rex (this was before the naming of my SIM patient) my brother said he was a "sexy rexy" and I could not have agreed more. 

Life at dental school is not all that bad. Of course, it helps that it is located in Los Angeles... with great access to the beach... and the mountains of Santa Monica and Malibu... which means endless hiking excursions and beach days... but even school itself has not been as devastating as I had prepared myself for. It is actually quite enjoyable. I'm not sure if it is because of the amazing people who I am proud to call my classmates...or what... but I love it.

During this next week we will be starting our composite class, and finishing up a case for PBL (problem based learning... if you don't know what it is... LN it...) So nothing too exciting will be occurring, but I will keep you posted. Thanks for reading this absolutely pointless and random first blog of mine. Good night and good weekend!