Pictures 10/18/2011

Before....

After!

Crazy bridge separating West from East Cleveland... people in Cleveland claim a side (seriously)

Market!

mmmmm........

Where the Cleveland Indians play

@ Bed Bath & Beyond. complimentary of Regan L. Farmer

The tooth brush we were all given for free by Oral B

Hey there!

After our Dental Anatomy Final

What happens when you've been in class for 8 HOURS!

"I want it all, that's why I strive for it"

Week in and week out the weekends always feel like it'll never come. Yet, looking back time continues to keep flying by. It's been 2 weeks since I updated this so I'll do my best to include the details. The week following my last post was our first truly "intense" week in my opinion. We had a waxing competency on what is arguably the hardest aesthetic tooth to wax on Monday. Then we had a final that Friday in a class that is very important for the national boards that we will be taking next year. Between the two exams and bouncing around like a pin ball as the class president on top of taking care of personal stuff I stayed pretty busy. I won't complain though because the saying goes, "if you need something done, give the task to a busy man" and I enjoy being occupied. Aside from the meetings and altering our class schedule when it needs it, the job hasn't been all that bad. This last week we started a semi clean slate so I plan on getting the fundraising started. Each class is responsible for raising $1500 a year in order to have a combined $10,000 for our senior banquet. Sounds like a lot huh?

This past week was a semi brand new week for my class. We dropped a class (the one we took our final in) and picked up 2 more. So our current schedule now consists of 5 classes: Outreach Preventative Dentistry (for our sealant's program), Dental Anatomy, Preventative Periodontics, Oral Histology, and Heart and Lung in Health and Disease. The latter two are the newest edition. Heart and Lung anatomy so far is very Latin intensive and as detailed as it gets about well... heart and lung anatomy!,..as well as the ENTIRE thorax. We have our first lecture in Oral Histology this coming week so my next post will talk more about that later. In just 2 months, we have a very good understanding about most of the mouth: the gums and teeth, the development and eruption stages, central occlusion; we can also place sealants and are on our way to being able to perform prophys (cleanings, for the lamen). Its pretty exciting since we've learned so much but we still have a VERY long way to go. I can't wait to learn how to drill :-P We ended this week by learning how to take a patients blood pressure with a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff and how to do an oral cancer screening. 

On to my personal life, I've learned a few things about Cleveland. If I haven't mentioned this before the driving is TERRIBLE! People here have no respect for a red light and an intersection. You would be surprised to see how many cars go through blatantly red lights!!! I'd say 1 in 2 people go straight through it or have the nose of their car in on coming traffic. It makes me very hesitant to purchase a car out here. Also, imagine your driving down a 2 lane road on your way to the grocery store. Your in the outside lane and you notice there's a car parked in this lane against the curb.... WAIT WHAT??? In Cleveland, you can park your car on the side of the road on a busy street. In MOST places their is a separate "lane" for metered parking.. here its just in the driving lane. Aside from the hazardous driving, there are some very pretty places to visit. 

Regan and I have kept our weekends exciting by exploring the outdoors around here. We went to the beach last weekend and it was lots of fun. Its amazing because on the great lakes, the lake is so big that looking out on to the lake is just like looking out into the ocean. Weird right? We also checked out the local science center which included a wild life rehabilitation center so that was cool. Lots of animals up close and personal for free. We witnessed a massive turtle attempt to climb over its pen, fall over on its back side. It was comical.. but we had to help it over or it would have probably died there looking up towards the sky. Lastly, my school offered a free concert to its students for our Homecoming/Alumni Weekend. The band that performed was the Goo Goo Dolls. I felt so old at that concert when I realized that I knew most the songs and bc I was 11 (1998) when they released their hit single, "Iris", from The City of Angels. The pre-concert stuff was pretty cool/nerdy. The cool part was that they had free refreshments and snacks which included tiramisu, fudge bars, fruit, cheese & crackers, coffee, peach champagne (pretty snazzzzzyyy) but along the walls were exhibits. These weren't your average exhibits though.... most of them were in research like nanotechnology for medical advancements, and medical manicans that simulate real emergency situations for students.. to each their own? The school I attend is known nationally, and globally as one of the best research institutions and one of the better undergraduate universities (not to mention its phenominal graduate programs ;-)) 

But that's enough for now. Tomorrow I have a very intense final in Dental Anatomy which won't be an easy grade. Our professor writes questions for the National Boards so she is relentless. I feel very confident that I will do well but I need to get my beauty sleep. Have a fantastic week, thanks for reading! Ciao ;)

So much to say, so little time!

I never know where to begin... but that's pretty much the story of my life =]

The past month for me has been a haze. Until last week, I couldn't shake this funk. I couldn't concentrate/focus on anything, not lecture, not waxing, not studying, not even my own thoughts for almost 4 weeks! I'm thankful to say the least that I snapped out of it. Just woke up one morning and thought, I need to get this show on the road and be proactive because this cruise control is doing nothing for me.

But inevitably I would have been forced out of this haze one way or another by the midterm and final coming this week. This will be the second midterm in Dental Anatomy and will cover the molars and baby teeth (that's 26 teeth, every little detail.. and that's only part of it). Although it's important that we know the teeth inside and out, I'm more interested in getting to the physiology  and the way the teeth come together in occlusion! It takes a special person I guess to be excited to learn this stuff, haha. My final is on Friday in Foundations in Life Sciences and woohoo is that one going to be a blast! It's not that I find the information difficult but that there is so much to retain for one test. For example we have had 5 weeks of class and covered subjects like medical genetics, nutrition, metabolism, cellular biology each in a day... talk about a refresher course. Studying this past week and this weekend have been exhausting to say the least. I'm looking forward to what memories this weekend has in store for me.. or lack there of ;-)

In the past couple weeks we have started learning more about the gums (gingiva) in Preventative Periodontics and learned more in depth how to do scaling and cleaning with our instruments in the lab. This coming week the group I was assigned to starts learning how to apply sealants to the pits and fissures of the 6 yr molars. For the remaining 2/3 weeks of the semester we travel to Cleveland elementary schools to place sealants on 3rd graders; I'm very excited! I will explain more and have pictures when that time comes.

As for my personal life, the rain has put a real damper on my exploration of Cleveland. Regan and I did get to visit the zoo last weekend and it was awesome of course. Regan had been looking forward to it since we arrived in OH so it was definitely past due on the list of "to-do's". We also went to the Cleveland Indians game where we were rained on the whole game since they don't have a retractable roof like the Seattle Mariners! ...get with it Cleveland. At least we got to go home and put on comfortable clothes and watch movies the rest of the night.

To add some excitement to my week I managed to end up in the ER last Thursday to receive stitches on my chin. During my flag football game, a teammate and I ran straight into each other. My face, his elbow... unfortunately, I have nothing to show for it except for 6 stitches. I'm going to start telling people "at least I came out of that collision alive" just to make myself feel better :) Flag football has been a stress outlet for me since it gets me out of the books and doing physical activity. Our team is great and we definitely have lots of fun when we're out there.

I'm sorry if I didn't provide enough this time around... It's definitely getting a little harder to find time to blog when I'm not studying. I think I need to find a new book to read so that I can open up my imagination while I'm cooped up in doors, especially before the snow rolls in! If you have any suggestions for books, please leave a comment, or text, or email, or talk to me in person! Anyways, I have to get back to the trenches and prepare for my battle with Dental Anatomy tomorrow. Wish me luck &Thanks for listening =]


I promised photos. Even if they are sort of random. I'll give much better ones next time, I promise! The first and last one are some my favorites

 Reminds me of coca cola for some reason

 Coolest animal on the planet!

 Look at the animal I found ;)