odds and eggs

All I've wanted to eat for dinner the past couple of weeks are scrambled eggs with cheese. I've already gone through a dozen eggs since I've been back from holidays. Tasty tasty eggs. I know this is a lot of cholesterol, so I gotta cut back.

In related news, I just signed up for my very first half marathon! I'm very excited, very nervous, and will surely be biting the dust of my experienced, seasoned running sisters. I can live with that, I've always been a runt. But to be in a cool city (Seattle has been pumping out kick ass musicians for years) with my sisters in the summer, with my glimmering diamond sweat running down my *hopefully* toned body parts...well excuse me I'll just stop right there. Ahh forget it, I'm off to scramble some eggs.

Sick Day

After catching Eve's cold from hell and not sleeping all night, I took a sick day today. 

Besides partaking in lots of Rest and Fluids, here's how I spent my day so far:

• Watched Breakfast at Tiffany's; sent out positive thinking waves to the universe in hopes of becoming as stylish and skinny as Holly Golightly
  
• Created all possible concoctions of peppermint, chamomile, ginger, honey and lemon
• Napped on and off in a nest of tissues, a deena, vaseline and sudoku books
• Looked in the mirror. Screamed
• Searched for pho soup delivery. Failed. 
• Sneezed loud enough to cause uncertainty and a feeling of impending doom for all residents of the 8th floor

As Per P's Request

Patience complained that I don't blog enough for her liking, and went as far as to suggest a topic, so here you go Poo!

I love my name, it's very unique and I think it suits me pretty well. It is somewhat of a conversation starter (aka:TIME WASTER) when all I wanna do is order pizza or get a coffee. Those times, I use a fake name, usually Katie or Sara. The other day I tried Maggie on for size, but the store keep thought I said Meghan. So I guess it happens with normal named people too. 

A few years back, I was starting to get really tired of talking to people about my name. I'd quickly bark back the answers to the questions I knew were coming and roll my eyes. I say that only because every single person I've ever met asks the exact same questions.  "Oh what a beautiful name! Where does it come from? How did your parents choose that name? Do you know what it means? It's just so unique! Blah blah blah!", and I would feign interest and flattery. 

So now, if I don't lie about my name to the barista, I lie about the background of my name. It's a lot more fun for me, and it's really funny to see what new stuff I can make up and what people believe. Last Sunday my name was Ukrainian and my mother was an immigrant, from whom I got the name. Yesterday, to the shoe guy, I was a Native girl from the Sawridge tribe who chose not to obtain my status. Even though I'm whiter than snow, I quite often have people believing I'm half South American/Native/insert your favorite culture here. But I get my fair skin from my Scottish father, of course. Now when I have to talk to someone knew, I'm genuinely interested. I wanna see how the heck this story ends just as much as they do! 

I suggest you try making up stories about yourself. You might just find yourself much more interesting and ethnic.

Sleepy Sunday

Last night I attended Debbie's 50th birthday party, which was so much fun. She is the secretary at our school, and I always share my baking with her in turn for first pick of clients. Not crazy, booze filled, can't remember anything the next morning kind of fun, but fun nonetheless. She had some family over, and a neighbor, and there were great amounts of spicy Indian food with meats of unknown delicious origin. I wanted to ask what kind of meat it was, but I thought that might be rude, no? I arrived around 6pm, but we didn't start eating until 10:30pm, birthday cake even later. I think this may be part of the Indian culture. Children were present, and I overheard the parents mentioning that said children, ages 3 and 10, had napped earlier in the day so they could come over. 

Long story short, I got home much later than expected and slept through my alarm. I had previously arranged for a ride from a boy, and had to cancel. In my sleepy state, I agreed to go over later for lunch with his family and a Family Ties marathon. Now this boy is nice enough, but I have zero attraction or interest in him that way. For me to meet the family over traditional French Onion Soup Sunday and participate in marathon watching of the beloved childhood memory kind would just be misleading. Right?  To be fair, I did have an assignment to tackle, and I would like to think that I would commit myself to my homework even if I were interested in him (but who I am kidding). I feel like a total b word for bailing over txt message, but wouldn't it be worse if I went over with a 'let's just get this over with' attitude? 

Must be more assertive. Scowl more, smile less.

Level 3 Clinic

Bear with me while I stress about all things that are required of me in the next 6 months. I am by no means complaining, just making a list so that I can start to visually attack things.

 - 3 Minimal Cases ( 1 with Rads )

 - 2 Perio Cases ( Both with a FMX or Modified FMX ) No Panorex here, just old school PA's and     BW's which is so very time consuming...we're talking 18 pictures of your teeth in one sitting.

 - 2 Senior Cases ( 1 with Rads ) While I love my senior clients, they are by far my most reliable,    everything must be slowed down to their pace. And that pace is very, very slow.

 - 1 Child Case, between the ages of 6 - 11

 - 1 Adolescent Case, between the ages of 12 - 17 ( either adolescent or child with Rads )

 - 5 coronal polish

 - 2 air polish (this one is fun...I spray baking soda at very high speeds in your face)

 - 2 IntraOral Camera ( I like to do before and after pictures with the air polish for a 'wow'         effect to remind my clients why they committed to spending 6 - 24 hours with me in the first place )

 - 10 radiographs attempted, 7 of which need to receive a grade of 80%. Does that make sense? Just some background, if you make ONE mistake on one film, for example overlap or too mesial, or your obnoxious patient moved his big fat head, you get 60% which is a big fat FAIL. 

 - 2 Nutritional Evaluations. Client must keep a record of their diet for 5 days, I write a paper about it.

 - 2 Medical History Evaluations. In order to qualify, client must have a disease or condition and I ask them lots of personal questions about it. This one is tough, because often, our instructors feel that the client is not 'diseased' enough. Well I'm sorry that I don't have cancer patients with mitral valve relapse, diabetes mellitus or Paget's disease knocking at my door.  Although last semester, I was able to get an eval from a child who wet the bed. The teacher wanted to see my ethics in action. 

 - 2 Oral Hygiene Evaluations. Last week I signed up for an eval and barely passed because apparently I 'lost control of my client' because he was brushing too fast. I mean really, it's not like he started busting caps in people's asses. 

 - 2 impressions. Clients phone in and talk about what an impression I have left on them. Kidding. 1 sportsguard and 1 whitening tray. We're only just learning alginate right now and it is trickier than candy making. Spatulate, spatulate!

 - 5 UltraSonic and 5 Instrumentation tests. Must be done on a client with heavy deposit, you sign up that day, and if you're lucky, the instructor might feel like testing you. They did not feel like testing me today.

 - 4 Sealants. Please don't salivate when you get these done. 

 - 30 Deposit Removals. Someone like myself or Eve is 1 removal, Dad maybe 3, heavy smoker man who hasn't seen the dentist in a few years is a juicy 5 or 6. 

 - 1 six week re-eval. I convince you to come back in 6 weeks so I can nag you even more about flossing. 

 - 1 paper about a disease. Crohn's was taken, so I'm still undecided.

 - Out of all the clients I see, I choose one to make a 'case study' and do a big paper and presentation and study models for. I'm thinking of using this one client who has 3 decayed roots ( no crowns left! ), a denture she removes about every leap year, one premolar that's hanging on for dear life and a Class 3 furcation involvement. That is when so much gum and bone has been destroyed that you can see the space between the roots, it looks like a little window. French for window is fenetre, which is the root of furcation. I just say that to myself though, I'm not sure if it's actually true. 

 - 2 Long - Term goals, related to clinic, one of which is research based and one which is a personal goal, and we give bimonthly reports on our progress of said goals.  I think my personal goal will be to have a regular bowel movement schedule. 

 - 2 placements at either a Pedo, Perio or Ortho office, all of which have waiting lists.

 - 1 afternoon with school aged children nagging them to floss

 - 1 afternoon in the community talking about oral hygiene or denture care or sportsguards, something of that nature. I'm thinking about teaching the Firemen...

I think that's it for now. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Now come visit so I can clean your teeth!

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

How weird is this? Some religious guy promoting tanning beds? 

I suppose it's one thing for the Rev to proclaim his love for the rays, but it's a completely other ball game when he gets a team together to mock up some posters and distribute them to tanning salons. Is this a church trying to reach out to a new demographic, or is it the tanning salons trying to attract a different kind of customer? Wait...maybe tanning salons and Reverend Carl are co-conspirators and skin cancer is the new blue kool-aid!!!!!!!! Eeeegaadd! 

Not Fair!

Pharm was my most challenging course this past semester (besides Clinic, but let's not get into that).  One of the last questions on our 130 multiple choice final was:

128.  Which one of these statements is incorrect?

a) ASA is not an anticoagulant*

* Okay, so I don't remember what b, c and d were, but that's only because I only needed to know the one correct answer.

I don't think teachers should be allowed to abuse double negatives in final exams. After 127 questions about parasympathomimetics, HMG coA reductase inhibitors, ACE inhibitors, barbituates and nonbarbituates and  carbamezipines, Dr. Mohanta's use of these negations nearly caused my brain to spontaneously combust. Which is just the sort of thing she gets off of, I'm sure.