...pictures of your mama, taken by your papa, a long time ago...

Here are a few pics from the Spelling Bee-r and camping last weekend. I hope they were well worth the wait, particularly the last one ;)

The Bee moved to The Jug after 10 pm. Pictured here are Catherine, Shveta, and me.

None of these jokers actually spelled in the Bee besides Josh and yours truly.

Taunting Marty with the 2009 Spelling Bee-r trophy. Needless to say, I never saw it again after this pic.

We went to the beach to watch the sunset over Lake Huron the first night we were in Grand Bend. Native Canadian Marty said that National Geographic referred to it in an article as the second most gorgeous sunset in the world coming after one over Oahu or something. Think he's a little partial?

Josh in a h-h-hot dog hat! (I'm seriously dying as I type this)

Out of the frying pan. Into the fire.

If Alice Cooper could see me now, he'd probably hang his head in shame. "Fuuuuuuull tiiiime for the summa!" just doesn't sound as wicked awesome as the original lyrics. I'm back in full swing at my research lab in the dental school effective this past Monday. Unfortunately, I had an awful first day (I'll spare you the complaint-riddled details) and called both of my parents sobbing and feeling very sorry for myself. To make matters worse, I received a voice mail during that day from one of my classmates saying that a group was going canoeing and that I definitely should come and oops, she just remembered that I'm probably at work which stinks so call her later instead. W-w-waaaaaaaaaah! Thankfully, a little attitude adjustment on my part and the goofiness of my co-workers has helped to soften the blow the rest of this week. I still feel kinda miserable working 8.5 hours every day when it's sunny and wonderful outside and I'm still not recuperated from the school year. But, things could be worse and I have some fun summer plans to look forward to :)

Speaking of fun summer plans, camping this past weekend in Grand Bend, Ontario was a blast. It may be a surprise to some of you readers out there but I simply love camping; sleeping in a tent, making every meal over and smelling like the fire, and not looking at the clock all weekend is a liberating and peaceful feeling. That and the fact that we're usually pretty darn close to a beach when we camp makes it a great mini-vacay for the weekend. 9 of us went and had a very relaxing time. I'll post a few pics soon.

In other news, the big move to my new grown-up apartment is 2 weeks from Saturday. Before we can go crazy at IKEA and decorate up the wazoo, Josh and I have some tough painting decisions to make. Can you say totally trendy accent wall? That and I found these adorable real topiaries at Kroger on deep clearance for $5.99 each. I simply can't believe no one in Ann Arbor wanted those little guys. For $6, I'll make a topiary work! Ah-hem, anyhow, I'm getting very excited for that big summer project. Hopefully I can enlist a few helper bees for the moving part...a few strong helper bees...who accept pizza as payment....

At any rate, I should run and wrap up my gel electrophoresis. That's when you separate protein from cells based on their weight in kiloDaltons, Tanya. Yes, I use it in the flux capacitator. Social science people...geez!

xoxox

I'm up way too late considering I leave at 9 am sharp tomorrow to camp for two nights in the wilderness that is Canada. Just thought I'd drop in quickly to say hi and that when I get back I'll post pictures of the First Annual Class of 2009 Spelling Bee-r held yesterday. The results? I didn't win...but that's only because no winner was officially named! Half way through The Bee, a 10 minute recess was called and the contest was never again to resume. Oh well, I guess that's what we get for using a keg as the spellers' podium. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun and I think everyone got a kick out of the bee costume I wore. I was planning on glueing foam letters to it so that I'd truly be a "spelling" bee but I'll settle for simply wearing a costume at 3 pm on a Wednesday afternoon in June. Have a wonderful weekend and keep an eye peeled for those pics!

xoxox

D2!

I'm done! I'm exhausted! I'm thrilled!

Here's an email from my Daddy this morning:

I'm in Toronto today and my thoughts are dancing : today is the end of your first dental year.....it's been a such a great journey - following you on your trailblazing path .......we are always there right behind you, Dr Son !

Love, Dad

Thanks to my family and countless friends for your incredible support. 1 down, 3 years to go! :)

xoxox,
-s

Post and Run

So I've spent close to 50 hours in the library since Friday afternoon studying for the head and neck anatomy exam I took this afternoon. I think it went alright even though I won't know for sure until later this week. Bottom line: the most dreaded exam of D1 year is over and I couldn't be happier. I guess I would be a pinch happier if I didn't have to study tonight for my last final in Biology of Oral Mucosa tomorrow morning but I'm certainly not complaining. I'll take this any day over memorizing every single tiny nerve pathway from the diaphragm up. I just studied harder for that exam than any other I've ever studied for in my life and I'm absolutely spent, but I can't say that I'm not a little tickled that I now understand a lot of complex and important anatomy of the incredible human body. I can see now how that Dr. in front of my name in 3 years well be well-earned! Wish me luck tomorrow on my last exam before summer but more importantly on the First Annual Class of 2009 Spelling Bee-r afterward!

xoxox


Here's one of the slides from the practical identification portion of our exam this morning. Can you point out CN XII, aka the hypoglossal nerve?

Quote of the evening

"You know what I think is happening? I think our tastes are evolving and the rest of the world is just standing still" ~ Tanya during a conversation discussing our Halloween costume ideas on an international call

T minus eight days and counting...

One week and one day from this very moment I will have officially completed my first year of dental school. A part of me feels like I've already put in enough work for the entire four years and another part of me feels like we just began! I'm compiling pictures from my classmates of our first year of D-school for a slideshow that we can all watch at lunch this Thursday. Some pictures are of tailgates, others of Spring Break, and others still are of the first day many of us met each other at a picnic. It's hard to believe I've only known these folks for 10 months considering how close we've grown. It's been a good year :)

Here are a few noteworthy items on my mind recently:

- IKEA shopping with my parents last weekend was really fun. I didn't make any major purchases but did write down a list of the big-ticket items I plan to pick up in 4 weeks or so. Come visit me at the end of the summer and sit on my new couch pictured here:


- I miss my sister a lot. She's quite ill in India right now and I wish I could cheer her up a little. She's been in my thoughts a lot lately.

- I got new rollerblades this past weekend and they're basically begging me to take them out of the box and hit the pavement. Unfortunately, my professors think otherwise since I've got 7 exams between now and one week from now. I will need some 'blading buddies after that, though, so let me know if you're interested!

- I saw the new Disney/Pixar movie Cars on Saturday night. It was clever and cute and I enjoyed it. I also cried quite a bit at the "inspirational" part. It's certainly not unusual that I cried but the extent of my crying was significantly greater than usual. After the movie, the following exchange ensued:

Me: I'm sorry I'm such a sap.
Josh: Oh, don't apologize. You're very empathic. That's one of the things I love about you.
Me: But empathic about cartoon cars?
Josh: Well. They were very realistic.

Wish me luck on the next Diet-Coke-and-latte-fueled 8 days. After that, school is truly "oooooouuuuut fooooor the summa"!

xoxox

Friday Fiver!

I love these nutty questions! :)

1. Do you play cards?
Yes and no. Yes when my daddy takes me to the casino and lets me play blackjack with his money. No when my buddies all want to play euchre for hours on end and get too competitive about it.

2. Do you have any rings on your hands?
Well. This might be a loaded question. I wear a chunky silver ring from Aldo on my left middle finger. I'm not a fan of gold jewelry and I don't care very much for precious stone rings. I'd never, ever turn this baby down though. *wink

3. Would you describe yourself as innocent?
Absolutely. Someone made a joke the other day about knocking my halo off.

4. What do you think of chivalry?
That it's a palatable guise for systemic sexism. Do I get bonus points for waxing philosophical in the Friday Fiver?

5. Have you seen The Thomas Crown Affair?
Love it. Pierce Brosnan is so fabulous. I haven't seen the Faye Dunaway version from 1968 but I've heard it's even better than the new version. I don't know why but I'm kind of a sucker for heist movies starring ridiculously handsome men.

xoxox

Summer = bummer

So I met with my mentor this morning to discuss the logistics of my research project for the summer. During our hour-long meeting she actually used the phrases "hit the ground running" and "work like a maniac" to describe her expectations of me during my 7-week stint in the lab, not exactly the golf-on-Friday-afternoons-and-don't-come-in-until-10 attitude I was hoping for. At the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, the last thing on earth I want to do this summer is "work like a maniac" at anything. That sounds lazy and selfish and maybe it's both, but after this D1 year I feel as though I've earned the right to a completely vegetative break. Don't get me wrong: I'm thrilled that I got funded for this very competitive grant and am genuinely interested in my research. It's just that I think I could easily and, more importantly, guiltlessly spend my 7 weeks off camping, reading, laying by a pool, canoeing, moving, and recuperating. That's not even mentioning the fact that my at-work-partner-in-crime Brad just defended his dissertation which means that he'll barely, if at all, be in the lab this summer. Now who am I going to sing Phantom of the Opera and take Junior Mint & coffee breaks with? *sigh* I'm really not looking forward to this summer :(

In more exciting news, my Mom, Josh and I are daring to venture out to the new IKEA in Canton tomorrow afternoon! Originally, I was only planning on this trip as a cursory look-around but since Josh and I found out that we officially got the apartment that we wanted for the fall (and hopefully for the next 3 years so that I don't have to move my queen-sized bed again), I might be making a few purchases tomorrow! My last trip to IKEA was May of 2005 outside of Chicago--click on the archive links to the left to see pics.

Finally, our D1 year is ending with a bang--or rather, a poke--as we start injection clinic this week. Because dentists give patients injections of local anesthesia prior to treatment and because D1's are akin to guinea pigs, we'll be injecting each other this week and next (I'm scheduled for next Friday!) with anesthesia in 6 different sites in the mouth. I'm pretty nervous despite having numerous classes, demos, DVD's, and instruction packets on how to do it. The instructors don't seem to understand our anxiety after they tell us every class that we could easily cause permanent facial paralysis in our patients if our needle is, oh, about 3 cm off. Yikes! Now's the time to put all of that head and neck anatomy knowledge into play. Wait...the buccal nerve runs where?! All I know is that I told my partner Katie to 1.) forgive me ahead of time, and 2.) take two aspirin before she comes in that day! Here's hoping it goes well! *fingers crossed*

I'm done with class for the day because of the injection schedule. I should go in to the lab and finish up some restorations I have to do or I could start studying for the 6 finals I'll have in the next 10 days. I think I'll have lunch and a catnap and see where things go from there :)

Ciao for now!

xoxox

Belated Friday Fiver

Thanks to Katie for her Friday Fiver answers last week! This week's questions are (drumroll, please!)...

Favorite phrase when you have:

1. Eaten food that tasted bad
Borrowed from Josh's sister Jamie after trying natto, a Japanese grain of some sort: "Oh my God. That tasted, like, poisonous...try it!"

2. Stubbed your toe
I'm sure I just squeeze one word out in this scenario, not a phrase, and it's probably not quite fit to print.

3. Become frustrated
While having difficulty drilling a class II prep on a molar last week: "Seriously, I thought this posable thumb was supposed to be good for something."

4. Broken something
Yelling to the other room: "Joooooooosssssshhhh?"

5. Been cut off by another driver
"Hey! Where's the fire, mister?"

Special Smiles

Another great weekend is drawing to a close and I feel relaxed and well-rested. That might be because I didn't do a lick of homework this weekend but I did promote dental health awareness which counts as productivity in my book. Yesterday a few of my classmates and I spent the day at the Special Olympics Summer Games in Mt. Pleasant, MI helping screen athletes for oral disease and giving them oral hygiene instructions and encouragement. With the help of a few cuddly stuffed animals (with full mouths of plastic teeth) and jumbo toothbrushes, we demonstrated and discussed proper brushing and flossing technique with the athletes and tried to get them excited about good oral health. Unfortunately, people with special needs are one of the most medicinally underserved populations due to the special resources or accomodations providers must make for them. It certainly is a challenge to resonate with, say, an 8 year-old with Down Syndrome enough to encourage him or her to maintain good oral health but it's a challenge I willingly accept as a member of the healthcare community. Although teaching good brushing technique alone won't eradicate this disparity, I'm doing what I can at this point and look forward to doing more in the future. I've posted a couple of pictures below of us in action :)

In other news, my recent obsession as of late has become spelling. You read that right. Spelling. Amidst all the hullabaloo of the Scripps National Spelling Bee last week and my unabashed claim to be the best speller in our class, my friends have been tossing spelling challenges my way left and right lately. Goad? No problem. Vacuum? Of course there's only one "c"! Ennui? No, I don't know French but I can spell it! Liaison? Bet you'd have missed that second "i"! Ha! I'm practically unbeatable! Of course I flub up sometimes and I don't doubt for one second that those rugrats from Scripps would probably make me cry in 4 minutes flat but I'm a pretty darn good lay-speller if I do say so myself. My buddy Pat has challenged me to a spelling bee-r, a modified spelling bee in which an alcoholic beverage serves as the ultimate equalizer. We're such nerds. Maybe I'll give him a handicap and I'll have a glass of wine with dinner that night.

Or maybe I won't. How do you spell champion again? Oh yeah: S-O-N-Y-A ;)

xoxox

p.s. ~ the winning word from Scripps this year was ursprache, a noun meaning a language that is the recorded or hypothetical ancestor of another language or group of languages. Whaaaaa?

Maddie and I know that even crocodiles should brush 2-3 times a day!

Josh and I teach a Special Olympics athlete how to floss with the help of our friend "Clean Croc"