Well... I've been gone for a while, huh.

Hi everyone. Okay, sorry for the long hiatus. Things have been pretty busy in school and I haven't really had time to reflect on my dental school experience. Let me just take the time to reflect now.

Last Friday, I turned in my waxing project. It was for the tooth #8 and #24. Basically, this entailed heating up my instruments, dipping them in wax, grabbing the melted wax, and pouring it on a base. Once I have built up a wax base, then I carve a tooth from it paying particular attention to the anatomical structure of the tooth. It was a very interesting experience and thankfully, I am not as bad as I thought I would be. This week we are waxing #11 which is one of the canines. I also have kind of like a practical exam, they are testing if we can put a rubber dam and isolate the lower right quadrant teeth. I have to stay after school and practice doing that. I think they are giving us 15 minutes to finish that task. The pros can do it in less than a minute but since we are working on mannequins, it takes a bit longer and it's a little bit harder.

Besides that, I have been having lots of fun with the people here. I met some pretty awesome people and it's great that I am forming a family of friends within the dental school. It is hard to live by myself and be so far away from home, so friends are definitely welcome. We do some pretty fun stuff. Today, Hsiao, Christie, and I congregated at my place for a mini potluck. It was awesome. Hsiao makes the best lemon bars and Christie made ooey, gooey, awesome Ghirardelli brownies. I contributed corned beef, Thai basil beef, and overcooked edamame. But whatever, I know they appreciate whatever I made so that's fun. And on Friday, Devin, JWo, Hsiao, and I entered Walnut Street and had some Thai food. It was kinda funny because you have to rank the heat of your food when you are making your orders... it was funny fighting over the numbers... "Give me a 10... no an 8.... okay, I'll be brave, a 10 then."

The past couple of weeks, I have also been able to go bowling (though I just chilled and didn't actually bowl). Actually, I won the game since Hsiao bowled for me and had the highest score. I found a place for good boba (that Taiwanese cafe), went to an ASDA picnic (which I like to call the peak of my relationship w/ a certain someone... hahahaha.... don't bother asking, it's kinda stupid and really lame), went to two different churches as well as church at home, and many more.

On Monday, September 22nd, and Tuesday, September 23rd, I have the first of my exams in Biochem and Histology, respectively. Yikes. I hope that everything goes well.

Lots and lots and lots of love,
Janel

White Coat Ceremony

Having Fun

So this is the last weekend before we officially plunge head first into our classes. And, it's been really fun.

On Friday night, we went to Dave & Busters and had a jolly good time. The evening was not centered on drinks or food... it was more focused on air hockey tournaments. The two Justins battled it out for the right to be referred to with their first name. I battled it out w/ Hsiao-Ling and barely came out victorious... our game was so low key that the boys didn't even bother looking. We just weren't that competitive w/ air hockey. I saw Ali box (not the actual boxer and not in a boxing ring or even a street fight) but rather on a video game. He is seriously the best video game boxer I've seen. He was on that thing for like 20 minutes using only one card swipe.

Yesterday night, we went to Gullifty's w/ more people from the dental school. I got to meet more of the girls from the school and they were really nice. We attempted to venture over to a bowling place after dinner but the plans were thwarted by the females' lack of socks and energy. It was getting late though and some of us were wearing heels. But still, the convos we had were great and it's nice to see that we are all connecting on some common ground.

So far it has been fun in school. I thought that I would feel more alone in dental school but since there are so many activities and so many things to do, it becomes hard to focus on yourself. That's probably a good thing. This coming Tuesday, September 2nd, school will come at us in full blast and that will bring about a completely different host of activities. It's such an exciting/busy/intimidating thing to think of.

Love you all,
Janel

Computer Labs

One of the benefits of being a dental student is having your own computer lab. So, this is how it goes, folks... I have not one but two computer printing accounts. I have 900 printing pages available at any of the seven University computer labs. I also have $20.00 (I don't really know what this means) worth of printing pages at the dental school lab. So here I am at the Cathedral of Learning printing 140 pages of documents... and here's a bonus, you can make the printers print double sided, so technically I haven't even reached 100 printing pages yet. Yay.

I know, it's such a small thing and I'm going bananas. But I have this thing for abundant office supplies (specifically paper)... it just makes me happy.

::Sigh:: Well, I guess it's time to pick up my pages.

On a random note, I will post pics of my white coat ceremony. :)

Kiddie Pics

My brother is graduating from high school next year. He finally scanned one of his pictures and I think it looks very good. :) I actually picked that pic/pose. :)

And the other pic is from when he was little. He is the child on top, followed by cousin Aaron, cousin Sean, and lastly by my Curlylocks sister, Jasmine.

Soooo cute!!!

And Now the Homesickness Rolls In

When I was in San Jose, I always hung out with my family. On Saturdays, my sister and I would go out with our mom. On Sundays, my brother and dad would come along too making it a family affair. My friend Minh thought that it was weird that I willingly hung out with my parents... but for me it was the norm. I just figured that once I reached a certain age, hanging with my parents would be cool again. I considered college to be that certain age because it didn't really have the pettiness of high school.

Anyway, I call home yesterday and they were about to leave for their Sunday family gathering (sorta). Dad was dropping the rest of them at the mall while he went to one of his co-workers' birthday party. It was nice hearing them so rambunctious and happy... but it made me kinda homesick. After all, starting yesterday afternoon, I'm flying solo in an unknown, unexplored city. I miss everyone.

Computer Labbing

Hey all. I'm at the computer lab at the dental school. So what am I and a handful of people doing here? Facebook. :)

--Update 10 minutes later--

It seems like fifteen other people came over. They aren't all facebooking though. Okay, so this says something about the demographics of Pitt Dental-->2 girls in the room right now and 20 million boys. I guess it isn't that bad but since I'm attached, boys don't really go blip blip on my radar.

So yesterday was the first day of orientation and I was so delighted to find that we get PAGERS. I know, I've had a cellphone for ages, but do you know how official a pager seems. VERY OFFICIAL. And to add on to the hotness, we got our scrubs and since I'm a rebel, I am wearing the proper top w/ flared Dickies scrub bottoms. Yeah. You heard that right, REBEL. Kathleen took pics of me in my first day outfit w/ my panther ID around my neck along w. the pager on my lanyard. :-P

Plus, we got like boxes and boxes of instruments that I know nothing about. I have never even seen so many random things at the dental office where I work at. :-P Yaaay!

So, just another random facebook update... someone just facebooked me and wrote on my wall, "stop facebooking." Uhuh. Oh the hilarity of the first 2 days of dental school.

Too bad it's all downhill from here. :-P