My White Coat Ceremony!

Sometimes, I still find it hard to believe that this is really real life.

I tend to get overly excited about dental school pretty frequently, like when I got my first packet of information in the mail..
----

So anyway, what exactly is a white coat ceremony? What happens?

Well, a variety of things - you sit with your classmates in an auditorium full of family and friends, as you listen to the Dean speak about the wonders of the dental profession. He'll mention that this weighty 350K investment is actually one of the best decisions you've made in your life. Then, you'll get on stage and introduce yourself to the audience, walk across, and be knighted into dentistry, draped in the symbolic armor of a white coat. And once that's over, you'll stand with your fellow classmates, and recite a pledge to strive for excellence, never to harm patients, and to uphold academic pursuit to the highest standard. Parents and loved ones will flood around, cameras will flash, and all of a sudden, it's over - but now, you're a little different. You can finally remove the "pre" from "pre-dental student", and it's time to get the show on the road :)

As I sat in my chair, I thought about each of my classmates. Everyone has a story, and the white coat ceremony embraces all the deliberate, and laborious steps that came before this moment; it celebrates a journey of blood, sweat, and tears, that feels endless when tackled head first, and oddly fleeting when viewed in hindsight.

Despite all the bumps in my path to dentistry, I probably wouldn't have it any other way. When I try to count every opportunity that God has opened in my life, I'm always overwhelmed. I am grateful because everything has led me here, and I am so excited for what the future holds. Even if means a being a zombie, being sleep-deprived, and spending endless hours studying for anatomy, my other classes, and practicing lab things - I'm ready :)

My New Job, and a Glimpse into Esthetic Dentistry

In the past month, I started working at a dental lab where dental work - crowns, implants, veneers, bridges, etc. - is fabricated so dentists can place them in patient's mouths.

I'm not doing any of the CDT (ceramic dental technician) stuff just yet (though I get to start wax-ups next week! hooray!!), but I've been helping my boss work on a presentation for these big esthetic dentistry conferences in Germany and Poland. It's great, because I get to help design his presentation and the yearbook nerd in me is certainly rejoicing. I've been using (and trying to get better at) Photoshop and Illustrator.. Now if I could just figure out Lightroom..

As I've been helping him prep, I've begun to learn a lot about the ideas behind esthetic dentistry as well (I'll be spelling esthetic with an "e", so if that bothers you, I'm sorry.. lol). Dental students always tell me that school whizzes by you in a flash, and that when they get out of school, they barely feel ready to take on real patients, in a real practice. I've always wondered if there's enough time to develop a trained hand for the detailed work in dental school, and whether the curriculum trains your eye for esthetically pleasing work. Since my boss is a CDT, he focuses heavily on the artistic component of dentistry, and tells me that often times, dentists aren't even aware when there's an esthetic issue with the labwork because they haven't learned how to see these problems yet.

Goodbye 305

Warning: Cheese ahead.

Apartment 305 is home to many of my favorite memories - nights where we refused to go out and stayed up to hours that grandmas wouldn't dare, crafting away and crocheting patchwork blankets endlessly. Nights where we would sit around eating cereal (this happened so often we deemed these occasions "cereal parties") laughing about things, both silly and serious. That moment we decided that a pen club really was necessary, and that we had to be the ones to start it (and then convince others that it was not only cool, but that they wanted to join it). The nights of buzzing worry and anticipation before our half marathon, Half Dome hike, 5K, and our respective grad school tests. Our champagne and "strawberry shortcake" cake night to celebrate acceptances to schools and the beginning of our lives' dreams. The time Annie impressed us by cooking an omelet.

A Case for Journals/ Personal Blogs

There are a lot of things I did wrong during college, but a couple of things I did right. 

Whether you're starting out as a wee freshman or embarking on your senior year,  keeping a journal or blog is important. Trust me, your memory will thank you for it a thousand times over once you're in the process of applying for dental school, organizations, or anything that requires some reflection on your end.

Need ideas for what to put in your journal/blog? Here's what I did. 

For some, it's rather intuitive - you just write what you're feeling. But for those of you who are new to journals/blogs, here's what I've kept in mine over the past couple of years.

1) A short explanation of current goals for the future. I included why I wanted to be a dentist, and paths I wanted to pursue to stay happy.

2) My current GPA, and classes I planned on taking to improve it.

3) Positive character traits, and examples of them in action.

4) Negative character traits, examples of them in action, and how I wanted to change.

5) Important events that happened and my reflection on them.

How to Sneak Coffee Into a Library

DISCLAIMER: this post is not for those who intend to wildly splash their coffee on books in the library, or leave crumbs all over tables that are supposed to be used by others.

This post IS for people like myself, who are coffee-addicts, and need the caffeine to stay awake and really just need to study. I'm talking about those days when you walk alllll the way to the library from your apartment, only to realize you left your coffee thermos at home, and you're still running on only 4 hours of sleep. If this is you, this trick just may save your life, as it has mine ;)

Materials:

• 1 delicious cup of coffee (or a latte, or tea, or an americano, whatever floats your boat)
• 3 coffee lids (THREE, not two. You will not be happy if you only bring two)
• A backpack with side pockets or a jacket (a coffee hiding place)