Guess Who is Not a Slacker?

I started blogging as a way of record keeping that wasn't a journal, since I have a difficult time with that.  It may seem lately that I have lost interest in this goal and/or have nothing interesting to say. Both of those are incorrect.  The truth is I'm drowning.  I think my bishop put it best last week when he related me to a duck  - he said that my feet were kicking furiously under the water, but I seemed totally calm and collected on the surface. (one of the nicest compliments I've ever received.)

Having said that, I'm not going to complain about my schedule, responsibilities, or workload, because it accomplishes nothing, and I'm sick of complaining.  Instead, here is what I have learned so far this month:

• Communication is important - even if it hurts sometimes
• Happiness is a choice (I keep having to learn this one huh?)
• I have a heck of a lot of stuff to be grateful for
• Even though I question my decision to go into this field often, in the end, I really am happy where I'm at, and happy with what I do.
• Heavenly Father is watching out for me....and probably carrying me a lot more than I realize
• I can multi-task.

I have heard from multiple techs that their 2 years in the program were the hardest of their lives. I definitely didn't think this was going to be as hard as it has been, (it's community college right?!?!) I feel like grad school would have been a walk in the park compared to this, but I'm doing it, I'm almost 1/3 of the way through, this is going to be the worst semester, and by golly, I can do hard things!

Dental Saga

Question:  What are appropriate things you would allow students to practice on you?

Being in a program where as a student I started taking x-rays on people 3 weeks after I started, I feel like I need to be more willing to be a guinea pig for students to practice their skills on.  That was definitely the thought process I had after I got an email for affordable dental treatments from one of my instructors....that and I don't have dental insurance.  So I signed up.  I hadn't had a cavity in years, so i figured I was safe.

Well, they didn't find many new cavities, just old fillings that had cracked and needed to be replaced.  They found 3.  I decided to get them done the week after finals, during Christmas break. Remember that day my car got totaled in the middle of the night?

Yea, it was that day.  I don't really want to go into the details, but they ended up actually replacing 4 fillings, and it took 4 hours, 4 hours of excruciating holding my mouth open, sore neck misery.  It wasn't a great day.  Well, by the time the anesthetic had worn off, I could tell they hadn't shaved the filling down enough, my bite was way off.  But they specifically said, if your bite is off, just come back at the beginning of next semester (3 weeks away).   Even though I had a great break, it was despite the fact that I couldn't bite anything on the right side, and had to be super careful with how hot or cold things were that I ate.  I called the dental program at SCC once school started again to get it fixed, and this is what the instructor said to me:

"Why did you wait so long to call me to get this fixed!?!?!  You shouldn't have waited so long, I would have come in to fix it over the break!  That must have been miserable for you, and it's not good for your teeth to be like that for so long!"

  Why thanks.  It's fixed now (it took her about 3 minutes and was painless)  And she totally remembered me as being that girl who was in the chair "forever". Well I at least hope that dental hygienist student passed her final.

Starting School Again

Well, another semester has snuck up on me.  I kinda of hate that I'm still in school sometimes (although after I graduated, I definitely was a proponent for staying in school forever) and am hopeful that someday (Summer of 2012)  I'll finally be done going back to school. The first day of class was...boring.  I managed to not fall asleep, mostly because we ended about 3 hours earlier than expected.  We moved our class into a new building, brand new constructed just for us ;)  super high tech, with our own WORKING x-ray tube....and there are not outlets built into the table for laptops.  Stupid place for SCC to cut corners in my opinion, especially since our department head specifically said that within a few years she wants it to be a requirement that students use laptops.....hmmm.  Good luck. 

   I wasn't too nervous about our first day back at clinicals...but maybe I should have been.  Let's just say it wasn't the best couple of days, on top of the fact that they tacked an extra hour onto our clinical time (who does 9-hour shifts anyway?)  I screwed up royally on a "pediatric" patient (I used the quotations because most sites wouldn't have considered them pediatric....but....) and I probably got a tech written up, for a stupid mistake.  But all-in-all after 3 weeks off, I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself.  I sure didn't kill anyone.

Here's me enjoying the snow in an igloo me and Bill-bo built

   I realized something today.....I pretty much hate winter.  I love the pretty snow, I enjoy some of the sports (especially if you consider snowmobiling a sport)  but I dislike the season.

  Here's why.  When I go to clinical in the morning....it's still dark.  When I get out of clinical in the evening....it's still dark.  So, no sun during the week = unhappiness.  Then....when I go to work on the weekends at night...it's dark.  When I get off work in the morning....it's still dark, and then I sleep through the day so that when I wake up....it's almost dark.   So, no sun during the weekend = unhappiness. One of my classmates decided that everyday when we leave, we're going to try and notice that since the days are now getting longer instead of shorter, we should try to notice the change.  I'm sure up for it.

Dear....

Dear Groupon,

     Thank you for knowing exactly what I needed today.  

Love, Bacon