get over my orals

At times, dental school is so demanding. From crowns to dentures and lectures to clinics, sometimes that can be true. "I just want to PASS!", one of the most common phrases among dental students. Here I am standing now, as a third year dental student, I can't believe I had the nerve to just go into the exams with that little knowledge in my mind for the past 1st and 2nd year. I made up and managed to get through just fine. It never easy, I wish that notes would magically write themselves and just by touching textbooks knowledge will infuse into my brain through osmosis. Reality strikes. Fuh.

3rd year has been tough. I had the 1st patient few weeks back, and always a nerve cracking at the beginning. The moment I entered clinics, everything will take into account. Specialist and doctor are there to assess our works. Be it on knowledge, skill, professional behaviour and etc. are evaluated. "How can you not know? You are future DENTIST. YOU should know! GO BACK and READ UP!", puzzled ... *blank stares*. Sigh.

Ah, here is my typical weekday,
7:15 a.m. The alarm goes off.
8:15 a.m. 15 mins drive to campus.
8:30 a.m. Check in locker room, change into scrubs. Get ready patient files. As usual, morning huddle - 8 other students and lecturer in charge to discuss our patients for the day in briefing room.
9:00 a.m. Race to clinic. Make sure dental supplies are ready by DSA.
9.15 a.m. Call in patient from waiting hall. Start treatment.
10:00 a.m. Instructors are in the clinic the whole time, but they aren’t by my side every moment. They check in at each phase of the treatment. For example, I’ll drill a cavity prep, then have it checked, fill the prep, then have it checked again, polish, then have it checked. It could take 2-3 hours to complete a filling!
11.30 a.m. Stop treatment. Get ready for de-briefing. Either screwed or nailed by lecturers. Same.
12:30 p.m. Lunch hour!
1:30 p.m. Schedule is different every day of the week. Class on medicine, surgery, periodontology, labworks, and etc.
5.30 p.m. Home.

This is what i've done today, inferior alveolar nerve block, a procedure of giving anesthesia to the (lower jaw) mandibular region. Interesting.

A brief look on my daily working area,

laugh, it's cheap medicine

It's strange how the shortest words, yes and no are the ones that take the most thought. Life was carefree and great before. The time when colours were equal to the rainbow. Race issues were about who ran the fastest. Cash is about monopoly money. War was only found in pc game. And the only drug we knew was panadol.

And I believe, nobody is reading this.

roll and spin

For the past 2 weeks, I have been doing nothing except studying, if not thinking about study as well. I’m feeling lazy at this hour and figuring out to increase my studying capacity while on the other side of the world, million miles away from here, people are figuring or fighting to survive. We all know, it’s not a way to raise the curtain for 2009. A downturned economy in that world of profanity, adolescence, ozone depletion, nuclear bombing, racism, sexism, rocket launchers, fighting jets, terror on the rise, thousands of innocent soul blown into pieces. It’s ironic isn’t it? When the smart people in pentagon talk about war, they’re not really talking about peace and democracy. I begin to wonder, why do people still tell me to have a nice day? Just as every imbalance in life needs adjustment for survival, so has been my experience with dental school. I feel like I am starting to get a grasp on what this second year is going to be like REALLY. You know, the more we get to play with our Kavo electric high speed on some dental “dude” or throw plaster around and the more we get to be away from the lecture class, the happier we all are. Yeah? Sigh. Well, I've been making fine adjustments to try and calibrate my time to handle the notes that being flashed before my eyes in the form of never ending power points slide. As am finding the most effective means to free myself from distractions and cram all that basic science stuff into my head, internet connection service came in a very wrong time. Keeping my room somewhat dark with just my study table illuminated, it helps me to focus - maybe. Am trying, I need a damn break after exam. I thought I’d write more about on my dental student’s life next time. Trying to keep my camera handy and upload some of the pictures of what is going on, be it in the class or lab session. Our AIMST Dental School facilities and equipments are second to none so as the awesome people in the faculty itself. It’s always fun to be part of the dental community here.

do i miss home?

Yeap.

Do you ever have those time in your life that you could go back to the days when everything was not that simple then, but looking at it now, it was. Well, practically. I am having one of those days today. Well not to go into so much, I miss home. Browsing through the old photos back high school and reading about gathering and reunion back home. I miss the old hang outs, all of the friends that i grew up with which i never see again now. Exactly 3 years since I left high school. Ah! I know you guys are reading this. A few of you from Australia, Russia, Ireland, India, Germany, Eygpt, Poland, Ukraine and the list goes on. And dudes? Remember the road that we would ride on and listen to loud music? Sneaking out from house? The place that we hoop at until the next morning? The fights and conflicts that we shared? Kicking football on the field with our blazers on? From bicycle to bike and cars? What really matter that time was laughter and stupidity. I am never the type to wish to rewind time to mend or change things, but I just wish to daydream and a little about yester-year, the good old times. If you know what I mean.

4 months prevent instant insanity

Sometime, stopping dead in daily tracks is hard and it’s even harder while taking a walk along our daily routes. It comes without any warning, come to a halt. I did try to put on breaks in my shoes as it was, turn motionless. A total lost and a deep thought. Well, maybe fate has a cruel way of putting things together. Maybe it’s better if people just give up when there’s no point in fighting for something anymore. It’s cool how it was when in kindergarten days. All I had to do to make friends is walk up to a dude or kid and say "Hi. You become my friends. Ok?" and then life went on from there. Back then, people just accepted everyone was equal. No one was more popular than one another or more attractive than someone else. I didn't have all the pressure of remembering all the formulas and spelling rules and that crap teenagers have to do now, I only had to remember how to spell ma name and it was all good. I didn't even think about my future, and if I did it would be what am gonna get for birthday. Life was just about toys and best of all no f*ckin responsibility. Whatever happened to the way things were? Oh yeah, we grew up. We learned a hard way. And now, we are living in a world where if you’re not skinny, not smart, not beautiful, not sexy and not straight. You’re neglected, accused, bombarded, tortured, abused and humiliated. We say we are all equal but there is still racism, sexism, and people judging others based on their sex, religion, etc . We have barriers and borders between us. Yes, that world, where love is not so rare and where people actually don’t really care. I can see a world without hate, without violence and without war. Then I can see us bombing that world because they wouldn't expect it.

Update: For once, my blog’s gone a bit stagnant for months, thanks to Telekom. Here I am standing as a second year dental student now. My days run from 8am to 5pm. I’ve definitely had to do some tailoring of my time. I have been told by profs and seniors that what it could be possibly a crucial and interesting year for us. Yeah, I get in some going out time but it’s a balancing act. 

holiday

Why do people always make things harder then they need to be? Do what you can with what you have where you are. The world doesn't recognize your pride, but it distinguishes your integrity. I want to believe I'm not afraid of life. Messages and signs are all around us in the most unexpected ways and everyday comes with a lesson that maintains us humble. It’s harsh since the day of birth, but it makes us wise beings with more experience, and we should never feel pity for ourselves. I do not regret disobeying society's silent codes because my mistakes, my impulses fulfill me in many different ways. And I'm learning that good can only result through risk taking but always considering sensibility and rationality. Life is a sick joke.

life is sex

You cannot solve your problems with the same thinking you used when you created them. Well, life is sexually transmitted. Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism. In the 50s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take drugs to make it normal. And yeah, politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. In politics, common sense doesn't make sense. Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war, you can only be killed once but, politics? Now, what is democracy? Where any two idiots outvote a genius? Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. What’s up with the nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced? It will come when the day we run out of water, the day we end with every animal, the day we eliminate the forest and that day, we will notice that the money can't be eaten. Keep peace.

shift_

People have the right to be stupid. Some people abuse that privilege. We can bomb the world to pieces but we can't bomb the world to peace. Fighting for peace is like well, screwing for virginity. War is like legal murder. A bomb will never feed a starving child but the money it takes to make one would feed the country for a day. The only weapon for peace is common sense. It’s simple. The more we sweat for peace, the less we bleed in war. Just remember, if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.

well

Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong? Today I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because it's very lucky to be miserable.