Heaven, I'm in Heaven!

Many a time we have played the game Angels and Mortals, and here in college it is a week long affair of notes of well wishes, chocolates, sweets and plushies.
I wasnt so hyped up about the game myself - i hardly even knew my mortal, but one night i went to his room and left a sachet of Chocolate Mudcake latte with a note saying to save it for one of those last minute assignments. My angel was inactive until about the 4th day, when surprise, surprise, i saw a poem pinned on my room door about Angels.

And i thought that would be the end of me hearing from him. But then the next night there was yet another poem, printed out, about Dreams, and holding on to them, AND a bar of Cadbury milk chocolate! Hmmm... this Angel is a pretty good one, i thought. And thoughts of who it could possibly be flew through my mind, must be an angmoh, hahaha ^^

Then the next rainy, stormy night, a poem about the Rain appeared. And i just missed him as he ran down my block staircase. Darn it, i thought. I was so close to finding out who it was!

The last night of the game rolled along, and i met Deb as i was coming back from Currie from Yuqin's surprise. We went to her room and talked, and she ended up persuading me to stay and help her to do something for her mortal, who she hadnt done anything for at all -_-
Yes, being the good cousin i am, i stayed, and ended up making something for my mortal too. Then we went walking around college in the cold, pasting coloured notes on our respective mortal's walls. At 3 in the morning!

Needless to say, i went to bed too late to be able to wake up for class the next morning. No matter though. Anything is more exciting than lectures, although i cant afford to do that often.

warm fuzzies around a second chocolate bar. Is he trying to fatten me up?

P.S. My angel turned out to be TJ!

Bonjour

... is just about the only french word i can say and spell out correctly. and french was the theme for last night's international formal dinner (IFD). Year after year our dining hall is filled with Hawaiian hula girls, Indian candlelight and Chinese cheongsams, and last night was no different from that it was filled with all things french. From a chopstick Eiffel tower to the Moulin Rouge windmill to the Arc de Triomphe - i bid Choops a job well done.

ooh la la!

I couldn't help being late for Mass - since the change of having formal dinners from saturdays to weekdays means i only have half an hour to run/jog/cycle back, shower to rid myself of the smell of dental masks, gloves and probably some splatter of frasoco-caries water, dry my hair and get myself made-up. there's only so much you can ask for from a girl. And late as i was, i sauntered down to the chapel (after feeling a little like a third wheel in Kris' room), only to find in the JCR two girls making last-minute masks. I chose to hang around and wait for the church-goers to pass by so i could drift along with the crowd. After all, I was already 40 minutes late. But when they said they wanted to go back to their room to get some masking tape (excuse the pun) i thought i should head down to the chapel. The music that drifted out in the night air told me that Holy Communion hadnt even started -.- So in i went and joined the choir, later than i had hoped.

Pre-drinks of champagne got me a little high, though i only had one drink before. I think it was the mood of having the week over and done, and the thought of exams looming was pushed out of my mind for the evening. How else could i have enjoyed the night?

The performances were entertaining - some of which made us get up to dance and make a train that travelled the periphery of the room, much to the annoyance of Brother Rob. There were loooong asian-ang moh Yam Sengs (YAAAAAAAAAAA *breathes* AAAAAAAAAAAA *breathes* AAAAAAAAAAA *breathes* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMM *breathes* SENG!) -- apparently yet another annoyance factor for by the third time, Pauline was going around asking everyone to stop, although for some, telling one to stop would spur them on even more, and when the fourth yam seng was evidently in the midst of starting, the DJs hit the play button (purposefully or not, i do not know). Most of the dining hall flocked to the stage and the dancefloor, and i don't know which was worse for him -- the dancing or the yam sengs!

In retrospect, yam sengs are an asian tradition - what is a 'Celebration of all the Nations' (another BRob idea) without various cultures coming together?

And amidst the camera flashes, the dancing and the laughing, something got me thinking. But that is another story to tell.

"oh well, we won't have OPDENT tomorrow!"

That was Scott's reply when the nurse couldn't find the open gas tap at the end of our afternoon lab. Hahaha. It made me laugh after a not-so-bad afternoon doing a prep to make a gold inlay. I had a frustrating first half an hour when i couldnt even get my rubber dam on. OpDent makes us stress out so much. Right now we are hoping we can finish all our preps for the semester in the allocated time. It looks tight, but i'm thinking positive. WE WILL MANAGE :)

It seems that i am blogging about uni again. Oh, the geekiness. I even dreamt about special trays the day i handed mine in.

International Formal Dinner is on Friday, and choir is performing. I dont want to stand up there and sing in front of everyone. I wont have anything to do with my hands! I havent done this in ages! I wont be able to hide in the back row - that's where the guys will be. Would i dare sneak a peek around the dining hall while pretending to pay attention to Ericius' conducting? And while i will be one of the tallest girls, sticking out like a sore thumb (my high heels wont help), and i'll have to smile and look the world straight in the eye. Well, maybe not the world, just a little over a hundred people. Great.

I hope i dont trip. CHOI!

Happy birthday, sister :)

through child-like eyes

Dentistry can be fun. Sure, we have 9 - 5 days, countless preps to do, an endless string of assignments and assessments, late nights trying to finish cramming for a test the next day and prelabs that can take hours to complete (if you want to do a good job of it that is), but i don't think i have ever been through anything where i can learn so much every week.

This year in removable prosthetics we're learning about the denture-making process. We're now at the stage where we fabricate special trays to take an accurate impression of a patient's mouth. Here are the casts, or replicas of an edentulous (toothless) patient's upper and lower jaw:

and here are the casts with finished special trays which will be used to make an even more accurate secondary cast:

As students, we spend hours mixing materials, moulding, shaping, trimming and polishing, to produce the perfect special tray. Or so we hope. Give your special tray to Mr. Brown for corrections, and he'll go zip zip zip through the acrylic and be done! I had to make a tray for the upper jaw and i've spent over 9 hours in total trying to make the perfect base (mine had voids underneath), handle (which ended up being asymmetrical and sloping to one side) and fingerstops (that were too big and too bulky). My special tray by the end of Wednesday:

Messy with folds and creases. Haha. Looks like a kindergartener's work to me.
Thankfully it looked a little better by the end of the session yesterday :)
And there are a few of us who agree that removable pros can be fun after all the stresses in operative dentistry.

*photos from mr. mcgee's lectures. i hope i don't get in trouble for plagiarism :S shhh.

How exciting

OpDent is a combination of frustration, stress, tears, sweat, impatience and... the occasional feeling of being elated and proud of a successfully completed prep.

2 and a half hours. That was how much time i spent trying to expose the root of a tooth so that i could make a fake toothbrush abrasion lesion. I had to knock and scrape away plaster with a plaster knife. You know the sound and the feeling of running your fingernails across the chalkboard. Imagine having to do that on purpose. Eeeeek. I cant even stop myself from cringing after a whole afternoon of that. Then i had to expose the root even more so that i could put a clamp on for the rubber dam.

Well, basically i spent more than 2/3rds of my lab session this arvo with useless effort. All that preparation for my task wasnt even accreditted for. The main task i had to do took only10 minutes. 10 minutes!!! and i havent even finished it because the material i put on the tooth wasnt smooth. I still have to polish it tomorrow.

Yawn.

1st day of uni

today marks the 1st day of uni after the well-deserved easter break.

it also marks the first day of me blogging after ... 5 months? oops. haha.

i moved to a new room at the beginning of semester. have you seen it?

i now enjoy a shared balcony.

and i dont want winter to come!

ahh it's over..

as usual, i've been a lousy blogger. anyways.. it's the hols! and those library days are OVA!

small happy times at the library - it's moments like these you need JONO -__-"

power nap!!!

russel studies on the floor below seperate from us so we wont distract him from 'studying'.

hahaha.