Life by PJ

Oh. Canada. (Ha! See what I did there?!)  Last Sunday my wonderful boyfriend, Jeff took me to Stratford, Ontario to see "The Merchant of Venice." You would think that Canada isn't that much different from the United States, you know, the majority of people speak English, the food seems about the same (besides poutine - fries with gravy and cheese curds on top - it's a little much for me) and the culture doesn't stray too far from ours (they love Degrassi, we love Degrassi), etc. But somehow the entire country's feel is different. The air is different, in Stratford at least. It's full of floral scents and earthy spices. Of course, this might be accredited to the Shakespeare gardens nestled in the center of the town. The people are exponentially friendlier, an example of this being the "street comedian" who interrupted mine and Jeff's brunch with a horrible joke. Even their bums are friendly. Odd, but friendly... The Shakespeare Gardens hav...

If you know me, which I have no idea if you do or not (blog views from Russia? The Netherlands? France? The more countries the merrier as far as I'm concerned), but if you do know me, you know how obsessed I am with murder mysteries. It's no secret that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books have kept me preoccupied for hours upon hours from a very early age (that's the Sherlock Holmes stories for all of you non-mystery aficionados), but that's not where my fondness for mystery stops. My latest TV obsession, Castle, has prompted a personal reflection. Why do I find myself completely engrossed in these stories? Why is it that I just can't get enough? Stud Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Just look at that 'stache.  The odd thing concerning this fact about myself is that I absolutely can't stand watching or reading anything that makes me sad. I will not watch the local news. I refuse to watch the movie, "Up." If I wanted to drown in my own pathetic tears I w...

I've almost got you all caught up on what happened in my six weeks spent at Case - I didn't keep track of it as it was happening so I'm sure you're not hearing the majority of my experience. However, I think you've got the general gist of things. So when I was at my program, we had a variety of clinical experiences that we got to participate in. Each of the pre-dental students got four shadowing hours in the dental clinic and an opportunity to watch an oral surgery, (which you've already heard about.)  My second day in the clinic, the dental student I was observing asked if I wanted to assist. I basically died of excitement after she asked me and told me to glove up. I didn't do anything a monkey couldn't do (hold the high-vac, floss in a dental dam), but it was still one of the coolest things I did at the program and I was on cloud nine afterwards. (Don't question what excites me - I'm a nerd, we all know.) Jill and I before clinicals O...

All is right with the world now, this meaning that I'm in bed, with my dog, a box of Cheez-its and watching Bravo. (That six weeks without a TV about did me in.) Of course I'll grow old of this routine in about a week, and desperately seek something to fill my time with. For normal people, this involves a summer job, but I've never been normal, so who knows? Anyway, I returned home from Cleveland last Friday and since then I've been doing the usual catch-up and relax routine. This is mostly because the last thing I want to do is clean my room since it is in full-out disaster state. Between moving in and out of houses 3 times in 3 months and trying to sort through summer clothes brought out of storage, I'm about ready to just set fire to the whole room and start from scratch. So, what better way to procrastinate than with a blog post? I could really tell how Cleveland tried to put on fun, safe things to do during the summer - Wade Oval Wednesdays being an example ...

I'm not going to type my heart out right now about everything that has happened because there is a brand new episode of Catfish on that I have yet to watch. Please accept this picture of an adorable puppy dressed up like Donald Duck as an apology. I will fill you in soon. Promise. PJ

It's rare that you would find me putting off homework, but that is exactly what I'm doing at this moment in time. (Believe me, physics can wait.) Besides the fact that I've had this awful cough for the past week, I've been having a blast! We're starting to feel like real dental students now (I have delusions of grandeur, alright?) On Monday we visited the Cleveland Clinic which is one of the top clinics in the country. They talked to us about the Cleveland Clinic college track at CWRU's medical school, which is this unique education track that involves having an extra year of med-school dedicated to research. The clinic was basically the size of an airport, and it was pretty neat to check out.  Tuesday night we got to visit with some medical students as we celebrated the birthdays of all the SMDEP students who were born in the summer. The funniest part of the whole thing was that there were two cakes for everyone to eat: a huge carrot cake, and a chocolat...

Much to my surprise, Cleveland, Ohio is shaping up to be quite an exciting town. (And no, I'm not just talking about the occasional homeless person on the street asking for donuts.) I've had a jam-packed week full of lectures, clinicals, and as the title alludes to, enormous desserts.  Monday was our first dental anatomy class, which basically had me geeking out the entire time. Most pre-dents don't have the opportunity to learn about the teeth until at least their first year of dental school, so this was a great opportunity. Plus, our teacher is a hysterically funny pediatric dentist who keeps us entertained with her stories of working in a Cleveland dental clinic. (You could imagine what that must be like.) On Tuesday I had the opportunity to shadow a CWRU Oral Surgery resident. Upon entering the room, my fellow student and I witnessed a man going at some woman's jaw with an enormous drill - appropriate bodily fluids flying everywhere and all. "Morning ladies!...

I've been at Case Western for a week now for the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program and I don't even know how I'm going to write down everything that's happened since only last Saturday. Long story short, it's been crazy. Us in front of the school sign - ignore the thumb Let's break down the academic stuff first, since that's why we're all here. Monday we got to listen to the dean of the dental school, Dr. Goldberg, which was super exciting, (at least for us pre-dental students. There's 20 out of 80 of us - the rest being pre-med.) After the dean spoke to us we had to take multiple pre-tests to determine what level we were at in a variety of different subjects. Most of them went pretty well - until the math test. Considering I haven't taken a math class since my junior year of high school, it's safe to say that my math skills are...rusty. So when I looked at the test and realized that I could only answer one out of 30 math ques...