Life by 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...

Sorry faithful readers, (all 4 of you) for being so aloof this past month. What can I say, finals happened and kind of pushed me out of the saddle, but I'm back again! And ready to update you on what I've been doing with my summer! I'm living in the city this summer, which is super fun. My roommate, (and best friend from high school) Ashley had an open room for me to use until my program starts on June 8th, so things worked out perfectly.  My roommate, Ashley and I Before I was in the throws of finals week, the pre-dental club and I got to attend the University of Michigan's dental school open house. It was super great to see the school in person and get a feel for the building. It was also fun to ask actual U of M D1's about their school experience as well as about their personal lives. There's only so much one can learn about a school by looking at their website. The ladies of the pre-dental club standing in front of the "Women in Dentistry...

No, this is not my picture. I probably would have died if I was this close. I figure I have to do crazy college kid shenanigans sometimes , so last night I went to a Ben Folds concert in Ann Arbor. Ben Folds is basically my spirit animal - and by this I mean I'm obsessed with his music - so when I saw that he was coming to U of M I knew I had to be there . Even though this meant leaving from Grand Valley at 4 p.m., driving straight to U of M, going to the concert, going to bed at 2 a.m. and then leaving for Grand Valley at 5 a.m. to make it on time for my 8 a.m. class, I did not care in the slightest! (I did care, however, in my 8 a.m. class when my eyes were so tired they couldn't read the board...) The concert was AMAZING. I definitely had a few religious experiences. We had awesome seats since it was a modest little theater. He played basically every single one of my favorite songs, from "Landed" to "Losing Lisa" to everything else in between. Even ...

Since the beginning of the school year, my frien d Amber and I have been doing research for a professor in the biology department here at Grand Valley. Our research involved exploring the effects of feather chewing lice in the return rate and morphology of Tree Swallows ( Tachycineta bicolor .) Basically, we organized thousands of lines of data collected since the year 1993 and ran statistical analysis on it. Today was the day we got to present our poster and findings at GVSU Student Scholars Day. It was a great experience to have to answer questions about our research and explain exactly what experiments and measurements we conducted. I definitely want to participate again next year and look forward to doing Tree Swallow research for part of my summer this year!

  Last Saturday was my sorority's formal. It was a great time and I loved having my boyfriend up here for the weekend. My favorite part would definitely have to be when my roommate/sister Chantel and I did our stroll because who doesn't love a good spontaneous choreographed danced number? My respect partner and I foot popping. Kate always has the coolest vintage dresses! I still love how my little and I picked out the same color dress without knowing it! One of my favorite alumnae =) Chantel and my beautiful big sister, Paige My handsome dance partner, Jeff ...and the aftermath.