October 19, 2007 - Practical day with no alarm

So, my wonderful day starts out this way. I wake up at 7:30 a.m. to the sun shining on my face, the birds chirping softly in my ears, a nice breeze blowing on my from my fan, and Mike and Mike on the television. Sounds perfect, doesn't it? The only problem is I was supposed to get up at 6:00 am to get ready so I could catch the trolley at 7:00 am to be to school by 8:00 am to take my practical. I jump out of bed realizing that it takes me around an hour to get to school, and my practical starts in 1/2 hour.

Panicking, I grab my poor pregnant wife out of bed so I can drive to school, hoping to save a couple of minutes. We jump in the car, get about 1/2 miles from the house, when I realize that I don't have the keys to my chair at school. So, we turn around and head back home. By the time we get home, get my keys and get back into the car it is now 8:00 am. So, as you can guess I am freaking out right now. I run back into the car and with spinning wheels, tear off down the road headed back to school.

The only problem with this is that two blocks down the road, we hit traffic again. So, I decide that taking the subway is going to be much quicker than trying to drive to school and making my poor Prego wife have to fight traffic home. So, the subway it was.

I finally arrive to school 1 hour late. Remember that this is a timed practical. I get my test teeth from the instructor and rush to my seat and start to prep number 9. Oh man, it was horrible. It was definitely clinically acceptable. I think my 9 was better than most done by practicing dentists with a busy schedule, but it was not pretty. It was a little short, a little wide. I reduced the lingual a little too much. But I got it done.

On to number 11. That prep was magic. I busted it out beautifully. You could have taken my prep, put it next to the example one we get and you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Okay, maybe mine was a little over reduced lingually, but other than that, perfection.

So, I get both preps done in 45 mins. That made me feel great. If I can do two preps for a practical in 45 minutes, then I am doing pretty well (that being said, I’ll have to see what scores I get on these preps. That may take the wind out of my sails a little). It seems like I may be on the right track to being able to open my own practice when I graduate.

Anyways, after I get the practical done and turned in, it became time to turn my attention to the ortho project due that day. We had spent the last two weeks bending wires (oh man, that was quite the adventure) and pouring the acrylic for our beautiful retainers. So I polished it up, went down to the ortho clinic and turned my retainer in.

I am exhausted and have to be at the Hilton in Philly Airport at 8:30 am tomorrow morning, so I am off to bed.