Books and Dental
Last weekend, the library was giving away books. In fact, they had an entire room of free literary goodness. Browsing through yielded a very interesting book on color (ironically, printed mostly in black and white), a book about the cathedrals of England, and two novels. I grabbed a couple of books about the Roman Empire for Dan. Thankfully, none of them were particularly massive tomes, as I only have one strap remaining on my backpack.
In fact, I’ve been getting a surprisingly large number of things for free lately. I recently attended the Star of the North dental convention and now find myself stocked with toothbrushes, floss, and a fantastic new kind of Crest. I went into the convention feeling slightly quite informed but curious nonetheless. Hesitantly, I walked up to the counter to get my badge scanned and verified. Seeing the “guest” designation on my paperwork, the coordinator made small-talk, “So, is your wife a dentist?” Slightly non-plussed, I stumbled through an explanation of my affiliation with the pre-dental co-op program. She smiled and mentioned that she gets dental work done at the U of M. I thanked her and walked away, wondering if everyone was making the same assumption she had about my marital status.
This entire pre-dental program has been a new experience for me: seeing the U’s health campus up close and personal, observing at endo, ortho, pediatric, and general dentistry clinics, and even touring a dental lab. It has been a whirlwind of last-minute Mapquest research, hand-shaking, learning, and scheduling. But most of all, it has nudged me closer and closer to seriously committing to dentistry as the focus of my next 7 years of school. It has been an invaluable experience, helping me to know myself better.
One of the biggest turning points in my thoughts occurred just yesterday during the tour of the school. We talked to first, second, and fourth year students and we got a very clear picture of what it was like to be enrolled and what registration was like. Thankfully, the four-and-a-half hour visit fit quite well into my schedule, with the exception of me missing a little physics. In fact, our physics teacher professor Lane has recently become quite a bit more articulate, attentive, and helpful in class. This past Sunday his daughter died from cancer. While I know this sounds strange, I think he had seen her suffer for so long (she was in a coma at the end), that it was nothing but relief to see her suffering end. I think he went through the entire grieving process and acceptance, because she was only technically alive. So, I came up to him Wednesday and asked if I could take the quiz on Thursday, as I would be missing some class time due to the tour. “Well, I have a daughter to bury on Thursday, so I won’t be here on campus.” Completely knocked over, a simple “oh” escaped my mouth, followed shortly by “ok.” I returned to my chair and promptly began to feel like a horrible person. I am sure he had heard “I’m sorry” enough, so I didn’t offer my condolences or my sympathy. He’s my physics teacher after all. But the event gave me a perspective. No matter what I do with the rest of my life, whether I scamper off and become and electrical engineer, or if I become a dentist, the most important thing will still be family. Parents shouldn’t bury their children; I wouldn’t wish what happened to my professor on anyone.
It’s been about seeing priorities lately.