14 hours are left until day one of my two-day hell-test sponsored by the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations. And when I say “sponsored” I actually mean “questions written to mess with me” because I still had to pay $360 for the privilege of taking this thing. My wife has made every food (all the foods) in the kitchen for a delicious dinner tonight:
Yesterday, I reviewed 1000 flashcards in 3.8 hours. The day before, around 900 in 4.1 hours. I’m to the point where, as I’m going about my day (especially when I awake), random words and phrases pop into my head. I’m not kidding, here are some examples: Sturge-Weber angiomatosis. LD50 for fluoride is 5mg/kg. Necrotizing sialometaplasia. Canalicular adenoma.
Last night, I told Mykala that I can’t tell if this non-stop fact review-fest is doing any good anymore. My brain is just stuffed with facts; some I have straight, and some I might second-guess when confronted with a novel questions, 9 hours into testing. On top of that, I can’t tell if I’m getting too specific, not specific enough, or if I’ve memorized a fact backwards because I transcribed it from the dental decks incorrectly.
Ellie Goulding’s ‘Home’ is a song with a tide. It washes out to low tide, and you are left with stripped down melody: guitars, vocals. It rises to high tide, and you get powerful crashes of synthesizers and hip-hop inspired backbeats. Her voice has no sharp edges, just round corners.
The use of that last phrase, “style over substance” has
always been, as Oscar Wilde observed, a marvellous and
instant indicator of a fool. For those who perceive a
separation between the two have either not lived,
thought, read or experienced the world with any degree of
insight, imagination or connective intelligence.
If you’re looking for a succinct, mind-bendingly well-written piece in tribute to Jobs, you must read John Gruber’s Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot.
Despite its ungainly title, “Saussure, Predictive Text, Cycling Awake and the word ‘Book’” is an interesting article. Here’s the thesis: two unrelated books on your bookshelf can become associated in your memory, simply because they are next to one another. Similarly, two unrelated words on your phone can become associated in your memory, simply because T9 predictive text puts them next to one another. As a result, language grows in richness, because new associations are made on the bookshelves of our phones. It’s a really neat idea, one that has produced real-world results. For example, the word “Zonino” is “text misprediction” for “WooHoo!”
I have to close, just like the author of the article did: Zonino!
Nike+ has this “Power Song”; it’s what you play during your run when you need instant motivation. This is that song: “Part Of Me (Original Mix)” by Solar Stone from “Rain Stars Eternal”.
I’m 96% done with the 1440 NDBE Part IIstudy cards I assigned myself in August. I’ve scheduled exam on October 10 and 11. I feel nervous — I think I’m on schedule, but I don’t know for sure. I’ve typed up almost 2000 digital flashcards into the Anki system. By transferring the information from the study cards to electronic cards, I can use the spaced-repetition algorithm to make my final weeks of studying extremely efficient. There is so much information: I feel I am trying to carry a gallon of water in my hands.
A tidbit of prep info from four years ago, when I was taking a Kaplan course to prepare for the dental entrance exam, echoes in my head: “Don’t be concerned about nervousness the day of the exam. Nerves are your body’s way of telling you it’s ready to peak.” Such phrases sound like silly platitudes until the day of the test. Then you hope they’re true.
It’s been a long time since I posted something on Facebook that wasn’t conceived and composed to produce a particular effect in the audience reading it. I no longer feel free enough to celebrate something (anything), express disgust, or just be myself in words and pictures. I’m constantly measuring and guessing about how my thoughts will be received. As a result, I’m more concerned with the reaction to my message and how people will judge me than I am with the actual message. That’s a bad sign: I can no longer be myself.
I love that I can talk to people and follow along in their highs and lows, but I no longer feel comfortable in reciprocating their lifecasting tendency. So, once again, I return here to do those things, to be myself. I can be much more open with my successes and defeats, knowing my audience is small and that I won’t be accosting readers with too much — if people don’t like what they read here, they can simply stop visiting. I’d rather be left alone here at tumbledry than blocked and unfriended on Facebook.
It’s raining and there’s some fall chill in the air. I just got back from getting Mykala a pumpkin soy latté and now we’re going to have a nice hot breakfast.
I couldn’t live somewhere without season changes like this.
When I see a patient, they generally need a dental device that fits with a tolerance of microns. “How does that feel?” I’ll ask. To check, they bite down once. After that, two things can happen. If you got it right, they’ll nod. You live for that nod — you spend hours in lab for that nod. I’ve spent entire afternoons separating stone from mould just to get the nod. I’ve redone impressions, asked for third opinions, agonized over silly little things, for the nod. The only thing better is when your instructor comes by and you get to show them you are, in fact, not an idiot and here, look, there’s physical proof of it — see for yourself, they’re nodding.
And then there’s the other result: your patient bites down a second time. A third. And again. They squint their eyes slightly, intensely concentrating on something distant, just above their feet. “It feels, a little weird.” This isn’t always bad; sometimes the fix is a small alteration — after all, the tolerances are small. But in dental school, the fix is frequently complicated and time-consuming. That look your patient just made means your appointment just became a lot longer. A “learning experience” is the colloquial term.
Some days, things go well. You get The Nod. Things fit so beautifully that you forget all the times they didn’t. For me, that was today. I call this a “Mister Rogers Day”. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood wasn’t a utopia, BUT problems were manageable, people were friendly, and things got resolved. Such days are refreshing.