At around 11:00 in the morning tomorrow I will have completed the most arduous academic semester of my lifetime. Words cannot begin to express how much I actually learned this semester and how much I worked my proverbial tail off. I spent time in the school every weekend this semester. This is not an exaggeration. Granted, this time would not have been unnecessary if I stayed super late on a few weekdays each week, but I think that would have been even harder. 8-5 is more than enough for me.
So while things were definitely more hectic, I found this to be one of the ‘better’ semesters in terms of feeling like I am finally progressing as a future dentist. The first year is so very difficult to associate with clinical dentistry because we spent so little time learning dentistry. So yea, it is quite refreshing to finally be a dental student. Again, the volume of dental skills I have picked up this semester is more than all three previous semesters combined. I honestly feel like I could do procedures on REAL people at this point. Really though, that is what I need to be doing now, plastic teeth and ‘ideal’ preps really aren’t doing it for me anymore. I still have one more semester as a D-2 and I hear it is a bit lighter than the current beast I am about to finish. Unfortunately I will be jammed in the lecture halls a bit more with courses like pharmacology and treatment planning, but I will get to the schedule at a later date.
Basically I am procrastinating from studying for my final tests tomorrow. My last exam was on Tuesday and I unfortunately have somewhat slipped into vacation mode already. This happens to me EVERY time during finals…I just run out of gas. I of course WILL study more tonight…lest I fail dentures, but at this point, I just want to pass and get the hell on with the next wave of classes. This entire fall routine has gotten very old.
My GPA will definitely take a hit this semester..but that is all relative, barring a terrible showing tomorrow, I won’t get any ‘C’s which is my bottom-line goal. The only course where I seemed to excel above average was endo, but I still am happy with my progress in the other courses. Fixed prosth was the only course I would consider a bit of a failure this semester. I nearly failed the second performance exam despite the fact that my previous two practice preps were near perfect, I just wasn’t bringing my ‘A’ game for the exams (I had to remediate the first). Luckily I destroyed the final written exam which allowed me to secure a ‘B’ despite the sloppy performance exams. Only one remediation all semester really isn’t that bad either considering how tough some of these classes were – but it would have been sweet to get through un-scratched.
I also didn’t do so hot in the restorative portion of comp care which is a bit disheartening as these are the procedures I should be good at by now – but again, what you do on a given day on plastic teeth seems a bit variable depending on WHO actually looks at your work. A ‘C’ from one teacher could very well be an ‘A’ from another. What matters is how YOU feel about your work. I feel pretty good about things at this point – but I obviously have a LONG way to go.
I can tell this semester has sucked because my right eye has been twitching uncontrollably at random intervals throughout finals..it is time for a BREAK.
I have my wireless internet hooked up, my PS3 raring for some usage, my bottle of JW blue label just waiting to be sipped, a fireplace yearning to be sat by while it snows; old friends needing some hang-out times, Christmas cookies to devour, New Year’s champagne to toast, and most importantly - zero time in the dental school for 16 days. How’s that for a run-on?
Good to go folks, good to go.
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