2 cents: The National Dental Hygiene Board Exam

Today is a very good day because it is the day after National Boards!!! This means I am sitting at the VA without a patient and I'm not spending my every free moment anxiously studying. No more quizzing each other, no more andyrdh or amyrdh, no more late nights at Jalene's, no more fighting over anesthesia math problems and no more worrying and stressing over it! And if the ADA wants my honest opinion of that exam, it is crap! I mean, it seemed to me more like torture after the first 100 questions or so. It is completely unneccesary to give a 7.5 hour exam. I got to a point where my eyes were so sore, I had a headache the size of Texas and I was ready to scream andI still had like 7 more case studies. And when a person gets to that point, you can't expect that they will be able to perform as they should on a rigorous exam. Thus, I strongly believe that the National Dental Hygiene Board Exam is completely unethical due to its grueling demand on my mental and physical health. But that's just my 2 cents, for what its worth.

Maui Pictures Finally

So here are some of my favorite memories of Maui (at least the ones I can show! ;)

This picture cost us $6 because some "professional" photographer pilfered it out of us. But the bird sure are a nice touch!



















Whale watching was really nice too. We just went out in a little raft kind of boat for about 2 hours and some of the whales came really close to us.... like this one. An interesting fact about humpback whales is that every whale has different fin markings, they're like fingerprints!
















This is a black sand beach with some ferocious waves. It is amazing to see such contrasts on one small island. One hour we are on a sunny beach with calm, if any waves, the next we are witnessing a furious ocean in a totally different environment. Did you know that Maui is home to one of the driest and wettest places on earth simultaneously?!















Here we are on our big night out. We dined at an ocean-view table (too bad you can't see it since its dark) but it was paradise... Although, Eric did get food poisoning from the clam chowder.





















This is a funny picture of us. We went up to the dormant volcano that is believed to have formed Maui. It was a 10,000+ ft mountain that we took a tour drive up the mountain and then biked our way down. I thought it was very nice and the volcano was pretty cool to see. When you go to a volcano crater you expect to see this perfect circle with molten lava inside but this crater was over 7 miles wide and you couldn't even see most of it from the lookout point.
















I just had to include this one as our classic beach photo. We rented some boogey boards but the waves were pretty mild. It was the beach in Maui though so you can't complain! I think I am still getting little grains of sand out of my ears though. That stuff just sticks everywhere!!

Hey now, hey now don't dream its over!

Today I felt like I was done with school and out in the real world... until I didn't get a paycheck. Today was my clinical simulation day and it was pretty good. I felt like I could have squished in another patient which would have made for five but I still don't quite get how private practices see like 10 patients a day. I guess I will learn one day soon. Anyway, I really liked being busy and having that extra push of knowing the next patient was coming soon. I saw pretty easy patients and didn't have to do any xrays which I am sure would have made it more hectic. Probably the worst part was the paper work. I got way behind in the morning and the afternoon I found little times throughout the appointments to work on it so I wouldn't get behind. It was a really good learning day.