last day at Dr, Keeters

I took impressions today on misti, then on mary carmen! The second round of impressions with alginate actually turned out well, and the first VPS, vinyl polysiloxane impression I took on misti looked good too! It was a fun day, but bittersweet. I made some great friends that I know I will see again, and it really is "good dentistry by friends for friends" the atmosphere was wonderful, and I can't believe I've been there for 5 weeks! The positive perspectives and attitudes of the staff made me feel at home and welcome and loved. I hope some day my office can be as dedicated to patients and each other as Dr. Keeter's office. I went to my DAT course tonight and it was biology, so I've been studying that a lot, and I learned a lot today from class and studying after with my mom. We got down the A&P book and looked at the anatomy of the kidney, which is really difficult, and then I studied the teeth, it was fascinating how the decidious teeth get moved by the adult teeth and how they fit together perfectly, it's amazing proof that there is a God, it would be impossible to make all this stuff work in perfect harmony- not to mention all the other systems I learned about today! There's no way this all happened by "Chance" it's just not even an option! Tomorrow i'm going to the dental school to tour around, and hopefully meet the dean of admissions, so yay for grad. school- but I'm only a JR. so yay for undergrad too! I love life. I love Tara. I love you, whoever you are!

golf

Golf is so frustrating, i lost 8 balls today, but i hit them perfectly on the driving range. Made me realize that sometimes just practicing isnt enough, it's the actual doing that's important. Like going to church, you can practice all you want, but going out into the world and doing is a whole new "ball" game. I finished the ragamuffin gospel a couple of days ago, it was a great book, and i reccommend it to anyone who wants to further their spiritual life and can't figure out the next step, or cant see what they're doing wrong. I thought i had it pretty well put together, the puzzle that is, but i am just a ragamuffin, a meaningless thing unless I have some of Jesus in me. The book makes you realize that God's love for us is incredible and we can't do anything without it. Even when we mess up, He is waiting for us to come back to Him with open arms, like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. Sometimes I forget that, and I really need to internalize that becaues I try to hit the ball on my own and try my hardest at life, but get frustrated. Like Camp Ozark's theme last year, just Give it Up! I need to give it up to God and let my life be Jesus living through me and living in me. We're all weaklings and powerless without Him, we just need to recognize that more often. That is all., oh and I love TARA!

weekend

It's the weekend now for me, I have to take a practice DAT tomorrow morning, 4 hrs! I have been studying like mad, so we'll see how it goes... I got to assist today at Dr. K's office, he was short staffed, so I was the assistant for a filling, I got to hand him the etchant, primer, caulk, light, tools, etc. it was fun being a part of that and getting to use the water gun and suction vacuum. Good experiences today! WE're going to a party for the american lung association tomorrow night, the Fresh Air Affair, and they have texas hold em and other casino games for entertainment. I hope they have good food too! I still feel like I have something wrong with my stomach, and i've been back from guatemala for 3 months now! I'm gonna take some anti-parasite medicine and see if it helps any, nasty little bugs from that pretty lake! enjoy the official summer (summer started on wednesday!) Tara is incredible, by the way!

The graduate! it was pretty sunny!

Magic kingdom, the money shot...

workin

Still working at Dr. keeter's office, it's been very fun and rewarding, even though i'm not getting paid! 6AM wakeups and hard work make a good rec letter... i hope! I went wakeboarding yesterday for the first time since sept. it was a blast! I met up with some people from dallaswakeboarding.com and we went riding for 4-5 hours. Then we went to chili's and watched the mavs loose, it was pitiful. I have to do a full length DAT this weekend, so I hope i can do well on that and see where my strengths/weaknesses are... I have been studying a lot for it, and I hope i can rip it apart! Sallie got back from europe and said she had a great time, but now she's feeling kind of sick :( I just talked to Dr. Banta's office today and hopefully I can watch some wisdom teeth or implants for dentistry, it's going to be fun, and then i'll go to Dr. Alexander's office to see orthodontics. It's been a great summer, but I miss all of my Vandy friends, and I cant wait to get back to school. I'm reading the ragamuffin gospel, i'm almost done with it and I love it. The other day i googled it to see what would come up and it was some crazy baptist (sorry if you're baptist) lady saying that he was a heretic (brennan manning) and he wasn't saved and he's really a buddhist, it was wild! I like the book though, definately worth reading! New Guster CD is pretty good, it's not as good as their last one, I even pre-ordered it... and I rarely even buy cds! The first few songs are good, but then the album starts sounding like a repetition of the first few songs... eh, they're amazing live though! I'm glad I got my computer working again, well Gary fixed it but it's working better now than it ever has! I am kinda ADD, but i'm sleep deprived so it almost evens itself out I guess; I need to get to bed, see ya!

Dr K and GO MAVS

So i've been taking the kaplan DAT course, its pretty easy, i got a 20 on the diagnostic which is pretty good, so i'm hopin to do well on the real one. I learned how to sterilize the instruments, develop a panoramic x-ray on the pano machine, scan into and manipulate the dentrix application, seen numerous crowns, build up's, fillings, dentures, partials, hygeine checks, I've learned a lot of vocab and I can enter in the numbers for the periodontal check. This friday i'm going to a conference at the dental school. Summer's going great, Sallie is still gone, my dad's fathers day present gets here tomorrow, we got him a camera (shh) and i think he'll love it ( i picked it out). The mavericks had a heartwrenching loss tonight to miami, to bring the series to 2-1 mavericks. We lost by 2 points!!! Tara's doing well in summer school, she has a test tomorrow in microbiology and i think she'll ace it. I gotta get up early, so i'm gonna go sleep.

Day three at Keeter's

I started pouring molds for teeth that were impressions. I then grind them down to the right size, touch up the "nerds" then I place them in the machine and make a whitening tray, or retainer for them. I also sterilized a lot of equipment, so they really liked me and I received a lot of "compliments" at the end of the day! Then I went to the Dat course and I scored a 20 on my diagnostic test, which is very good, so i'm gonna shoot for really high on the DAT! I am excited, and i have a day off today. I'm having a great summer, and i'm learning a lot! Hope you are having fun wherever you are!

Richard