When I Go Crazy With Excitement

After hearing Chee Kiang regale tales of his International Pharmacy Students’ Federation congress in Romania, I was equally excited to sample my own taste of mingling with fellow dental students in the international arena.

While scouting around there are two congresses that I can attend! I’ve heard of past congresses but the only thing that kept me from going all the way was the possibility that we might have to do some research project and present it at the meet. With our limited databank of dental knowledge (now sikit baik lah) back then, we didn’t really go for any. Plus, most of the meets were held during our exams.

Firstly, there is the International Dental Students’ Association congress which will be held in Romania in 2009! 3rd-9th August to be precise!! Then from the 18th to the 23rd August, the Asia Pacific Dental Students’ Association will congregate in Penang for their congress. PENANG! Of all places! Part of me sob for the fact that it’s not in an exotic country but another part of me is thrilled because I’ll definitely get to go and mix with international dental students. Not only that, I’ll probably be broke by the time I get back from Romania and thus having the next congress A WEEK later will probably be so awesome because IT’S.ONLY.PENANG!!

Not that I’m hoping for the same thing, but Chee Kiang mentioned that his congress was 80% partying and 20% pharmacy. Hehe.
Of course I’m *cough* keen to learn more about dentistry on an international level but what I really really really love doing is meeting new people.

He also mentioned that the Asians flocked together while the Westerners did their own thang. Hope it won’t be that way for me and whoever I manage to rope along.

After scouring the internet for details(and finally getting it), I immediately sent out a message to all AIMST dental students, tempting them to go with me to Europe. Needless to say, everyone will probably go to the Penang one if we manage to get ourselves registered.

In Romania, Chee Kiang also met a boy from Thailand called Jesse Danskrit (sorry I hope I spelled your name correctly!) and he came back raving to me about how he has met his twin, at long last. Jesse has a girlfriend who is studying dentistry as well, has a jaw clicking habit too, same age, same sense of humor, same type of glasses wtf… Seems like a really nice guy from the FB messages that I see them sending to each other. And he even popped over to read my blog! So nice of him! 🙂 I hope I can get acquainted with Jesse’s girlfriend at either the APDSA or IDSA congress!

Honestly, I don’t have much time left to enjoy myself as a student. I do regret not going all out for these things when I was in Year 1,2 and 3. The holiday between Year 4 and Year 5 would be my only chance. 🙁 At least I’ll get to experience it just once! 🙂

With whatever time I have left in dental school, I should start networking before I come out to the working world. This way, I can find dental housemates wherever I get thrown to by the government. Also, by doing all this and being from the pioneer batch, I feel that our batch would have contributed something to the dental school by paving the way for our juniors, in the sense that we’ve given them the exposure that we never received.

With only a week before Year 4 starts, I’d like to make an announcement with a heavy heart.

There would not be anymore photos from my dental classes. Not that a lot of you cared anyway, just fellow dental geeks might be a little bummed out(but even so, am I praising myself?). No one is more bummed out then me. I had to shelf away the Local Anesthetic videos I took of maxillary and mandibular techniques. Not only are they painful to watch but they are also very educational as my videos are quite clear. Local Anesthetic, for those who don’t know, is what the dentist injects into your gums to numb that region of your dentition. Yeaa.. so that’s what we had to do for each other. We inject local anesthetic into each other and went about with numb mouths for the rest of the day. One scary moment for me was when a classmate poked the needle into the back of my lower jaw (just below the wisdom tooth) and he couldn’t balance the needle so he passed it to the lecturer, while the needle was still stuck in my gums. Dentistry, got to love it.

When people complain about how they hate going to school, we tell them, “You think you got a problem?”

It’s like going to the dentist every. single. day. If you are unlucky, you might bring home an ulcer or two from trauma.

We don’t have anyone else to practice on but on each other. Perhaps as the pioneers, we should set up a system for the juniors to come in as guinea pigs!

Anyway, yeah, bottom line, no more photos from the clinics. But my dean told me that I can still take photos during dental technology labs and simulation labs, just not when there are live patients. We are very open about this whole blogging thing that I’m doing. THIS WAS DISCUSSED IN FRONT OF ALL MY CLASSMATES! Not shy, but would have been shy if they didn’t know what I was like. While he recognizes that it does shed some light on how AIMST dentistry is doing, it could also lead to unwelcome criticism from more established dental professionals.

That aside, AIMST was officially opened by our Prime Minister about two weeks ago! I know I’m damn outdated but anyway, Brenda did a very good write up about it on her blog. I chose selling stickers over meeting the Prime Minister. That’s why I wasn’t there.

Here are a few rare photos from our dental programme. These photos were taken when we first received our scrubs two months ago:

l-r: Lie Yuen, Narjit and Cze-Yin

L-r: Narjit, Cze-Yin, Myself and Zhu Zen

L-r: Sett and Ee Chean

Almost all the guys in class! I think it’s all of them, actually.

Not quite all the girls in class. There are more! AND WHO IS THE LOUSY PHOTOGRAPHER!!

Zhu Zen in her new scrubs.

And a blur photo of me. T_T I’m so nice to other people, yet nobody returns the favour.

Okay, time to go out to meet Abby! 🙂 I’m in Singapore by the way and I’m really really hungry. Chee Kiang is currently at his NUS Pharmacy Students’ Society AGM, pushing Eng Hooi to be the next Vice President! 🙂