gold diggin' [Part Two]

(continued from part One below)

I seriously considered option #1. Let's just forget about the whole matter and call it a day... But after some pushy encouragement from my bf ('Alice, you've sliced through human cadavers before. You can do this'), I realized the only rational and responsible thing was, well... It was time to go gold diggin'!

So for five days, I dug through my "waste," hoping to find gold. With an exception of one time when I was in a very public place, I dug very consistently (to put it tersely), triple glove-ing up and making use of lots of aluminum foil (go watch House if you want to know how I did it). After five days of meticulous hunting, I came out disappointed and still poor. On the sixth day, it dawned on me that my crown had passed at the one time I couldn't possibly dig around for it.

So I could say that I walked away pissed and feeling dejected upon such good efforts to "salvage" the circumstances. I ended up with a ton of lemons, so to speak. However, looking back (now 3 weeks ago), here is the lemonade to it all:

• Whenever crisis (even the most minor ones) hits, your relationships become stronger. It was serendipitous that my friend M was there to assist during the appointment. What could have been frazzled K and freaked-out and bloody me was saved by M taking the best care of me. She even took me out for dinner to make sure I ate something and dropped me off at my car (which is a ways away from the dental school). I realized that my friendship with this girl was not just as some acquaintance, but as someone who would care enough to stick with me through it all and then some. Lucky me, right?

• Throughout the year, I've had the chance not to only learn under one of the most skilled seniors in my program, but also to become a good friend with K. In spite of the chaos of the appointment and how I traumatized poor K, he still told me everything would be okay and that it wasn't my fault. Albeit I've been constantly teased about getting a metal detector and black-marketing my gold by K and his buddies, I would say it's worth the price for forging a new friendship. Although I will always be MOD-gold-onlay girl to him, he will always be my favorite and most valuable senior friend.

• So the icing on the cake: K found a way to get the second crown under USC's tab. I don't know what strings he pulled to make it happen, but he convinced the school's Dean to pay for it. Lucky me, I know.

So here's to making lemonade. Regardless of whether M & K ever read this, thank you. This is definitely a dental school memory I will never forget.

gold diggin' [Part One]

So recently, I had a traumatic experience at the dentist. What should have been the easiest appointment to cement a crown ended up involving a visit to the campus health center and returning from the appointment crown-less (or so to speak).

You see, during the fitting of my expensive GOLD crown onto my tooth, I made a mistake: I swallowed it. In a matter of seconds, the crown went from my friend K's (or dentist's) hand down into the rabbit hole. As I felt the presence of a foreign object about to pass down my throat, I lept from the chair and dug my fingers down my throat in hopes of retrieving the disobedient crown. What followed was a bloody throat, a blood nose and the painful realization that maybe this crown had slipped away. Having been rushed to the restroom, I stood over the sink as my friend M passed me stashes of paper towels to replace the ones soaked with my blood.

I didn't really know what was happening, but somehow I ended up on my knees on the cold tile floor. My poor friend M didn't know what to do either, so she just kept passing me paper towels. As for my poor traumatized dentist friend K, I just remember seeing his face go ashen as he stammered to figure out what to do next. What followed was a lengthy visit to the student health center, where an X-ray assured all three of us that my crown had reached my colon. The doctor told me that it should pass in 3 to 4 days...

Once at home, I considered my options: 1. Forget about it and figure out how to pay another $260 for another one; or 2. Start digging.

You see, being a poor grad student, I really didn't have an option with #1... which left me with disgusting option #2.

To be continued...

Men in Outerwear: rePOST

taken from j's blog. I couldn't have said it better so I had to re-post:

"I must admit the men of this city exist in a different caliber of classy. from their long burberry trench coats to their sea green, sheepy cloud ties. it's toe up from the floe up: dandy style.

yeah, they look good in winter wear. but you know what it is about these suits that really gets me? besides their success, dignified elegance, and noble mannerisms? and super besides the sense of security that their consistent (large) paycheck could potentially bring...

it's the discipline.

these guys have to forego many things in life to study hard to get the internships that lead to the good positions in those good companies. think about the focus, passion, and self sacrifice that takes! diligence is super sexy.

it always comes down to a man's ability to prioritize, commit, and sacrifice. it's what separates the men from the boys. admit it, you can't help but revere a man who is able to work hard for what they want and be willing to make sacrifices in order to attain it."

Thanks J for putting into words what I couldn't. This is why I love fall and the outerwear that comes with it! I kid... (well, partly).

damages = total loss

Captured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 2010

(35 mm f5, 1/80)

I'd like to think of myself as someone who is a good friend. I'm down-to-earth, thoughtful and loyal as a golden retriever (at least I think so). The friends I have have become my lifelong friends. For the most part, I've never really had drama in my friendships. I don't know if that's because I attract people who are easy to get along with, or if I just lucked out with the kindest and sweetest people to call my friends. Yet recently, I lost a good friend and it has felt as though I've had to grieve through the loss.

You see, this person K (names have been changed to protect the innocent ;) was a friend that I valued. Even though we hadn't been friends for too long, there was a familiarity and comfortableness in being around this person. Not too much had to be explained and we just understood each other (or so I thought). Yet things between us drastically changed. We went from playing for the same team to being opponents on the field. In a matter of days, the friend I thought I had known became a completely different person.

Without revealing too much, I can say this: the inherent problems in our friendship (unbeknownst to me) were left unspoken and I only found out about them after the damage was done. Although I did what I could in damage control (i.e. confront, apologize, try to move forward), it was of no use. Too many feelings had been hurt and too much time had passed to try to fix things now. In the end, K and I walked away from the scene with what was considered to be a total loss.

As I've had to see K occasionally, the obligatorily courteous "hello's" and "how's it going's" have left me feeling blue. As I constantly (and deleteriously) think over and over in my head about what I could have done differently, I realize that maybe it wasn't meant to be. But I'm still hopeful. Maybe one day, things between us will change.

These empty pockets

What no one talks about when in any professional school is how hard it is to live off loans. You see, whatever you use to pay for rent, groceries, school supplies, restaurant dinners all comes from someone else's pocket. Every time I open my wallet, I'm reminded that I'm living off someone else's money. What's even worse is that my life these four years will be paid with interest over the following 25 years. It's definitely something that I can't seem to get over, even though I'm a quarter of the way through.

Tonight is one of those nights where I'm feeling a little nervous and panicked. Although I've tried to bring my living expenses down (my rent got cut by about $75 by moving to Hollywood), the cost of my materials for this semester and the new federal loan policies (that tack on ridiculous fees for taking out loans) have put a HUGE dent in my "someone-else's" wallet. Maybe it's time to find a part-time job (and find/make the time for it) or join the army...

God, please help me to trust that You'll provide enough to make it through this semester.

The Chef & Me

Tonight, I had the privilege of taking part of a cooking class with a chef I adore.

When asked what she deems as "good" food, she effortlessly replied that whenever someone makes you food, it's "good" food because they took the time and creative effort to create a meal for you.

That makes two of us.

The first meal that my boyfriend cooked for me was sausage and onions. At the time, we still hadn't defined our relationship and we were in this butterflies-in-your-stomach, giddy start to the relationship. Living in the ultimate bachelor's apartment (mismatched furniture and a fridge packed with meat and all), he had nothing in his fridge to feed the both of us except sausage. So he chopped up his sausage and onions and in less than an hour, there was a stir-fried bowl of sausage and onions on a bed of rice in front of me.

Although I'm not the biggest sausage fan, that had to have been the tastiest sausage I've ever had. Over the years, we've had so many food adventures, both cooking ourselves and trying new restaurants...

Michael's dduk-bokki.. which is hit-or-miss (in his opinion) but always delicious to me.

At Taco Rosa, a shameless Mexican chain restaurant in Tustin ('twas actually good that day).

At George's in La Jolla. The most delicious and yet most uncomfortable meal ever!

Our marmalade pork ribs and potatoes au gratin. Satisfactory, at best ;)

Dinner at Cous Cous in San Diego for our anniversary. The BEST middle eastern food I've ever had!

Our tried-and-true Beef Panamanian empanadas! Delish!

As someone who loves to cook and enjoy good food (although not yet a good cook), I will say this: Food is never better than with someone you adore.

Here's to a bazillion more of our Food & Wine adventures!

Ch-ch-ch-CHAAANGE!!!

I've gotten into a terrible habit of wanting to do something different to my hair every so often (i.e. see previous post). So I took a curling iron and went to town with my hair... I'm thinking about a perm now... What do you think?

Exams + Procrastination + Distraction = Dora

So I have this terrible habit of grabbing my scissors and trimming my bangs everytime I sit down to study for midterms and finals... I always end up with shorter bangs at the end of exams... They were finally growing in so nicely too. Stupid InStyle magazine, you taunt me with celebrities with blunted bangs!

Someone, PLEASE HIDE MY SCISSORS COME EXAM TIME!

I've returned to looking like Dora the Explorer :(

Dulux Walls

Love this. Nice song too.

Forever thine, ever mine.

So they lived happily ever after.

Family

Father and daughter.

35 mm f2, 1/15

Taken tonight at Cicada in DTLA.

(Un)Familiar territory

Sawing through the skull has the same familiar scent of drilling through teeth.

Never thought I'd hold a human brain in my hands.

Oh the places you go!

Beatrice

Scalpel in hand, I made the first cut.

As the body's internal juices quivered out of the incision, my heart felt as though it would stop any minute. Here I was, this novice twenty-something cutting into this woman's body. Amidst the palpable fear and disturbed anxiety amongst my group mates, I started to understand the task at hand.

She had lived a long life--eighty years, at that. She had died of septic shock secondary to lymphoma. As I pressed the blade into the now plastic skin, it was surreal that I was cutting open another human being. Perhaps she had been a teacher or a lawyer or even a writer. She had been somebody's mother and another's friend. Her body came nameless, so we named her Beatrice. As I cut deeper and deeper into her with my classmate, another snickered at how much adipose tissue we had to excavate. I darted a dirty look in his direction and continued cutting through fascia, layer after layer.

I don't think she had ever imagined lying dead on the cold counter, being cut open by experience-hungry dental students. I continued dissecting and separating her muscles: sternohyoid, sternocleidomastoid, omohyoid, platysma...

My hands still reek of formaldehyde, perhaps as a reminder to reflect on today. As I sit here collecting my thoughts and making sense of why it's necessary for me, in this profession, to be cutting open other human beings, I'm seeing the sanctity of life (as trite as that is, especially in the written word) and how privileged I am to be learning the skills to serve others. It's haunting to be dissecting into the human body (let alone, touching one), but there's something so graceful behind our Creator's imagination. Each muscle, each nerve, each vessel enables us to breathe, speak, live and be...

Thank you, Beatrice for teaching me today of the sacredness of grace.

Knock

35 mm f5.6 1/15

Taken last spring, at one of my favorite churches.

trees bend with sacred grace

In the midst of busy-ness and Good Friday and feeling awfully city-lonely tonight, I thought of this song. The lyrics remind me of the striking power of the word.

Beneath The Silver Moon by MPJ

You were once a boy in tattered jeans

With skin dark by the sun

Eyes so wide and deep with reckless dreams

To carry you along

You were always talking ’bout the sea

The brilliant mystic view

You never seemed to shrink from mystery

That was life to you

And you would find a resting place

Where stars would light the room

And trees would bend with sacred grace

Beneath the silver moon

I see you in this height so sad and sweet

Your spirit burning bright

I know he whispers still in places deep

With flaming words of light

And you would find a resting place

Where stars would light the room

And trees would bend with sacred grace

Beneath the silver moon

manic monday

It's one of those days when you feel like the day can't last any longer. It's only Monday, folks! I know the next three weeks will be packed with too many things to do and too little time to breathe.

I leave you with a snapshot of what's to come: my friend's baby Chloe, whose 100 days and family portraits I shot last week. More Chloe to come...

Uncle Sam, why you want all my monies?

Lately, being on loans and having miscellaneous unforeseen expenses going out (i.e. getting the lock on my car door fixed), I really have been pinching the pennies. Tonight, I finished filing my taxes and found that I owe Uncle Sam $600. Apparently, I have to pay for self-employment tax.

Although my taxes have dampened my mood and have conclusively cancelled my spring break trip (that still yet was unbooked, thankfully), I'm not worried. I figure God will take care of me, even if that means I'll be eating soba noodles for the rest of the trimester.

God always provides.

Some days...

Some days in the life of a dental student:

6:30 am - Wake up (lather, rinse, repeat; brew that coffee!)

7:30 am - Leave for school

8:00 am - Radiology rotation (Ohmygoodness. The cheeks on my patient were so thick! They kept moving my xrays! I had to retake so many!)

12:30 pm - End rotation & run to subway to grab lunch!

12:50 pm - Head back to class

1:00 pm - PBL case session

4:30 pm - Research at library

5:00 pm - Go home through downtown traffic

5:30 pm - Get home & take a nap

7:00 pm - Dinner

7:15 pm - Research some more for a paper

10:45 pm - Submit paper & start reading other papers (aka learning needs)

2:00 am - Sleep

Repeat.

Growing Ripe

My heart was broken this weekend.

No, I didn't break-up with my boyfriend or anything (fyi for all two of my readers!), but something happened that seriously left me disheartened and even shook my faith in my relationship. Honestly, something in me made me want to leave what we have and just quit.

Although I won't disclose details (hello, world wide web!), I will say this: I'm learning the importance of wrestling and even crawling through times of hardship. Although the sinful and selfish part of me wants to start running the other direction as fast as I can, the part of me that is attempting to be godly and trying to cling tightly to what righteousness may mean convicts me to stay. Even if there's an incorrigible mess, it's sanctification that's stopping me in my selfish tracks, ordering me to be patient, to work through the mess, and to perform damage control together.

Love does wash over a multitude of sins.

Beauty

I hope one day someone will see my sister's beautiful and imaginatively wonderful soul and cherish her for it.

Withdrawal

So recently, my camera stopped working and is in the process of repair. I've had serious withdrawals from not being able to shoot, which is the best distraction from my humdrum dental school studies on most days.

One of my most recent shots of my sister taken last December.

Richard Avedon: self-portrait

“I hate cameras. They interfere, they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could just work with my eyes alone. To get a satisfactory print, one that contains all that you intended, is very often more difficult and dangerous than the sitting itself. When I’m photographing, I immediately know when I’ve got the image I really want. But to get the image out of the camera and into the open, is another matter.”

Wrestling

Going into dental school, I wasn't completely sold on the idea of being a dentist. As much as I wanted to be (and as discouraging as it was knowing all my classmates were), there was (and still is) a part of me that would very much rather be doing something else (photography, fine art anyone?).

Yet I realize this is the dilemma of our generation. As a generation of twenty-somethings, we all are seeking fulfillment in our careers and professions, treating work as though it should be our life's purpose. Don't get me wrong--some people are meant to find careers that they are passionate about and find meaning in. Yet for the majority of us, our jobs/careers/professions are meant to be what they are: work.

God cursed us upon the fall of man to work:

"... therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken" (Genesis 3:23).

An elderly patient came into the clinic a couple weeks ago. He explained to me how much he hated practicing piano as a kid, but he kept playing knowing that that was what would be his profession. That persistence translated into opportunities to play in the army orchestra abroad, and eventually a profession in music. As he was leaving, he told me to keep practicing dentistry knowing that it'll open up doors for the future.

I'm not pursuing dentistry so much because it is my life's passion. I'm going into this profession because it is my calling. I have been called, as a Christ-follower and disciple to become a dentist because it will open up doors to serve the Lord. The path won't be easy and I won't always agree with it; but this is the cost of discipleship. As much as I've struggled and am struggling with this, I know that He has left me in this narrow cleft to wrestle and know that He is God and I am not.

So that is why everyday I choose dentistry.

Beloved {Kevin}

His name is Kevin and I met him on the street.

He doesn't have money for dinner tonight.

He is my reminder of how privileged I am to be learning dentistry and who I am serving.

This Year's Quote

"It is a solemn thing for a soul to grow ripe" - Emily Dickenson