Oral Hygiene Care 101

***Warning: Teeth Geek Post Alert!***

I watch American Idol just about every week with my friend, Rachel, who is also a future dental hygienist such as myself. We comment on the people's teeth regularly who are trying out. Many of the people who are awful have terrible teeth and many who make it have those pearly whites. I wonder why? I tried googling it and came up with some information not pertaining to what I wanted to know. But anyway, I will talk about the stuff I did find out instead. I found that Eliott Yamin, from Season 5, had bad teeth due to his Diabetes. This could have been totally prevented with frequent visits to the dentist and good oral care habits. People with systemic diseases need to especially take care of their teeth because these health problems can lead to periodontal disease.

Some tips:

• brush your teeth at least twice daily for 2 minutes each time!
  
• floss your teeth at least once daily!(make a "C"-shape around your tooth and move the floss up and down making sure the floss goes under your gums)
  
• brush your tongue with your toothbrush or use a tongue scraper! (bacteria can accumulate on you tongue, just like your teeth, causing it to have a coated appearance and giving you bad breath!)


• visit your dental office regularly! your dentist or dental hygienist should provide you with the information you need to know to keep your smile happy

And no, I did not have to post this blog for school! Just tired of seeing bad teeth while people are singing on tv and thought people might be interested! Plus, I have nothing to do this semester so I'm bored.

I also found a funny "Idol translator". I guess it came up when I was searching for "American Idols, teeth" because of this: Likability: “Big teeth.” I don't understand what this means but everything else is pretty funny.

In other news... Phil was here for a much needed extended weekend! Went shopping at the Tanger Outlet, played tons of Wii Mario Party and Mario Kart with Katie(my roomie) and Joe(her boyfriend), and took turns cooking dinner for eachother. It was nice and relaxing!

Okay, going to start reading a new Charlaine Harris book called "Shakespeare's Landlord". It is the first in her Lily Bard Mystery Series.

I ♥ CVS

This has been a super win week for CVS! I went on Saturday and found that a lot of their makeup was 75% off with your CVS card! I bought some makeup I'd like to try but not for the usual $6 price. Then today I went with a couple of my friends and got some more. Everything in this pic was under two bucks each. I love eyeshadow. I love bright colors and all shades of colors no matter if they look good on me or not. I am pretty much a color freak anyway. I feel sorry for Phil having me pick out all the different colors to paint our walls when we get a place to live together. It'll look like Rainbow Bright lived there or something!


Here is a pic of the nail polish I got painted on:

Notice:

#1 How I painted way out of the actual nail on my pinky.

#2 How I leave the stickers on my laptop (may need'em someday, who knows?).

#3 My pretty engagement ring (almost been a year since Phil proposed!).

#4 How I use a regular mouse on a laptop cause I hate the built-in one.

#5 The dollar in the background, which actually has written on it one of my patient's email addresses cause it was the only thing in my pocket I had to write on. Now I can't spend it without feeling bad that my patient's email address is actually on it! I guess I could mark it out.

#6 My mousepad I've had forever. It is one of the picture ones you can make at Walmart that my friend Leslee got me in high school :)

Question: Anyone ever use mousse blush before? I never have and was hoping for some tips! Also, two of the eyeshadows I got are cream eyeshadow and they crease really bad. I know you can get a primer to help for like $17 on Sephora.com but seeing that I like 75% off makeup, I don't really want to spend that much.

Senioritis

It’s funny that it is called “Senioritis” because that technically means “inflammation of the senior”. I guess that could be correct in a way. Seniors tend to have big, or inflamed, egos or feel like they have absorbed so much information that it feels like their head is going to burst. The latter is how I feel right now. Really, that is how I’ve felt all three times I have been a senior (HHS, Marshall, WVU). I am completely ready to be out of school. I have passed my National Boards, completed my research presentation (after working on it for 2½ years), and now all I have to do is pass my Clinical Boards. This requires me to find a patient that fits a certain criteria, take another (but smaller) computer-based exam, and pay a whole bunch of money. The kicker is that if the day of the exam rolls around and the judges don’t think my patient fits that criteria, then I’m SOL, there goes all that money and I have to do it all over again, but this time find a school that I am not familiar with to take the clinical. I’m pretty sure my professors will help us with the process, so hopefully they are being nice that day.

A problem that my senioritis is causing me is going to bed very late and to wake up very late. These first two weeks of school have been very abnormal to where we don’t have to be at class until after noon. Starting this upcoming week, the only days I have to wake up early are Mondays and Fridays, and Wednesdays we don’t have class at all. I woke up today at 2pm. Not good AT ALL. I am not tired right now, that is why I am updating this blog at 2 in the morning. Monday is not going to be fun.

Okay. Now for a favorite product of mine. I love that new Aquafresh Iso-Active toothpaste! The one I have is a bright green colored gel and it becomes very foamy in your mouth. Some of my professors told me before I bought it that they didn’t like the taste and it caused their gingiva to slough (just a minor reaction some products can cause in your mouth and will go away once you switch products), but I haven’t had any problems with it except that the gel can be messy around the cap.

Well, I'm off to read one of my books I got for an occasion such as this. It is a Charlaine Harris book called "An Ice Cold Grave". Charlaine Harris is the author of the Sookie Stackhouse series (the True Blood books) and the book I'm reading is third in the Harper Connelly mystery series. Love her!

SCORE!

My winter break from school was fantastic! I got to spend a lot of much needed time with my fiancé and my family.

Christmas was great. I spent Christmas day at my aunt’s house where we opened presents, ate lots of yummy food, and played games like Apples to Apples!

New Year’s was fun too! I went with Phil and his parents to the Dog Track & Casino to celebrate and I even came out with more money than I went in with! For some reason I’m lucky that way! There we met up with two of my married couple friends that I knew from Huntington and used to live with when I first moved to Morgantown.

This past Saturday I got a text around 12:30pm from my roommate saying that she got her board scores in the mail and that she passed! That set me off immediately to find out if the mail had came for me too. It had not so I checked Facebook and many more of my classmates were getting their scores and were passing. I nervously waited by the window for the mailman. I waited for 4 hours and my dad said he was so excited that he was going to drive around to find him! Finally, my dad came back. I took my mail to my room and shut the door. I was by myself. A thousand thoughts running through my mind: I don’t want to have to take this exam over again. Can I really study for a couple more weeks and take it over? Can I sit in that room at that computer for another 6 hours? What if I’m the only one in my class to not pass? Tears were in my eyes as I ripped open the envelope. I nervously unfolded the piece of paper. There was a little certificate at the bottom: SCORE! I passed! I squealed, ran up to my parents while crying, then jumped up and down! Relief. We celebrated by going to Hibachi for some much needed sushi.

Yesterday I made the 3 hour trek back up to Morgantown and today was my first day of classes for the last time. There is a lot I have to still accomplish this semester but I am super happy I made it over that ginormous hurdle. Have a great week!

List of Things to do before I'm 35

This is the list that I promised I would blog after I finished my boards. It's not very long and I already have 4 of them done. Here goes:

1. Try to surf

2. Get Married

3. Finish School

4. Live by myself

5. Get a facial

6. Visit outside North America

7. Kiss in a fountain

8. Pass organic chemistry

9. Cuddle while looking at the stars

10. Meet Josh Groban

Well, that's all for now. I may add some more and can hopefully strike through some more soon! Here's my New Year's resolution:

To actually call my friends more often. I have some kind of phone phobia, but I'm going to overcome it and not just text them!

Happy New Year everyone!