Wax On, Wax Off

I'm feeling like the karate kid these days. (Minus the 80's haircut and and squeaky puberty voice.) Remember in the movie Karate Kid how when the boy went to learn karate from Mr. Miagi (how do you spell that?), Mr. Miagi just made him do lots of chores, like painting the fence, waxing his car, and other menial jobs? If you haven't seen the movie, I'll spoil the plot for you--the boy gets frustrated at his lack of karate instruction and is about to leave when Mr. Miagi shows him that the moves he makes when he does these menial tasks (paint the fence, wax on/wax off) are really karate moves.

Well, in my case I really am putting wax on and wax off. We're waxing teeth! Our assignment for dental anatomy class this week is to make a top central tooth out of green wax. The problem is, none of us are very good at using the wax yet, so there is a lot of weeping, gnashing of teeth, and general frustration in the lab because you might look at the tooth and see that it is a little thin, so you put some wax on. Then you will see that your tooth is a little thick, so you scrape some wax off. But inevitably, your unskilled hands will slip and scrape too much wax off, so you will have to put more wax on. Wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off...you get the picture.

It's really not a terrible as I'm making it sound. It actually can be fun since you can talk to your classmates while you wax. Hopefully, though, we will soon stop being so "Karate Kid" and start being more "Really Really Good Dentist Kid."

Another fun part about school lately has been gross anatomy lab. We dissect cadavers and identify all the parts required and then get tested over them later. Since there are so many branches and arteries and nerves and muscles and stuff, mnemonic devices are valuable in helping us remember the orders of these things. Some of Jeffrey's and my favorites are:

Real Texans Drink Cold Beer
(To remember the branching of the brachial plexus--Roots, Trunks, Divisions, Cords, Branches)

Only Older Octagenarians That Take A Free Viagra Get Very Aroused Here
(To remember the order of the cranial nerves--Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibulocochlear, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Accesory, Hypoglossal)

Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle
(To remember the order of carpal bones--Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetral, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, Hamate)

And these are just the ones we felt like were "PG-13" enough to put on our blog (AKA, Jeffrey didn't blush when he read them)! Apparently, medical/dental students don't get out much...lots of sexual tension coming out in the form of mnemonic devices. Scary.

Also, we had some additional entertainment today from one of my lab partners. We were asked to identify the duodenum (pronounced "doo-WAD-in-UM" or "DOO-whoa-DIN-um," depending on who says it) today during lab. After identifying the structure, I heard the sweet little voice of my lab partner singing, "There she was, just a walkin' down the street/Singing "doo-WAD-in-UM" ditty dum ditty doo...."

Just a little entertainment to help the time go by faster--well done, Alexandra!