Covered in gold!

Okay, so dental school is neat for many reasons. Most recently it is because we have been working with gold. I mean, how often do you have your teacher come up to you, hand you some zip lock bags with gold in them, and say, "that's worth a lot - might want to lock it up!" Um yes, well don't worry, it is locked up. Working with gold has also got to be one of the more frustrating things I've done in dental school. Mostly because there is a series of steps that must be completed, all as accurately as possible. And you aren't even sure if it is going to work until you get to the very end, at which point you can futz around with your gold - possibly destroying it in the process - or start over. Ha ha.

No seriously, I quite enjoy lab work. I mean, there is plenty of mixing dental stone, and making casts, and fiddling around with wax that probably isn't all that exciting. However, we get to use some pretty sweet torches, mess around with molten gold (actually, no, you NEVER "mess" around), and spend plenty of time attending to meticulous details. It's like art class for science geeks! For instance, today was a typical day at my lab bench. I was busy polishing with my trusty high-speed handpiece (drill, for those of you who don't speak dental), and I realized that my desk, and most likely my hair was covered in gold dust. It was almost as good as fairy dust. Awesome!