Miss you

Today I branched out and actually attended the single's ward here in Cedar City.  Usually if I'm just here for a week, I'll just go with my parents.  I ended up going because my friend Dan, who I met in Omaha, is living here in Cedar.  I haven't seen him in a year, so I was excited to catch up, and it was also nice to see a familiar face.  However, oddly enough, it made me miss Omaha even more.  I don't know if you know this about me, but I suck at learning new names, and an entire ward-full of new people is just a bit overwhelming!

Needless to say, I was missing my cute little Omaha ward full of graduate students and Village Greeners (did I mention that I'm older than most of the people here?).  It's interesting to look back at my first day in the Winter Quarter's ward and realize I wasn't all that excited to be there.  Luckily being the new face eventually wore off, and I generated some really amazing friendships.  I actually just looked online and, good news, there is a young single adult branch that meets in the same town where I'll be living in Maui!  Hopefully I'll be able to make some new friends who might be patient enough to teach me to surf.

Pre-Graduation Events

I decided with all the exciting things that have happened lately, I probably better catch up!
After passing Clinical Boards, I pretty much spent the rest of school finishing up with patients and completing all my requirements.  I also finished up my time working at the prison, which was more exciting than usual since a fight broke out between two prisoners one night we were there.  Dental School could probably most easily be described like High School, except I don't remember being so close with people in High School.  We really had a lot of fun as a class, and I'm amazed at how well we worked together and had each other's backs.

Class picture before our hooding ceremony.
Out of all the pictures, I think this is the only one where you can actually see me!
I'm hiding up in the upper left-hand corner.

Along with finishing up school, I had plenty of time to spend with friends.  My friend Chase moved out to Omaha this last winter since he was stationed at the Offut Air Force base.  He offered to take me up flying, and we finally planned it the first Saturday of May.  We drove out to the base with another friend of ours, Ben.  Once we got up in the air Chase let us take a turn at flying, and he decided to show off a bit with some fancy moves like a stall, and some touch and go's.

Ben being a stud

Chase with his plane.  And Ben doing... something...

A view from inside.  I took the back seat first, then traded off when we landed in Plattsmith.
Chase on the left, and Ben on the right. 

Sadly enough, my stomach didn't tolerate Ben's erratic attempts at flying well.  We had a ward party that night involving Brats, sauerkraut, and sautéed onions which I had to pass on...  However, flying was a total blast!

Also, this is what else I did the last couple of months.  I went from half blonde, to all dark, back to almost entirely blonde again.  All in the space of just a few months.  For some reason I find this fun... don't ask.

Okay, I'm bored.  More updates and pictures later.

Migration weekend

Lot's of stuff has happened since I last blogged.  Most recently I relocated from Nebraska to Utah this past weekend.  Now I'm chillin' at my parents house for the next couple of weeks till I move over to Hawaii.  I moved into the spare room in the parent's basement, and I've had fun fitting an entire house into a single room.  I kinda like it, but since it's the basement I get friendly visitors like big black crickets.  Yep, there was one crawling on my pillow this morning!  I kinda freaked out, but at least it wasn't a spider!  Anyway, right now I'm actually sitting watching my mom vacuum out the pool using her scuba gear!

Most of our family is dive certified, but I think she's pretty scrappy to just bust out her dive tank for random household chores!  (She'll probs be upset if she knew I took that picture!)  It's interesting, I'm feeling pretty useless right now since I don't have a Utah dental license yet, and I won't start work in Hawaii until July 1st.  I think I actually miss the college lifestyle, not to mention my cute little place in Village Green.  Too bad it's sold, and the people have already moved in!  Well either way, I'm getting excited to move to Maui!

Cheers!

You know that place where everybody knows your name?  (Forgive me, I'm being nostalgic since I'm moving so soon.)  Okay, I mentioned that I had sold my place.  Today I was out shopping with Will, then I was going to meet with my purchasers when we got back.  Well they showed up a bit early, so Will dropped me off so I could run in and meet them.  About ten minutes later I'm busy printing something off for them when Will wanders into the house with my groceries, and promptly starts putting them away.  I'm not sure what the future owners of my house thought of this, but I thought it was pretty funny!  Also, it made me extremely sad to realize that I'm saying goodbye to my cute little neighborhood where everybody knows my name (and knows where my groceries go).

This year I actually attended the dental school's Senior Banquet since I'm actually a senior.  I took zero pictures, but luckily lots of other people took them.

Me with the RDEP wives.  I'm holding the Burt's baby Scott, which I think will be funny to look back at!   I need to stop stealing babies...  

The banquet is held in a ballroom with a live band, and we have a catered dinner with all our classmates, faculty, and significant others.  Also, we do things like awards, and random videos created by seniors.  The videos generally make fun of dental school, but they probably aren't that funny to people outside the school...  I had a total blast, especially since this was yet another excuse to dress up!

Because we're the dental school, and we're awesome, we pretty much kept the celebration going all week long!  We had a huge BBQ at a park last Wednesday.  Yeah, no one can party in the middle of the week like dental students!  We had tons of delicious food, cake, a couple of kegs, and plenty of Diet Coke.  Also, people brought all their dogs to this event.  I had some serious puppy envy!

Group at the dental BBQ.

I sent this picture to my parents and totally freaked them out.
I may have implied that this was my puppy...

Nearing the end

I feel like I've kinda abandoned this blog...  That's mostly because I have another blog dedicated to selling my house, and because I've been surprisingly busy lately.  A lot has happened!  Last entry I sold my couches in preparation for my move back to Utah.  It was maybe a bit hasty because now I have almost no furniture in my living room.  However, it makes it feel huge, and I have lots of random camp-outs on my living room floor.  I actually kinda like it.  Speaking of which, I'm almost certain I've sold my house.  We sign the contract tomorrow afternoon, which I'm very excited about, but also really sad.  I'm going to miss my little home...

In other news, last Tuesday was my last day of dental school.  That's right, LAST DAY!!!  Honestly, after taking clinical Boards mid-April, the rest of school was pretty much a down-hill slide.  It was surprisingly anti-climatic.

Since I haven't caught things up in a while, here's the story of Clinical Boards, or WREBS.  Basically this is the mother of all tests that we build up to throughout dental school.  You have to find three very specific patients who are willing to show up and go through this experience with you.  Often this involves bribery of some form, including the promise of free dental work.  I thought it was funny that this year our test happened to land on Friday the 13th which was also the day when massive storms (including tornados) were being predicted!  Luckily there were no tornados involved, but there was a huge thunderstorm.  Seriously, that's something I'm going to miss about living in Nebraska - thunderstorms, not tornados.

http://flickrhivemind.net/User/I'm%20Rich/Interesting

They had originally told us it would take a month to get our scores back, but two days later I found out I passed all the sections of my boards!!  That means Utah will now give me a license to practice dentistry (once I actually get that diploma)!  Speaking of which, graduation is coming up next week.

So there you have it.  Those are the major events that have happened in my life in the last month or so.

Farewell!

Okay, this post is dedicated to my poor old couches I just unloaded at the annual Village Green yard sale this morning.
These poor old things were pretty much on their death-bed, but somehow I couldn't get myself to give them up until forced to realize that they wouldn't survive another move.  They made it through all my collage years, several moves, even more room-mates, and got me through dental school.  (Okay, maybe I'm being just a tad bit dramatic.)  They were my favorite place to study, have a giant lounge-out movie party, or camp out for the night.  Also, the blue paint spilled on the corner reminded of my crazy artistic roommate who used to paint in our living room!

Goodbye old slanty!!!!

Anyway, I'm sitting out on my porch at 8am on a Saturday morning, and I realize just how trashy I look.  I'm wearing sweat pants sitting on my porch eating cereal with half my furniture on the front yard.  Yeah, I'm going to miss this!

Maui

Here's the deal.  I got a job in Hawaii.  Believe it or not, I'm super excited!  I applied to a residency program in Maui, and I found out just this last Monday that I'm going for sure.  I'll be working at a community health center doin' some sweet dentistry for the next year.  The program starts in July, so I'm planning on moving sometime mid-June.  Yeah, I'm beyond excited.  Now I just need to figure out how to get all my crap moved over-seas!