Well today totally sucked!! It is the day before Halloween, and we were supposed to dress up, so I did, but hardly anyone else did. That is disappointing. I really did not want to be in clinic, and it showed. We practiced scaling and I just felt so disoriented. I couldn't get the right angulation and it was just not going well. Then I had to do my activation, angulation, and adaptation PE and I thought I was ready, but I could not get the right angle or wrist movement for it. It did not go smoothly. And professor Costley is so intimidating to me. I feel like a stupid retard who has never been inside a mouth. I am just so disappointed in myself. I have to redo that PE. I have never had to redo one, and I feel sick about it. I just want to cry!

Today was a really laid back day. This morning channel 2 news came into the clinic and we had to be here at 5:30, so we were all really tired. But, it was so much fun, and we got to be on TV! In clinic today we just practiced any skills that we wanted to, and also we learned how to use the intraoral camera. It looked really easy when she showed us, but it is pretty tricky to manuver the camera around in someones mouth. We had fun though, and we found out that Laura is a polyphidont! jk

Today we went through and did everything that we have learned so far. It was really good because it gets kindof confusing about when to do what and where and how. It was nice to go from start to finish and review the things that we haven't practiced in awhile. It was good to review. I didn't get to scale for very long because we ran out of time, but I felt more confident about my anterior scaling.

Today was scaling day!!! AHHHHH! I was very nervous. Exploring and probing is one thing, but scaling is something entirely different. You can hurt someone with a scaler, they are sharp!! We practiced on the typodonts, and it was okay. When it came time to actually work on my pod partner I was feeling okay about it. We all bled, I guess it was inevitable. It didn't hurt as bad as I had anticipated. Things always go better than I think they will. I need to work on my wrist movement when I am scaling to give me more strength.

Clinic was very productive today. We learned about the different types of scalers. They all had looked the same to me before today. Then we paired up with the same partner as last time and did OHI again and probed. I passed off my probing PE. It wasn't hard at all. I felt really good about it. I am just glad today is over.

Today in clinic we learned how to do a PFI and OHI. It was pretty easy, it is just tricky to remember everything and to remember to do it in the right order and go through all the motions. I worked with Monica and it went well. It was a change to be brushing and flossing someone else's teeth. It is tricky to get into their mouth. It also made me realize all the ways that I can improve my own oral heath care. I could really brush better and floss better too!

Today, clinic was pretty laid back. This was such a nice change. It has felt like we have just been cruising through stuff, learning tons of new stuff. It has almost been a little overwhelming. But today was good. We practiced charting existing conditions. We had plenty of time to work and practice, which meant that we could take our time and really understand what we were doing. Everyone in my pod passed off their intraoral PE, and I should have but didn't. I think I could do it, but I just get nervous. I am kind of disappointed that I didn't do it, but I am going to practice so I can do really good next time.

Today we discussed the bleed free index for probing. We also talked about perio statements which are very very confusing. Professor Costley said that perio statements are probably the most confusing thing that we will do. I think that we started to get the hang of it, kind of!! We practiced probing today, and we had to actually record the probe depths. Then the instructors came around and checked them to make sure that we were getting accurate depths. I did pretty good, but afterwards, Kim told me that I was pressing pretty hard. I will need to be better! It is good to practice though. Professor Costley said something good today: "Perfect practice makes perfect." True!!