Dentistry is fun

Woohoo.
I survived my first week back. We start a lot earlier than the rest of the uni people(with the exception of the med students) and this week has been pretty full on. We have at least 35 hours of contact time a week and a lot of it is repetitive with 2 whole days a week on anatomy involving 6 hours of lectures and 10 hours of prac. We are working with a cadaver at the moment and are removing his scalp to get access to the face a bit further down. A bit gross for most people but some people I am sure will know what I am talking about. No one has been really queasy in the anatomy pracs with the exception of one girl who faints all the time. She fainted in the intro prac when they were telling us about the rules and there was no gory stuff around. She also fainted way back in O-week last year at an info session. She is very slight and only 17 or so and everyone thinks it is probably lack of food before classes that causes the fainting.
This week I have had my first go at the drills, learning the different sized burs and different speed handpieces for different things. The water/air squirter is pretty cool. Lots of technology in dentistry which is another cool thing for me.
To those out there reading this do not be too amused at what I am writing next. We are paying good HECS or PELS or whatever they call it to spend time assembling model cars in one subject. The only catch is we are using dental wax instead of glue to stick it all together. Some of the skills seem a bit distant to those of a dentist, but you can see they are developing our manual skills as we go. I was putting the engine together and it was so fiddly when the pieces are about a 10th the size of my fingernail. I wonder if my ample sized hands will be a disadvantage. The demonstrators warned a lot of people that their marks will drop from the sevens they are used to to maybe 3s or 4s . They said some people cry. The whole academic thing needs to be matched with the manual skills and that sometimes seems a bit scary.
We had a 2 hour lecture today on the anatomy of teeth. I'm sure some people would say why, but I was amazed how much detail we are supposed to know. We had a prac trying to identify different teeth, and for some it was easy such as your incisor but the difficulty comes when you work out whether it is upper or lower or left or right. We have to know the number of cusps, roots, grooves etc and it is hard to know straight away what is going on. It is all a bit much the first week back. Normally you would expect a bludge the first week but not this time.
They keep asking us to fork out money for kits, textbooks and the cycle seems neverending. $400 for an operative kit with a couple of things in it,$200 for teeth models, etc, etc- silly stupid heads. And we have to pay hecs on top of all these miscellaneous fees. Worst thing is I'd just finished paying hecs from my first degree.
Only one week down and 4 years to go.

If anyone reading this has any form of a color atlas of anatomy (I know I spelt color wrong- silly American spelling) with the big pictures of dissected things that you would be willing to loan or sell to me please let us know.
Hope everyone else is having as much fun as me.
We are getting up at 4.30am to go kayaking tomorrow and have a 30th birthday party to go to tomorrow night so I will forget about uni for a couple of days and take it easy.
I would love to say that I'm studying now, but alas I am watching Tv and having a beer.
Geoff