No sleep for the tooth fairy

Apparently you can now have your teeth on your finger, or neck if you prefer.

Melbourne based Polly Van der Glas makes handmade sterling silver jewelry with human hair and teeth. Human teeth are locally donated and sterilised, and human hair is either locally donated or sourced from India and China.

Creepy ain't it? It says on her website that teeth are particularly difficult to come by, so any donations are gratefully accepted. Pleasee, I wanna see her make a ring out of a carious, abscessed tooth and to see someone pay a ridiculous amount for it!

Now you know what to do with your extracted teeth, if you can't be bothered practicing endo access cavities> I have just started doing that in my free time. 

some of my favourite things

These are some of my favourite things about being back home.

Easter weekend was great. Every week should be a long weekend, life would be so much easier and work more productive. On another note, I'm getting Friday afternoons off soon! Starting end of this month! Whoopee, might even make it back to hit the shops on Friday! Excited much :)

Sirloin steak!

Had a sirloin steak tonight after a 2wk hiatus from red meat - enough said!

By the way, it tasted great!

Pumped for the 2010 ski season!

I saw on TV that Rays Ski Shop at Myrtleford was having start of their 10 day Easter sale on Good Friday. Considering the other shops at Wang were closed and I wasn't going back to Melbourne until Easter Saturday, off I went late in the morning, leaving Wang at 10. Was a pretty good drive on the Great Alpine Road & 30mins later there I was at the ski shop. So they've been open for at least 2.5hrs already by the time I arrived, but it was still so packed - about 50 people lining up at the checkout, with the queue going to back of shop.

I didn't really plan on getting anything except to have a look (& maybe a pair of ski pants). For some reason I saw the skis were on sale & I ended by buying a pair (picture below). $525 off the RRP for new skis was a pretty good bargain even for 2009 models.


Haven't really learnt how to ski properly yet - I've only had one Lvl 1 lesson before. But will definitely have fun & be hitting the slopes quite often when the 2010 season starts on Queen's Birthday long weekend. Hopefully by the end of season I'll be able to turn the skis :D.

All I need now is a pair of ski boots.

Rural vs. Melbourne

Here are a brief list of small observations I've noticed that rural life is somehow better than metro:

(1) No traffic - able to leave house just 5mins before work starts, which also means coming back home for lunch as well. The only time there seems to be traffic jam is really just after school finishes, and then it'll probably last 5-10mins. Another plus is the absence of traffic lights - there are only about 3 sets of lights in the whole town, and a handful of roundabouts.

(2) Cheaper living - was quite surprised that car registration in rural is cheaper than metro (by about $100 pa). Also, car insurance is a lot cheaper too, maybe cause there are just hardly any cars for you to crash into!

(3) Cheaper ski passes - I found out the other day that if you live around Hotham/Falls, you can obtain discounted lift passes for $34 per day (rather than standard $100) after paying $340 for a local ID. This would work out cheaper if skiing more than 5 days, but less than 25. Unfortunately they don't advertise this on the websites, only on leaflets at local ski shops.

What a week

This week has been crazy. Man, Dentistry is such hard work and there are some days when you just feel like "Why am I a dentist?!". Every day this week so far has ended up with me feeling like that and coming home to hit the wine.

1. Monday - Almost pulled out a huge chuck of the tuberosity as I happily luxated out an upper 8
2. The crown prep on Tuesday was a strain on my back
3. Wednesday was exo day - (i) OAC whilst exoing a root treated 16 and (ii) on another patient, lacerated my finger because I slipped whilst luxating a carious root which took forever to budge. First sharps injury at work.
4. Thursday - 8pm finish and I could not get down to working length in 36 endo. Sooooooo frustrating

Now I have a dull ache all along on my RHS jaw and a massive headache. The weeks just gotten from bad to worse. Boy, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Bring it on! At least the weekend is almost here & I got paid today. Life is good and I miss my dogs.

Anaemia, Fly swatter, T-Shirts

Finally have the time to update with a new post.

(1) Anaemia - or rather iron deficiency anaemia. This is what I feel like after living with a vegetarian for an extended period of time without eating red meat. Probably only had a couple of servings in the past few weeks. Looks like I should cook a big juice steak & eat it in front of Mel; maybe she'll be converted back into an omnivore again (world rejoice!)

(2) Fly swatter - wished I had one of these in the last 2 days. Killed about 10 flies in our house - very frustrating trying to chase after them with a tea towel. I guess this is what we get for living next to horse stables and leaving the door open (it's either the smelly horse manure or the yummy food we cook, most likely the former).

(3) T-shirts - haven't done my laundry for the past week, hence I've run out of clinic clothes to wear. Had to resort to wearing T-shirt to work today & it was great - so comfy. Definitely going to make this a regular clinic attire for now.

Harold

Meet Harold - our friendly garden gnome.

Nothing tastes as good as the veges you grow yourself. We had fresh BokChoy from our garden last night .. Stir fried with garlic. Mmm was so delicious.

2/52

In the last 2 weeks.. I have:

• Driven 956km
• Been to Auckland & Sydney (don't ask)
• Come close to buying a pair of Ferragamo Varina flats
• Had my first half day
• Worked 3 days in a week 
• Did my first surgical exo by myself- like actually raise a flap, remove bone and suture (with the help of my awesome could be a dentist nurse)
• Attended a beautiful wedding 
• Paid off one speeding ticket, and (still) procrastinating about paying the next

The week leading up to Labour Day long weekend was great as I had the Friday arvo off and then headed to Auckland the next day. I had an extra long weekend as I took Tuesday off, which left me only 3 working days left of the next week - and then it dawned on me, I could really get used to this. I'm ready to work part time already.

Our flight was derouted to Sydney on the way back as someone had an anaphylactic shock from eating business class food. After having spent the whole day wishing we had an extra day off, we sort off had our wish in a compromised bad end of the deal way. They finally put us up in a hotel room at 1am, for an airport pick up at 4am (yeah 3 whole hours later, why even bother Qantas?! I was hoping for one full day in Sydney!) Upon arriving in Melbourne, we bumped into a friend who left NZ 12 hours after us.
 
The highlight of Auckland was probably the fooooood & wine. Experienced the best seafood chowder EVER served in a (bread) bowl in a real bowl. I am currently in search of the best chowder in Melbourne.

 bliss

So I've been driving lots recently, each trip home I clock up at least 240 kilometres. Its a tiring drive but I've discovered the sweet sweet benefits of cruise control, no more speeding on the Hume! I still have another speeding fine to pay off, but this one was in town for doing 59km in a 50 zone. Ouch.

At least I get credit card points.

One eyed jacks

Weekends always go too quickly. Got woken up Saturday morning to a god-awful ring tone, which is that of my on call emergency phone. Thankfully the calls weren't too difficult, with most people just ringing up wanting advice. I never actually needed to go into the surgery, the general reaction after you've told them how much it costs, is: "I think I'll just wait till Monday, thanks". I got a fair few calls over the weekend, i'm just glad my on call week is over and I won't have to worry about it again for another few months.

We went to NSW on Saturday! Crossed the border into Albury. Wowwww finally back to civillisation- underground carparks, Myer (!!), Sportsgirl, DanMurphy's and many other smaller shops. Finally got my shopping fix and it was great coz Myer was having a 1 hour only 75% off the marked down price sale. Managed to score myself a few bargains. A Wish dress that was reduced from $150 to $75, then take 75% off that it came to 18.75. I also had $15 left on my Myer gift card, which left me paying 3 dollars and 75cents for my skyblue Wish Savannah dress.  I also got the bottom half of those Seafolly bathers I bought in Whitsundays, reduced down to $16.24. What a bargain! Who knew shopping in the country could be so much fun.

Sat night was Donna's (one of the nurses at work) 40th. It was out in the sticks in Whorouly. Oops gotta say it right, got corrected by a patient- Whoa-raul-lee, not Who-row-ly. It was so much fun- seeing my bosses' wife tipsy was classic. It was a good party, music was mostly country rock, brought to us by Bruce and David of the One Eyed Jacks. It was a fun night, we were pumping Timbaland's If we ever meet again on the way home, had enough of country barnyard tunes.

Monday tomorrow- start of another week. My boss is away on a golfing holiday. How awesome to be away on holiday, while your staff work away for you. Early finish Friday arvo, then New Zealand! Cannot, cannot wait! Whoopeedoo, laters peeps.

The weekend is so close, I can smell it already!

We finally have a decent living area! Even though you could close your eyes and think it could be off a page on the Ikea catalogue, I like to think I have sorta made it my own. Good thing Jackson has allowed me some freedom of space to decorate our living area, choosing the colour themes and pillow cases. Parallelism and perpendicular(ism)?. At the moment, the Bravia is just there for decoration 'cos there's something wrong with the tv port and the tv guy is meant to come fix it soon. At least Pulpitis (our WiFi network) is up and running!

Today is Thursday which means tomorrow is Friday, which means weekend!! Woohoooo. Thursdays are always the hardest because I start at 10am and finish at 7pm. Starting at 10am is a pain because it's not really late enough for me to sleep in, yet its not long enough for me to run errands/do some shopping. (By shopping, I mean BigW, Coles and KMart). I could potentially go to the gym before work I guess - the thought is there, the body just ain't willing.

Went out for dinner today with work colleagues at the Hotel Pincent . It was a good laugh, and always nice to finish off our Thursday late nights. I also used my buy one main meal, get the second for $5 voucher I found behind a Coles docket. Woohoo, I've never looked on the back of those dockets, always thought it was some kinda scam.

Friday tomorrow (TGIF), and 17.5 hours to the weekend. This weekend will be my first weekend staying up in Wang! I'm supposedly on call this week, but apparently I can "up" the on-call fee depending on where I am/what I'm doing. So at Donna's party on Sat, I think the call out fee will be 3x the normal rate! Haha

Gotta go drink my glass of milk. Jackson is making me drink a glass every night cos he thinks I'm at risk of getting osteoporosis. I probably am, and I'm anaemic too. Oh no, at least I've started eating chicken (sort of), my one step closer to eating meat again.

Moving Weekend

20/Feb was hectic - between packing & loading things onto the truck, we also had to go to IKEA & Bunnings for last minute furniture shopping. Thanks to Doug (our removalist from Wang) who was able to drive the truck directly to IKEA & load the couches straight in.

Our garden is currently very bare except a strawberry plant I've placed in a pot - hopefully it will begin to fruit later in the year. Currently ambitions for the garden are to grow herbs, lettuce & a blueberry plant, all thanks to Bunnings, the shopping paradise. Apparently you can grow potatoes in a pot too, but that's just going a bit too far.

21/Feb was spent going to Beechworth visiting the 'famous' Beechworth Honey & Bakery. The Bakery was alright, but they do have other outlets in other locations such as Bendigo etc. Afterwards got a bit tipsy from wine tasting at Brown Brothers. Even though Dan Murphy sells the wines cheaper, Mel was compelled to buy 3 bottles out of guilt - coincidentally all 3 were packaged in pink.

Joined the gym today as a family membership for $12pw & went to Body Step - Mel is complaining she is still hungry after a massive dinner even though she didn't even exercise that hard.

Will update with photos soon.

Tentative date for housewarming is 17/Apr. A facebook event page will be created 'soon'.

Goodbye to being homeless

Sorry for not posting for the last week or so; things have been pretty hectic with moving to a new house (yay for not being homeless anymore!) and buying all the household items. Can't seem to get Mel's new BRAVIA TV to work - it does not pick up any signals at all. And of course there is really nothing else to do so we just lie on the carpet staring at the ceiling 'cause we don't have any furniture except a small shelf.

Work has been bludgy lately except for the day where all I had all restorations in Q3 & having to give blocks twice because the first one didn't work. But at least I finish at 3 on Fri arvos.

Work in progress for our housewarming - tentative date set some time around April (currently 17/Apr), and will be visiting Brown Brothers Winery this weekend to stock up on some wine.

(New 32" TV)


(Shelf being used as a dining table)


(Banana bread from packet)

Plum Galore

One of the benefits living rurally is the fresh abundance of fresh produce. Its harvest season and we've been having plums in all different forms- Stewed plums, plum tart, plum jam. I'm pretty plummed out to be honest. Plums for breakfast, dessert and oh yeah, why not grab a plum from the tree just before heading out to work.

I'm not a big fan of plums really and I never knew the association between plums and prunes, until I found out that a prune is a dried plum. No wonder they call shriveled old ladies prune face. Better not eat too many prunes Jacko, laxative effect!

New beginnings

Freshly out of dental school, we head out 235km North-East of Melbourne to the rural city of Wangaratta! Or if you are one of those who think we are in bloody Sydney, Wang is 74km to Albury, just at the NSW border. Famous for its world class wine and gourmet food we've started this blog to document our 2010 adventures in Wang.

I've since completed 1 month's work as a fully fledged dentist. After countless fillings, exam S/Cs, exos, 1 (#$*&) endo and 3 crown preps later- I have learnt that man, dentistry is challenging and nurses are your best friends. I also have a sore back and am about to book in for a pampering massage/facial package at the Spa at Beechworth.

On another note, we've finally found a house to move in to! The big move will hopefully be next weekend. Off to furniture shop in Ikea tomorrow!

We drove back today. Jackson got locked out today as he left his keys in Wang, Haha. I miss Bubbles & Lock - its so nice to be home for the w/end.