Save the Drama for your Llama:
If you’re wondering, “What do llamas have to do with dental school?”, the answer is: absolutely nothing! They have to do withour amazing Fall Break away from school!
In the Colleges of Health, we don’t get the month-long breaks between semesters like we did in undergrad. Real breaks are few and far. However, UFCD started implementing more time off for dental students, starting about three years ago. This now includes a week off at the end of October (Fall Break).
These ten days of freedom were exactly what we needed to maintain our sanity! Many students, including myself, were approaching the point of burning out. While I find the pace of dental school to be manageable, it is very fast, and every other week feels like Finals Week. Fall Break was our much-needed recharge!
Wanting to take advantage of that precious time off, I expended a lot of hours (hours I probably should have been using to study…) researching and planning an 
affordable and fun vacation for Jonathan and I. We ended up taking our first trip to the Smoky Mountains of Gatlinburg, TN and had a blast hiking (with llamas!!!), touring downtown, and enjoying all the beauty of the great outdoors. I was feeling deprived of fresh air during school. Needless to say,
I got to feel six years old again and had the time of my life!
Trick and Treat: After break, the fun continued with Halloween. To get into the holiday spirit, our professors gave us a really terrifying time by assigning our Mandibular First Molar psychomotor exam on Halloween morning! Fortunately, we did get to celebrate that night by letting loose at a Halloween party hosted by the upper classmen. Jonathan and I went as Beauty and the Beast… and he was Beauty. What a champ!
Feeling Loupey: With operative courses (focused on practicing restorative procedures, like composites and crown preps) approaching in a few months, the UF American Student Dental Association (ASDA) hosted a Loupes Fair for us. The fair included a handful of representatives from different companies that aided us in getting an idea of the loupes we want to kickstart our careers.
Loupes are basically just glasses with microscopes in them…but for some reason, they get dental students SO excited. I think it’s because they represent a step in our journey that makes everything feel “more real”.
With so many brands, frame styles, magnifications, lights and features to choose from, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Loupes are a huge investment (about $1000+), so I really wanted to make the right choice.
I emailed Dr. Marshall for advice and to see what loupes she uses. Funnily enough, they were exactly the ones I was looking at! She encouraged me to go with my gut, so I’ll be getting Designs for Vision 2.5x magnification in black Retro Nike frames. Picture to come once I get them in!
