last week of work here. it's a bittersweet ending; i'm going to miss my routine here. hanging around the main clinic has been a fun experience, and instead of being deathly afraid (i am still perhaps 40% deathly afraid of working on real patients), i'm only slightly afraid, and at least i know where to get gloves and a mask. or the quickest way to run to the changeroom on those days when i'm late. it's been great watching the profs do their thing in clinic. i've particularly enjoyed  the DPR appointments. Dr. Jarvis and Dr. Driessen do this in style. I've also particularly enjoyed Dr. Al-Osman's teaching style and professional manner on the floor. He's very concise and clear, and extremely patient. Although he remarked that I forgot everything (I think i forgot the two major divisions of chronic periodontitis, which is like the first thing you learn about!!! yeah, it was embarrassing, but he caught me off-guard!) and laughed at me, i've enjoyed learning from him. all of the instructors have very distinct personalities - and really, it's so much fun (despite some of the more stressful situations of, say, pulp exposures) to watch them in their element. it's been a privilege.
 
i am so happy about all the reading i'm doing. reading books makes me feel so enriched, and i learn so much about the human condition, human frailties and faults, and by the end of the novel, those lessons are mine as well. i'm just read a great short story in one of the magazines i like to pick up once in a while to make myself look smart; the new yorker or harper's or something like that...it's a sad story, but it is a moral, philosophical story. it's about a man without any integrity. he is a book agent, but ironically, he also creates - works of fiction. he creates his social world by telling the secrets of others. hmm....should i reveal the ending??!!! maybe i will tell you, cause you probably won't shell out 7 bucks for this magazine. it's a really subtle ending, and when i explain it to you, you will probably think: "what a boring ending!". anyway, what happens is that he suddenly decides to stop betraying other people's privacy when, while on holiday, he sits in a idyllic setting, looks at the beautiful scenery, but feels like an empty wasteland,  and then, for no reason, starts to sob.
 
i can't tell you how subtley and beautifully this story is written. i think one can gain so much more respect and happiness and fulfillment if one has the integrity to know when to shut up. i've learned this lesson a few times, and thankfully, only a few times, because everytime i've learned this lesson, i've felt exceedingly terrible. i probably do this about once a year, always thinking that there probably won't be any harm done. usually the circumstance is just as simple as telling another person some confidential information, thinking (erroneously) that the other person wouldn't mind, or believing that the information wouldn't go further than the next person. no matter how inconsequential the information may be, the damage to your trust and reputation ripples on for miles and miles, for minutes, hours, reverberates through the days. 
 
I plan on doing a lot of reading in August. I'm spending a week at Sunnybrook hospital to just observe dentistry in the hospital/trauma setting, and then otherwise, weekend trips here and there, but otherwise, hopefully i'll come back to school well-read and well-fed. okay, so tired. going to take a nap.