Yea... hurdles after hurdles..finally got the okay to go ahead with the camping at the end of this week. Will be at Malangang. Moi...as the herr commandant.. I'm kind of excited for the students..but apprehensive at the same time. I did a briefing session with the other members of the committee this afternoon regarding the activities and job allocation during the camp. Not exactly an excited bunch of people this group. I get the feeling that only a select few among us who're really willing to do this camp. I had left some slots empty you see, the simple slot of being the teacher-in-charge for the day..a simple duty of assembling the kids, getting them to come on time, reminding what needs to be reminded.. and I had to wait for the crickets to chirp till one volunteered. That was the slot for Saturday. The same thing happened when I asked about Sunday. Matai la...
Sigh..
And I as the Camp Commandant already volunteered to do most of the activity on Friday.
Sigh...
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Of Apples and chewing gums
Yeah. Ate my dream apples after the debanding. Bought them at Yong Fruit Shop, KK. It's at the same row as TongHing KK. Trully juicy. South African mari. Took the smaller ones at rm1.20 per apple. I had planned to have a quiet sit at home and take slow languorous bites of the apple. Apa tunggu, on the way home driving, I bit into one apple. Kkkruunchhh!!... Dang it felt so good. My teeth felt a bit sore biting into the apple but... dang it tasted good.
The apple.
The apple.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Donkey's Grin
This entry should be in the other blog but what the hey. It's news.
By 8am today I was already at the clinic. Didn't have time to have breakfast. Parked my ride at Heritage, singgah at the kedai runcit for a kotak of Yeo's soya milk (that was the only palatable drink i could see inside the fridge) and Daily Express newspaper, and walked across the street to the already crowded clinic. Made my way to the number counter to get my nombor giliran. After getting the little strip of nombor giliran, walked up the stairs to the dental section and gave my number to the nurse there. ( yada yada yada.. my typical procedure..done this hundreds of times already)
I wasn't quite sure how/what I was feeling as I sat down, waiting for my number to be called by the automatic, pre-recorded, disembodied, female voice. I wasn't that excited. I think I kept my emotions checked. It ain't over till it's over sort of thing. I continued slurping my Soya milk, unconsciously working my lips and mouth over the metal brackets that were lining my teeth. Meanwhile, my eyes were scanning the pages of the Daily Express for interesting snippets of information. The front page showed the news of the bitch(the exact term for the gender of the dog, mind you) which had its head stuck inside the plastic canister, being tended by Dr. Sen and Dr. Mark. I already knew the story yesterday, a relative of Dr. Sen had told me the story. Poor dog. Kind of heartening to know SPCA is getting its voice heard over the news.
Anyways, after a while my number was called and the digits were also displayed on the electronic board hanging down the ceiling in front of the waiting hall. So I cleared my things and went into room 44. The doctors (doctors?) and nurses were going about their duties. When they saw me at the door, they motioned for me to sit down on the dentist's chair. I still hadn't felt anything much this time except for a little bit of anticipation. I had read some other blog entries the previous nights about other people's debanding experience and some said it was pain-free, some otherwise. So, there I was, reclining on the chair, just waiting for what will happen.
Doc Fatimah siddled over on her roller chair and said her greetings, asking me how I was doing, was I satisfied with the condition of my braced teeth or not. Yeah? Giving me doubts now? (not going to happen, take them off silvousplait). I replied short affirmative replies..hmmm-ed and yes-ed and said I was ok with the occlusion of teeth, just not ok with the numbness that was still happening at the left chin region. Doc said that will take some time. I said ok. In my mind I begged to differ. On with the procedure. She was holding an equipment in her right hand. It looked like a cutter of sorts and began explaining the procedure not to me, but to another doctor, on how to go about detaching the brackets from the teeth. She started to detach the top bands starting from the front tooth. I could feel a mild pressure as she applied pressure while squeezing the handle of the cutter to the base of the bracket, separating the bracket from the hardened glue base. I could hear the click of the separation. Click, click, click. No heart-stopping sensation there. But a stronger pressure was felt when she unloosened the bands encircling the molars. That hurt a bit. I remember telling myself to be calm and relaxed my grip on my own hands. After the upper left and right bands of the molars were released, she gently eased them off and away from my mouth. Wah, halfway there now.
She did the same thing on the lower bands. No tightening sensation on the four front teeth, but a tolerable pressure on the back molars. Snip, snip and they're off! Freedom!
Next, Doc Fatimah started explaining to the other doc what to do next. Which was to grind away the glue residue on the surface of the teeth. I guess she needed to attend to other patients and left the rest of the cleaning job to this other doc. Doc Fatimah got up and went to the other adjoining room and this other doc took over. I managed a sigh of relief before she started with the grinding work. I was wearing googles which was a normal procedure during such procedure. The grinding of the teeth was such that my face and neck was soon covered with a fine mist of water spray. Things were going well until she reached my lower left back molar. When she touched the tip of the grinder to that particular tooth, I was buzzed with such a pain that I jolted from my seat. Aahh...the doc said, ada lubang ni.. ngilu ka? You think??! She asked me to gargle. So I sat up, turned to the paper cup that was perched next to the small basin for that gargling purposes, took a swig of water and gargled. I felt this pain shoot up from the tooth and automatically my left hand came up to massage the left side of my face. Owww! The pain left when I spat the water out.
She was about to continue with the scaling but I wanted to be excused for a while. I needed to go to the loo. So up I sat, stood up and went out to find the washroom. On the way to the loo, finally I allowed myself a smile as my tongue automatically felt around the teeth. No more braces. Looked at the reflection in the washroom mirror and saw a strange sight of just teeth with no braces. Surreal.
Sigh.
Well, some scaling was done. A mould of my new set of teeth were taken for the retainers to be made which I later came back for in the afternoon. Apples, here I come.
By 8am today I was already at the clinic. Didn't have time to have breakfast. Parked my ride at Heritage, singgah at the kedai runcit for a kotak of Yeo's soya milk (that was the only palatable drink i could see inside the fridge) and Daily Express newspaper, and walked across the street to the already crowded clinic. Made my way to the number counter to get my nombor giliran. After getting the little strip of nombor giliran, walked up the stairs to the dental section and gave my number to the nurse there. ( yada yada yada.. my typical procedure..done this hundreds of times already)
I wasn't quite sure how/what I was feeling as I sat down, waiting for my number to be called by the automatic, pre-recorded, disembodied, female voice. I wasn't that excited. I think I kept my emotions checked. It ain't over till it's over sort of thing. I continued slurping my Soya milk, unconsciously working my lips and mouth over the metal brackets that were lining my teeth. Meanwhile, my eyes were scanning the pages of the Daily Express for interesting snippets of information. The front page showed the news of the bitch(the exact term for the gender of the dog, mind you) which had its head stuck inside the plastic canister, being tended by Dr. Sen and Dr. Mark. I already knew the story yesterday, a relative of Dr. Sen had told me the story. Poor dog. Kind of heartening to know SPCA is getting its voice heard over the news.
Anyways, after a while my number was called and the digits were also displayed on the electronic board hanging down the ceiling in front of the waiting hall. So I cleared my things and went into room 44. The doctors (doctors?) and nurses were going about their duties. When they saw me at the door, they motioned for me to sit down on the dentist's chair. I still hadn't felt anything much this time except for a little bit of anticipation. I had read some other blog entries the previous nights about other people's debanding experience and some said it was pain-free, some otherwise. So, there I was, reclining on the chair, just waiting for what will happen.
Doc Fatimah siddled over on her roller chair and said her greetings, asking me how I was doing, was I satisfied with the condition of my braced teeth or not. Yeah? Giving me doubts now? (not going to happen, take them off silvousplait). I replied short affirmative replies..hmmm-ed and yes-ed and said I was ok with the occlusion of teeth, just not ok with the numbness that was still happening at the left chin region. Doc said that will take some time. I said ok. In my mind I begged to differ. On with the procedure. She was holding an equipment in her right hand. It looked like a cutter of sorts and began explaining the procedure not to me, but to another doctor, on how to go about detaching the brackets from the teeth. She started to detach the top bands starting from the front tooth. I could feel a mild pressure as she applied pressure while squeezing the handle of the cutter to the base of the bracket, separating the bracket from the hardened glue base. I could hear the click of the separation. Click, click, click. No heart-stopping sensation there. But a stronger pressure was felt when she unloosened the bands encircling the molars. That hurt a bit. I remember telling myself to be calm and relaxed my grip on my own hands. After the upper left and right bands of the molars were released, she gently eased them off and away from my mouth. Wah, halfway there now.
She did the same thing on the lower bands. No tightening sensation on the four front teeth, but a tolerable pressure on the back molars. Snip, snip and they're off! Freedom!
Next, Doc Fatimah started explaining to the other doc what to do next. Which was to grind away the glue residue on the surface of the teeth. I guess she needed to attend to other patients and left the rest of the cleaning job to this other doc. Doc Fatimah got up and went to the other adjoining room and this other doc took over. I managed a sigh of relief before she started with the grinding work. I was wearing googles which was a normal procedure during such procedure. The grinding of the teeth was such that my face and neck was soon covered with a fine mist of water spray. Things were going well until she reached my lower left back molar. When she touched the tip of the grinder to that particular tooth, I was buzzed with such a pain that I jolted from my seat. Aahh...the doc said, ada lubang ni.. ngilu ka? You think??! She asked me to gargle. So I sat up, turned to the paper cup that was perched next to the small basin for that gargling purposes, took a swig of water and gargled. I felt this pain shoot up from the tooth and automatically my left hand came up to massage the left side of my face. Owww! The pain left when I spat the water out.
She was about to continue with the scaling but I wanted to be excused for a while. I needed to go to the loo. So up I sat, stood up and went out to find the washroom. On the way to the loo, finally I allowed myself a smile as my tongue automatically felt around the teeth. No more braces. Looked at the reflection in the washroom mirror and saw a strange sight of just teeth with no braces. Surreal.
Sigh.
Well, some scaling was done. A mould of my new set of teeth were taken for the retainers to be made which I later came back for in the afternoon. Apples, here I come.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
buhbye braces
The much awaited day is at hand.
plenty of memories ..
the good, the bad and the ugly.
'tis coming out soon.
out with the old.
in with the new.
plenty of memories ..
the good, the bad and the ugly.
'tis coming out soon.
out with the old.
in with the new.
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