Ritsuko and Masashi Return!

Ritsuko and Masashi return home last Wednesday, and everything has been great! Ritsuko's lump was nothing more than that: just a small lump of fibrous material in an area of the neck that thyroid cancer has little or no chance of metastatizing, something many people have or will get in their necks. She is doing great, and we are both complete relieved by the good news. Masashi is doing well, too: now that the weather is getting warming, he is outside everyday playing with a couple of his friends from the apartment area. On Saturday, he was outside playing with them for over 4 hours straight, and that was after spending 3 hours at grandma and grandpa's lake place running around!

Ritsuko brought all kinds of goodies back: a humongous rice cooker to prepare the rice in some special way, another pressure cooker (again, it's special somehow, don't really understand yet), and most importantly MY SNOWBOARD! Oh, my beloved snowboard, a simple white board with black bindings, signed by all my snowboarding buddies while I was in Japan. Form-fitted boots, helmet, snowpants, gloves: all there. I'm more excited than ever now to get to Colorado (of course, I'll have to wait until the mountain snows come...)!

But, Colorado must wait. I am still in Indiana for some reason. It must be the two classes I need to finish and my job I can't abandon just yet, though I will truly miss all of the good friends I've made since I came back from Japan in 2006. C'est la vie. Classes will be over soon: two more classes this week, and then two finals next week. I guess I'll have to study for both, but neither medical microbiology or religions of the East should be too difficult. I have this paper to finish up by Thursday, but that's pretty much done; I just need to sprinkle in a few more quotes from the text (Diana Eck's "Encountering God").

My preparation for matriculation into and life during dental school is slowly coming along. I need to get my vaccination information from my old pediatrician and university health center, I'm going to request that information this week. Once I get the vaccines I've had, I'll go to a Redimed or something and get my TB test and have the doctor fill out the necessary form for Colorado. I'm sending out my request for transcripts to Ball State tomorrow, and I'll get IPFW's once the semester is over. Sales of my old stuff are going well: I've sold one video game and about 4 books since listing on Amazon and Half.com about a week ago. Next is the CPR class (which I was too hungover to attend on April 15th even though it was at 5 o'clock in the evening!) on May 13th.

After health forms, CPR, and transcripts, there's just getting an apartment and the actual move to worry about. We've found a nice apartment complex not far from campus, Huntington Ridge, in which we should be able to get a place. Pack our two cars with all our junk, even after cleaning down to the bare necessities, will be the real challenge. I think I'm going to do a test pack of one of the cars, just to get an idea of exactly how much stuff we can take. Should be fun.

Hobbit Movie Update

If you use Google News, you would have seen this, but I'm so excited I had to post anyway! Release dates for The Hobbit and The Hobbit II movies are speculated to be 2011 and 2012, respectively. The director will be Guillermo del Toro, who will move to New Zealand to work with Peter Jackson and his team.

IPFW Student Death Update: It's a homicide

Yes, a student was killed in the IPFW student dorms today. The killing continues...

Another IPFW student dies

IPFW (Indiana Purdue University Fort Wayne) students just received the following email about another student who was found dead:

"We are sorry to inform you that at, 11:41 am on 4-18-2008 a person was found deceased at the IPFW Student Housing Complex. This incident is being investigated by the Fort Wayne Police Department, IPFW Police Department, the Allen County Coroner's office, and the Allen County Prosecutor's office. We have no suspects at this time, we urge you to exercise due caution."

This is the 2nd time this month that an IPFW has died. We got a similar looking email not even two weeks ago:

"A shooting occurred this morning, Sunday, April 6th at 3506 Timberhill Drive. Unfortunately an IPFW student was the victim of the shooting. The victim's name is being withheld. There is no suspect information at this time. The exact cause and manner of death will be determined by the Allen County Coroner's office. This incident is under investigation by the Fort Wayne Police Department, Allen County Prosecutor's Office and the Allen County Coroner's office, with the full cooperation of the IPFW Police Department."

Either death is tragic, but let's hope that this time it isn't another murder. According to the News-Sentinel, though, many people heard the deceased's roommate "come out of her room screaming that her roommate was dead and there was lots of blood." Friday evening classes have also been cancelled at IPFW.

Unfortunately, there is no more information than this. Having worked in a funeral home for over a year, often going on calls (picking up people who had died), I doubt this is a natural death. It is very sad and my thoughts go out to the friends and family of this student.

Indiana-Illinois Earthquake Update

Yes, just heard it on the news: earthquake centered somewhere near Salem, Illinois, registering about 5 on the Richter Scale. They said it only lasted about 10 seconds, but my window did shake for longer than that (I still swear about a minute). Anyway, some comments on my blog indicated that it really shook things up over in Illinois! Crazy.

Indiana Earthquake

Wow, we just had an earthquake here in Fort Wayne, Indiana at about 5:40 or so AM. Pretty cool. Based on how long my window was shaking (it shakes easily), it lasted about a minute. Will update later.

China and Communism

With all the talk of China, Tibet, the Olympics, and Chinese products, I thought I'd check out the ruling body that make all of these things news in the first place: the Chinese Communist Party. I think we tend to talk about things without really seeing or even trying to understand why someone might have a different perspective. The only way to resolve conflicts is through understanding and cooperation. Now, I hardly condone the actions of the Chinese Communist Party and the atrocities it has perpetrated. Yet, by looking at the other side, it helps us (especially us Americans) reflect upon our own society. Here is the constitution of the Communist Party of China: hardly an inspiring masterpiece, but interesting nonetheless. I think there is just as much East Asian culture and way of thought in this document as there is Marxism-Leninism. By the way, it's really long! I've only read the introduction so far.

Turkish Cuisine Party

This is going back a few weeks, but I really wanted to put this pictures up. We hosted a "Turkish Cuisine" party to celebrate one of our Japanese friends finally getting his green card (after like 7 years or more!). Hiroshi and his family came over early Sunday afternoon and so our kids could play (they have to girls) and our wives (who are very good friends) could start making our Turkish feast! It was Ritsuko's idea, so she looked up all the recipes and prepared all the ingredients. How authentic it all was I will never know (or care), the only thing that mattered was that it was all really good!
Ritsuko and I with our food.














Hiroshi, Yumi, and Ritsuko with the food








Ritsuko and Yumi cooking!











I taught Masashi how to climb into this tree. After I go back inside again to help Ritsuko, one of his friends comes up about 5 minutes later to tell me Masa had climbed all the way to the top! He was actually higher up than when I took this picture!

Some after-dinner video games with Masashi, Maria, and Hanna. Notice the large goose-egg on Masa's head: he hit it on the coffee table earlier spinning around, playing. Poor guy!

Good News!!

I spoke with my wife this morning: the small lump in her neck is not cancerous and is no different from the types of little lumps in the necks of millions of healthy individuals. What a relief! I must admit, despite the fact that all her January test came back negative for any cancer, I was a little concerned. Thank goodness she just went back to Japan and got this looked at; waiting another month and a half for testing here would have been nerve racking. Amazing, isn't it? Her radiologist (who is working at a public university hospital) was able to fit her in for tests his first day back after the weekend. Whoever says national health care doesn't work or is too slow or makes too many people wait too long obviously has blinders on or something.

Anyway, Ritsuko and Masa can now spend the next week in Japan eating good food, visiting friends, and just having a good time without the worry. Here are some pictures of Masashi that Ritsuko's sister sent.

As for me, I'm crawling around work after a solid night of drinking and <4 hours of sleep. Having a spouse allows one to relegate responsibility and tasks more efficiently (including over oneself), but when they are gone for a bit watch out! I stay up late drinking and playing video games, I eat hot dogs wrapped in tortillas for dinner, I have yet to do laundry or the dishes (Ritsuko left last Wednesday morning), I don't get up in time to make lunch so I just don't eat, etc. I'm sure the self-destructive behavior would fade out over time or not be there if I had something important to do (like I did when I was studying for the DAT last year).

Financial Aid FAX received (finally)!

There's a big weight off my shoulders. With such a (relatively) late acceptance and little help from Colorado Dental School, I've been working myself up into a little frenzy trying to get the proper papers filed to the proper places.
I'm not sure how it works, but things at Colorado don't seem to work very smoothly with regards to this process. Firstly, the only information sent about financial aid is that you have to go to website X and do it. Well, I guess I can do that. Then, they want you to FAX the forms. OK, but the FAX number on the form is actually incorrect and the aid office phone number doesn't connect to the office you (a future dental student) need to speak with. Thankfully, helpful people connected me to the correct office. Only then did I learn (from very helpful staff) the correct FAX number. Faxed it numerous times, not sure if I was using the work fax correctly or not, but they couldn't seem to tell me if it had gone through or not. Finally, just yesterday when I called to verify if they had received my fax (or the copy I mailed to the dental admissions office), they were able to tell me yes it was just being sent to Bolder (CU main campus) for data entry. Work-flow issues, maybe? So, it goes to Bolder for data entry, then I guess is on the computers and ready for processing by the medical campus people.

What was the point of me filing FAFSA through FAFSA's web site, again? I completed this all before I was even accepted to Colorado, but I have yet to receive any info about financial aid awards. I guess some schools are slower than others about this, but seeing what a big deal loans are you'd think things would move a little more quickly. Maybe I worry too much, but at least it's out of my hands for now.

The next 2 weeks

Ritsuko and Masashi went to Japan today. Ritsuko has a small lump in her neck, and we both agreed that she should get it checked out ASAP. It would take over a month to just get an ultrasound here in the USA (Ritsuko not being able to get insurance), but this isn't really something to sit back and wait on. As it is probably cheaper to just fly back to Japan and have all the treatments done there than it would be to pay for the tests, etc. necessary out of pocket, back to Japan it is!

It's sad: we can afford insurance, but no one will sell it to her. I get insurance through work, but the 1 year pre-existing condition clause applies. Unlike millions of unfortunate individuals stuck in the good ol' USA, we can travel freely to gain the best health care possible. Thank goodness the rest of the world is civilized enough to see the benefits of national health to their society and culture. America is great and everything, but doesn't all this "we're a love thy neighbor country" just seem like a bunch of BS in light of the fact that America puts very little of it's faith into political practice? Yeah, spend all your time keeping homosexuals from getting married, but seeing that your fellow citizen is actually given access to decent health care? Well, I guess Jesus didn't have health care, so we don't know what he would do and thus can't make up our minds.

Free market economy? Whatever. We wouldn't all be sitting in our cars 2 hours a day while we nibble on McDonald's on our way home from work if our free market economy had not stolen all the wide open lands of North America from the Native American inhabitants. Karma.

Anyway, I guess I'll have a good two weeks to start getting rid of junk before our summer move. I'll probably also spend a good amount of time playing video games as well as plotting my future as a dentist. Post-graduation, let's see: small 2 bedroom house outside of Denver or in Colorado Springs, work a normal 35-40 week at my own office or one I buy from a retired boomer, OK I have to go to a meeting so I'll just stop rambling here.

Google Documents and Dental School Blogs

I don't have much time to write about anything in particular; I just wanted to take a little break from translating and studying for my Medical Microbiology test.

First thing: Google Documents!! I love it and everyone should use it. It's simple and doesn't have many bells and whistles in which to get caught up. Most importantly, though, is the fact that you never have to worry about transfering from one computer to another (home to school) or not having different versions on different computers. I am definitely going to be moving most of my future work into Google Documents.

Second thing: Dental Student Blog Ring! Technically, it's not a ring as I am just linking to other blogs that have something to do with people in or who will soon be in dental school, but it's a start. There seem to be very few dental student blogs out there (maybe due to heavy workload of school), and I thought it would be nice to connect with other dental school bloggers and in doing so offer a solid resource for those interested in the subject. If you have a nice blog that you regularly update with info about you or your spouses dental school life, let me know!

Broken Windshield

I learned something new about my vehicle insurance policy over the weekend: it sucks. Sometime last week we heard a rock hit our Honda. Looking at the windshield, we didn't see anything and thus assumed no harm done. Well, this Sunday a foot-long crack appeared on the passengers side, which after carefull examination was discovered to have eminated from a TINY crip at the very top of the windshield (in the area that is blacked out).

Warranty doesn't cover this kind of thing, so I called my insurance company:
"$500 deductible."
"Even for stuff like rocks hitting windshields and deer?"
"Yup, that's what comprehensive covers."

Read the policy guide, people, and avoid this kind of mistake. I definitely should have paid for a lower comprehensive deductible for our new vehicle and maybe lowered coverage on things that are less likely to happen.

To make a long story short, I called to have the windshield replaced. I then found a company on the internet (Geico) that gave slightly better rates than what we had for both of our vehicles. And, since we'll have to change when we move, I thought I'd just go ahead and make the switch today! A little late, but now we have a $50 comprehensive deductible. It's nice to be able to do everything on the internet, too. Denver has an actually Geico office, though, should we ever require face-to-face assistance. Good by Farm Bureau!