Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Odd Semester

This semester has been kind of weird so far. Nothing has been too difficult, but I think the combination of a strange schedule, Ritsuko and Masa going to Japan twice within a 6-month period (they will go again at the end of May), lots of vacationing, and moving to a new place has given a kind of disorganized feeling to everything. I just don't feel like I'm complete in school, and if you look at this schedule you might see why! We finished our spring break over a week ago just to have what amounted to another 5-day weekend. Snow day last Friday + weekend + Monday with only one, skippable class (I did not skip, by the way) + Tuesday with no classes = Spring Break #2!

It wasn't really a spring break #2 for me, but I did do some fun stuff. Friday & Saturday night Ritsuko was kind enough to let me stay the weekend with my dental fraternity (Delta-Sigma-Delta) up at a place in Frisco. Hot tub, drinking games, billards, and of course snowboarding. I didn't want to use any of my A-Basin passes (need to save some to ride with my Uncle Don and cousin Adam!!! and hopefully with Ritsuko sometime this season), so I hiked up from the top of Loveland Pass to the highest point I could find and rode down in the freshes powder of the year. 2 hours up hiking in snowboard boots (no snowshoes), probably a total of 1 hour sitting around breathing hard and enjoying the view, and 10 minutes of unmarked alpine terrain. The sunburn on my nose and upper lip was well worth it! The route I took was 4/5 of a mile long with a 1500 ft. elevation gain up to the Continental Divide. Here is what you would see from the top in the summer. I did not take any pictures myself, though, sorry.

Anyway, school is going well. I have started studying for Part I of the boards in addition to my normal class studies. The one thing I have NOT been doing enough of is getting into the sim clinic to practice preps and restorations (fillings). It's probably because we have not had class since our practical before spring break (it will have been 3-weeks when we finally have class again on Friday). Oh well, I'll get back into it.

Anyway, we are loving the new place and hope that home prices in Denver continue to dive so that our landlord's company will keep renting it to us for the next 3 years instead of putting it back on the market! That's all for now.