Today

So today, I planned to wake up at 9:30am. I would have to leave my house at about 11am to get to school at 11:30am. My only class of the day (AP Physics) wouldn't start till 1pm, so why was I planning to get there early? So I could dissect things!





See, last week, I was talking with a friend of mine in my Reserach & Experimental Design class about majors in college, and she said she wanted to major in biology and be pre-med. I said that I want to major in biomedical engineering and also be pre-med. Somehow it came up that I had never dissected anything before (although the 9th grade biology classes at my high school- a private school- dissect frogs, sheep hearts, and cow eyes, I took biology as an 8th grade, at my local public high school, and was conveniently absent the day they were dissecting worms; the smell of formaldehyde also made me feel sick). So the teacher asked if I wanted to dissect something- I said sure. So yesterday, I began to dissect a grasshopper. I did it under a fume hood, so it didn't actually smell too bad, and I think the smell was most of what made me think of dissection as "ew!" before. It was definitely kind of weird looking at a dead grasshopper under a miscroscope, but it was actually pretty cool.



Anyway. Back to today.



Thankfully I woke up at 8:30am, because it turns out I had a dentist appointment at 9. I got dressed, quickly ate breakfast, and brushed (and flossed!) my teeth, then headed out the door. My dentist's office is on a one way street. So I drove down the street and turned into the parking lot. There were no spaces. Literally zero. I left the parking lot, and turned my car around so I could get into a spot. I tried to parallel park, but I didn't really succeed- that is, the car wasn't quite "parallel" to the curb. After several tries, I figured it was good enough, and got out of the car.



My dentist is a pediatric dentist, so the receptionist was surprised that I came there alone. I'm 17, and I have a car, so why wouldn't I come alone? What's cool about my dentist's office is that there are several small flat-screen TVs installed in the ceiling- today, Ice Age 2 was on. The dental hygeneist, after inspecting my teeth, told me that, except for one possible cavity (which turned out not to be a cavity after all- thank god), my teeth looked "great". Instead of that foaming fluoride stuff (you know- they put a tray of this flavored foam in your mouth, leave it there for a few minutes, and then you can't eat or drink for an hour or so?), they used a paint-on fluoride. I was allowed to eat and drink right after, but I had to avoid anything crunchy or hard (carrots, chips, pretzels) and any really hot liquids (tea, coffee, hot chocolate, soup). I can feel a sticky residue on my teeth, but it's not really visible. After my apointment was done, I went home (getting out of the parking spot was much easier than getting in).

I had some time to read at home (currently, I'm reading Love, Stargirl- it's awesome). Then, I went off to school. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to continue the dissection today, as my teacher was busy (something came up- totally understandable). So, I read, and played Sudoku on my iPod touch (it was a free app, and could keep me entertained for hours, seriously).

At 1:00pm, I went to my AP Physics class, where we went over old AP multiple choice questions. When I was walking down to my car, it started raining. Hard. And thundering. I love thunderstorms in warm weather (okay, it was only about 65 degrees, but still...). I don't really know why. There's just something comforting about it.