Tuesday, November 23, 2010

"Trips to the dentist - I like to postpone that kind of thing." ~ Johnny Depp

So, I went to the dentist today! Hooray me! I chipped my two front teeth a while back blowing into molds.  Stig-Allan told me to watch my teeth and I instantly bashed them several times with the pipe... what can I say?  I have always had depth perception problems.  I heard that you can get cavities and it is easier to chip them more if you don't get them fixed by adding caps or grinding them smooth.  Then, I heard that the school has comprehensive insurance for if we are injured while working, burned or teeth! And finally, I heard that Rebecca (advisor/teacher) dates a local dentist.  I figured he must be a nice guy since she dates him and she is so nice... and then come to find out Stig-Allan also goes to him.  I haven't noticed Stig-Allan's teeth as being good or bad, come to think of it so that isn't that helpful.  Also, seeing as how Rebecca is from New Zealand I also figured this dentist guy could speak pretty good english!  

My appointment was for 8AM... all good and well except the bus either arrived in Nybro at like 6:30 or 8:10... uhg.  Luckily, Rosanne was taking her friend to the train in Kalmar and was going through Nybro a little after 7! So, I got a ride with her, wandered around town, got some breakfast at the grocery and tried not to freeze my ass off.  I drank some horrible fruit smoothie drink that had blueberries, raspberries and citron (which from time to time I forget means lemon and not just citrus juices in general and including sweet ones like ORANGES!)... I wouldn't get it if you see it.  Pretty nasty and of course ended up turning my teeth blue right before the dentist... OF COURSE! I arrive at his office, where I was undecided on whether or not to take off my shoes, here in Sweden people are always taking off their shoes, in the gym, peoples houses, the GYM! and this office looked super clean and it kind of looked like the office people were wearing indoor shoes... I opted with keeping them on and if I saw another patient come out then I would decide what to do... I opted correctly thank goodness!  

I go back in to the room, which doesn't have any doors and you can see into from the waiting room, and sit down.  He starts looking at my teeth and goes "hmm, ha, I will have to take an x-ray and make sure there is no nerve damage and we will see what I can do."  oooookkkkkk... I didn't think it was that bad.  Unfortunately the x-ray probably could have been avoided if I had remembered to mention to him that I already have nerve damage in one of the teeth in question and that it has nothing to do with this and to proceed.  I always forget to mention to a new dentist that I was kicked in the face when I was a young teen, resulting in my teeth getting knocked in and thus nerve damage in one tooth in particular but potentially a few more.  They always notice after they take the first x-ray and are like "WTF?!?!" but in polite dentist speak.  Then I have to explain to them that I know I have a wrinkle in my tooth root and I am not an alien mutant but bla bla bla... I am going to have to try to do better at remembering that from the get go.  It is never fun when the dentist comes in and is like "Well, I see some serious things with your teeth, now can you tell me about one thing...."  My mind always instantly jumps to having 165419858694 cavities and they are going to yell at me for not flossing enough.

Needless to say the dentist was very nice, I got caps on the bottom of both my front teeth, no anesthetics. no pain, well mild discomfort from having a million things jammed in my mouth and the equivalent of the engraving tools used on my two from teeth. This dentist had an interesting suction tube that I have never seen before. I didn't take a picture because 1. that would be awkward and 2. I figured I could find one on the internet... sadly instead I have found millions of horrifying disfigured teeth and boy am I glad I saw those now not last night before the dentist! Anyway, back to the suction thingy. It was curly on the end... like all curled up in a circle about the size of a large coin, then it bent to for a C. The curly part rested in your mouth, next to your tongue on the bottom there and the C part came out and hooked around my chin so they didn't need to hold it for you! How genius is that?!?! I wish I had a picture but I can't look through any more disgusting teeth pictures on google.  I returned to school around 10 AM and was pleased to show my now nearly perfect smile... minus the blue teeth.  The dentist only cleaned the top 4 and so I had to brush them before going to class because I looked like a maniac with alien teeth!

In the cold shop in the morning I worked on flower cutting this piece.  I was practicing for cutting on a bowl of my own and got a little carried away with coming up with a design and just adding more and more.
 It goes, flower with down leaves, 
 Butterfly,
 to flower with up leaves.
 Then I broke it.
 But isn't it a cute design?   I like it, simple and cute.  Maybe I will do something similar again on a bowl I actually made and don't break.

I was practicing to do this bowl:
 It is light teal on the outside, and it is hard to see but I carved away the color to clear and put flowers... 
 And, it turns out it is cooler from the inside out.
But, here you can see the flower and they are connected by swooping lines.  
There are 3 flowers between the 3 curly feet.

In the afternoon I went to the hotshop and what did I get to do?!?!? BLOW MOLDS (thats how I chipped my teeth in the first place!)!  I was super careful and blew bowls to hopefully carve on in the future, like the one I broke.  

After school I was still feeling ambitious... I guess a new set of teeth will do that for you... just kidding.  But I decided to make risotto!  I got some shrimps and went to it. well Sam gave me some pointers on the phone too! I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.  The only thing missing was something crunchy, like bacon.  But, I added some lime to brighten it up because sometimes risotto can be a bit heavy and salty with the seafood.  The lime really helped I think.  It certainly didn't hurt the presentation!

Oh, and here are the pictures from Friday since I never posted over the weekend except the Thanksgiving post.

 We woke up to snow AGAIN!  I am loosing count of how many times it is snowing here!
 Christmas balls with bubbles.  They have jack-sap (black gross stuff we use on the jacks to help them go over the glass smoother instead of bee wax) on them though so I had to throw them.  
 Pretty big clear... jars? I don't know what to call them... they are straight, heavy and taller then my hand.
 This one is really cool.  You can barely see the red marker lines where I am thinking of something to do in the cold shop on it.  I am thinking a ring around the middle with hanging straight lines with a dot on the end... maybe.
I also decorated this sugar bowl while in the cold shop. I like the design, it is kind of cool and gives more motion to it. The book in school has just one layer of dots going in one direction, but I like it with the two directions and different sizes.

This past weekend we celebrated Rosanne's 21st birthday! I will have to make a post about it later. Maybe on her real birthday! But, that is why I was distracted from posting more than the Thanksgiving post, which I hope you guys enjoyed! Sam said I did a good job on it :) I think he shared it with his friends and family too!

PS: Congrats to all the potters out there who survived a weekend of festivals and crazy crowds! Can you still hear the auctioneer's voice ringing in your ears?

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