My Lesson of Patience and Dental Hygiene Welcome Night.

So I just want to prepare all of my readers right now that I have been accepted into the Weber State Dental Hygiene program and because of that I will be writing A LOT about my life as a dental hygiene student. I know that it is going to be very stressful and I'm hoping that writing about it may help me with relieving some of the stress.

Here is my first post about it :)

First, I just want to give a quick background of how I decided to go into dental hygiene.
Honestly, I never thought about the dental field in high school. I have always enjoyed the dentist. I was always one of those people to ask a lot of questions when I go because I found it interesting, but I NEVER thought I'd become a dental professional. I thought I was going to be a social science major, or an esthetician, or a elementary ed teacher, or an english major. Pretty much anything but a dental hygienist.

My first year of college I attended Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. I LOVED it and met the love my eternity there (his name is Jake). When Jake and I decided to get married we made plans to move to Salt Lake because he was done with his associates (that's like all you can do at Snow) and because he wanted to attend the University of Utah. At this point I had decided to kind of quit college and find a school to go into skin care and esthetics (which I still think would be an awesome career and trade to learn).

Jake and I moved to Centerville, Utah shortly after we got married and we found jobs quickly to support us. I found work at a grocery store and to be honest it was the WORST JOB EVER. I have the hardest time working with food. Not my favorite thing. Not only did I not like it but it didn't pay very well and I had to work weekends and nights. I know what you're thinking, I'm such a complainer. But I wanted to be over that stage. I wanted to find something that was a little bit more secure, where I could make a little bit more money (especially since Jake was going to be starting school soon), and where I could have more of a set schedule. One day on my way home from the DI (love it) I saw a banner for a dental assisting school in Centerville. It was an 11 week course that only ran on Saturdays. Once again, I never really saw myself working in a dental setting, but I decided to check it out a little more. I went to an open house they had one evening and I just felt like it was the right choice for me. I signed up and graduated 11 weeks later.

Shortly after graduating I started working at Millcreek Family Dental for Dr. Anthony Baird. I cannot even tell you how much I love the office I work for. My boss and fellow coworkers are seriously the best. Anyways, I started to really pay attention to the hygienists there. They really love their job, work a couple days a week, and, let's be honest, make good money! A couple other things about their job that I thought I would love included:

• They get to scrape calculus off people's teeth. I love to do stuff like that. I always have. I'm a picker, zit popper, gross person!
• They have great relationships with patients. As an assistant it's hard to get to know people because you don't always see them on a regular basis. With hygiene I will get to see the same patients every six months. I love the social aspect of the job. 

Anyways, I started to really think about myself as a hygienist and I could totally see it. I started to really feel like I was heading in a strong direction. So I went back to school! I had to go part time most of the time because of my work schedule. And let me tell you, school had never been so challenging! For the first time in my life I was taking hard core science classes like anatomy, chemistry, physiology, pathophysiology, and microbiology. Never in my life have I thought myself as a science person, but now I absolutely love it! I thought english was my forte, but sorry to my aunt Kena who teaches high school english, I am not. I'm pretty sure she's known that all along though. I was meant to be a science major!

Once I was able to apply to Weber State's program I did. The first year I applied I didn't get in and I didn't expect to. No big deal. The second year I applied I tried really REALLY hard. I wrote a killer essay for my application and got an interview! Yay! Went to the interview and NAILED it. Seriously. I thought I did awesome. But I had this feeling when I left that I tried really hard to ignore to not be disappointed because it probably wasn't going to be the year I would get in. Sure enough, a couple weeks later I received a letter in the mail that said I was an alternate for the class of 2015. I cried. I was so SO close but nope. I waited all summer hoping someone would drop out so that I could get in.

I remember one night I went to my aunt Kena's house to visit and in our talking I just started to cry. I was so sad and discouraged that my timing was different than His timing. I just wanted to be done with school SO badly and move on to the next stage of my life. But my aunt gave me some great perspective, like she usually does, on my situation. She said sometimes we have no idea why things don't happen for us when they think it will. It really seemed to me to be the right time, but clearly it wasn't. She suggested that maybe the group of girls that got in the class of 2015 wasn't the right group for me. Maybe there was someone in that class that would bring me down or something. Or maybe there is someone in the class of 2015 that is going to be incredibly helpful and I'm going to be so glad that they are in the class above me to help me. Or maybe the perfect job for me won't be in 2015 but in 2016 instead. Anyways, I'm still so very grateful for that talk because I realized that I wasn't necessarily the problem of why I didn't get in. One thing about me is that I usually assume that it's my fault when I don't achieve something when I want to. So aunt Kena, if you're reading this, THANK YOU! Thank you for giving me some much needed perspective and a self confidence boost at the same time.

So I applied again (third time). And for me, third time was the charm!!! YAY!! I didn't even have to interview because I was an alternate last year. I received an email stating that I was in the program for the class of 2016 and that I would be receiving a formal letter in the mail. I was seriously so excited! I called and/or texted everyone I could think of to tell them the good news! The call I remember most was when I called my dad. I don't want to ever forget it because he made me cry! The phone rang, he answered, and the conversation went something like this:
Me: "Hi dad!"
Dad: "Hi sis! What are you up to?"
Me: "Oh, I just got off work. What are you up to?"
Dad: "Oh, just working--" (I cut him off here and say...)
Me: "GUESS WHAT?!?"
Dad: "You got in."
Me: "I GOT IN. How did you know?!?"
Dad: "Well, of course you got in." (ahh... dad. So sweet.)
Me: "How did you know, did mom tell you?"
Dad: "No, I just had a feeling that was why you were calling."
(A little bit more chit chat... and then the really sweet part)
Dad: "I'm really proud of you sis. You've worked really hard and you deserve this. You should be proud of yourself. This is a big deal."
Me: "Thank you"... tears are falling... "Thank you so much dad. I love you."
Dad: "I love you too sis. Make sure you call your grandparents to let them know."
Me: "Haha okay dad, I will."

BREAK: Time for a picture moment. This is me with my dad on his most recent birthday. Ahh... cute. I love him so much.

So yeah, I'm in the program!
One of the biggest lessons I have learned through my experience of applying to dental hygiene school was that timing is everything and I am not in charge of it. I thought for sure last year was the right time for me to get into the program and when I didn't get in I was so upset. I didn't understand how my timing couldn't be His timing too. I rocked my interview, I had a killer essay, I have been working in the dental field for a long time, I had good grades... WHY DIDN'T I GET IN? But now I really do get it. Timing is everything and Jake and I are in better places within our jobs and where we live, etc. to be able to basically survive with me being in school full time.

Tonight was the welcome dinner for all the new students of the Weber State University Dental Hygiene Program graduating class 2016. Each new student was assigned a peer pal, who is someone from the class of 2015, to help us with any questions we may have, we met the professors, and got to know some of the other people in our class. I was SO nervous! But it went well THANK GOODNESS. I'm just more excited!

My peer pal is super nice and I felt like I will definitely be able to rely on her to help me out as much as I will need. I met other girls from the class of 2015 that I think will also be super helpful. And most importantly I met other students in my class and I seriously think that I'll be making some amazing friends. The girls seem so sweet, and I think that there will be some awesome memories ahead of me.

WISH ME LUCK!

If you finished reading this long post, I appreciate it. I don't usually like to rant this long, but this is a story that I really wanted to write down. I hope you have a great whatever it is when you read this post!

Love,
Lara