This week I have thought a lot about my BYU experience. The realization hit me that I will be graduating and moving on to another chapter in life, and that thought seems surreal. Because I have been at BYU for five years (with a 2 year mission break), I am just so used to it being pretty much my whole life that the thought of my time here being up feels strange. I am the kind of person that loves to get into grooves and routines, not strict routines but general patterns of life. Whenever there is a major change, like graduation, I feel nervous but excited at the same time. I know that I will be going to dental school after graduating, but I also know my daily life will be different. Different because there is only one BYU, and one BYU experience. If I had to say what the best thing about BYU is, I would say it is the teachers. The general student body has a lot to do with my experience, but because the bulk of my on-campus time has been spent in lecture and lab, the teachers have made the greatest impressions and not only taught me the lesson material, but also important life lessons. The funny thing is that I don't think I could ever list those things out, but I know they are there because of the way I have changed. The greatest change has come in my process of thought, and that is what I am most grateful for. Many professors throughout the years have pushed us students to think for ourselves and use logic, deductive techniques, and always ask ourselves if something is concurrent with what we know to be true. And I love most of all the simple things in the classes that help guide me towards the gospel, such as the prayers in class, the continual references to Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation, and most importantly the spirit that each professor has brought to the class with their sincere desire to help us students gain not only temporal knowledge, but spiritual knowledge. I wish I could always be here at BYU, but the lessons I have learned and the feeling that have come will never leave, and I can feel how I have become a better person because of this BYU experience.

In order to celebrate and reflect upon the resurrection of Christ on this Easter Sunday, the Elders and Relief Society each had lessons focused on this subject. My wife and I separated at the end of Sunday School into our respective classes, prepared to talk and ponder more on the Savior and the Atonement. What happened in the following hour exemplified the difference between the Relief Society and Elders Quorum. My wife told me that in her class the teacher took them through all the New Testament scriptures detailing the death and resurrection of Christ, and how this has impacted the lives of every person. Multiple women shared their experiences of how the atonement has changed their lives and the lives of their family members in extraordinary ways. The women were filled with the Spirit and a few tears were shed. In contrast, as the lesson began in Elders quorum, a large flat screen TV was wheeled in and the teacher hooked up his iPad. For the next hour we watched the new short films produced by the LDS church. The movies were pretty good, although I enjoy the older ones a bit more. At the end of church, my wife and I shared what we had learned. We had a laugh at the difference in lessons.

I highly enjoy General Conference, but even though I pay attention and take occasional notes, I have trouble recalling specifics from the various talks. I can speak generally about what was said, but I think the hard part is that there are so many amazing talks one right after another that I don't have time to digest the messages and ponder how I will implement the teachings into my life. This is why I am thankful that the church publishes the talks, so that I can review them and study each one in depth. However, reviewing the notes I took during the broadcast and comparing them to the printed talks is always interesting because sometimes the things I have written down have nothing to do with what the person was talking about. The discrepancies let me know that I wasn't just writing down the exact words of the speaker, but writing the thoughts and impressions the Spirit brings to my mind. During the Sunday morning session, I had a random thought and just daydreamed about it for a bit subconsciously while watching the speaker, and the thought was a really good one that helped me out a bit, but when I snapped out of it, I had pretty much missed the whole talk. I think doing this is ok because the Spirit is the one that is supposed to teach us and bring the message to our heart and mind.

Tonight Shannon and I went to her co-worker's, Ming-Tzong, house for a nice Sunday dinner. Her children were there, who are all around the same age as Shannon and I. One of her sons works for BYU police as well as city police in Sandy, and man he had some good stories. Just a word to the wise, don't pick your nose or do anything else on campus that may be embarrassing even if you don't think anyone is looking, because there are thousands of cameras inside and out. The campus police save all the funny tidbits for later. Anyways, after dinner he gave everyone a little self-defense training and gave Shannon and I a can of pepper spray as well as a kubotan, which is a small self-defense weapon keychain for close-quarters. He gave us some good training on how to use it if we are attacked, but in all reality I question its effectiveness. I realize that having and using it is a lot better than nothing at all, but I can think of something else that is a lot better (a concealed gun). I am glad Shannon has this stuff, but I think for it to be effective in actual practice you need quite a bit more training and strength to fend off an attack.

Friday night started out relatively boring, mainly due to the fact that my wife took me to her brother's high school cheerleading exhibition. I myself would never bother choose to be a male cheerleader, but my wife and I support her brother, Joel, in his endeavors. The exhibition played out as normal, a few cheer routines from the cheer squad, a couple of risque sexual-themed dances from the drill teams. You know, the usual. But at the end of the last routine where Joel was catching one of the flyer girls, he got nailed in the face by the girl's elbow as she came down. His head was knocked back violently but he played it cool by cupping his nose and causally walking off the mat. But I knew something was up, judging by the impact. My wife and I jogged over to him and saw that his cupped hands were filled to the brim with blood and his nose was gushing blood from both inside and out. After cleaning up the mess and stemming the blood flow as much as possible, we went back to his house for a checking with his parents, then off to the hospital. When the X-ray came back, the doctor stated that "this the the most broken nose I have ever seen!" His nose bone was completely sheered off and pushed back a good amount. This was quite interesting, and after the swelling started to increase he looked like Lord Voldemort. We all got a good laugh at that. The break was so bad that the doctor dared not set it and referred him to a specialist, who he will see on Monday. Exciting night!

I took the big plunge this week and signed the next 8 years of my life away to the Army. As described in many of my past entries, I have been in somewhat of a pickle because the Army had offered me the scholarship but I was waiting to hear back from the Air Force as to whether or not I received their scholarship. I couldn't just wait forever to hear back because the Army has a 2-week decision period, and if you do accept or reject by the end of that 2- week period, the scholarship is automatically revoked. So on Friday the 2nd, I had to make the choice to either accept the Army scholarship, or reject it and bank on getting the Air Force scholarship. In essence, that was a $500,000 bet. I decided to play it safe, so I signed with the Army. Even though I would have rather gone with the Air Force, the Army is basically the same only without the Air Force culture (which is a little bit more laid back and relaxed). And to be honest, I am not sure I would want to be part of an organization that never meets its deadlines. The notification deadline for the Air Force scholarship was February 17, and they have yet to release anything. The Army, on the other hand, met their deadline. I like it when people/organizations actually do what they say they are going to do. So now I am in the Army!

Woodturning is one of my favorite hobbies right now, mainly because I am fascinated by wood with all its various colors and grains. I have mainly focused on making pens, tops, and small trinkets, but on Saturday I decided to take a step up in the woodturning world and make a bowl. It may sound like a simple project, but you must consider that the small bowl must come from a rather large cross-section on timber. What makes the wood harder to turn is that the center of the rough piece is not always the desired center of the bowl. In order to do this, you must mount the wood where the center of the bowl will be between the lathe centers. When you do this, the wood is uneven around the centers, causing wobbles and an uneven cutting surface. And so, when you try to use a gouge to plain the wood into a perfect circle, the uneven sides present quite a problem. This was my experience on Saturday, and at times I thought I would loose a finger or an eye, and the wobbling of the uneven wood even caused my lathe to jump around a bit. But after a few scares and a lot of patience, I successfully completed my first bowl. I put a nice varnish finish on it and now the bowl sits next to the front door and is our key bowl.

The following is from the in-class writing assignment: I hate it when people waste my time when they are in the right-hand lane about to turn right at a red light. It never fails that when someone is in front of me in the turn lane at a red light, they sit there until the light turns green before they even try to turn. I am usually a relatively calm driver, but when the car in front of me wastes my time by sitting in the right turn lane at a red light, I go crazy. There are those few occasions where there is a sign that says "no right turn on red", but 99% of the time no sign is present, and in Utah it is legal to turn on a red. It annoys me so much when people just sit there and waste my time. I often think terrible thoughts about the individuals, mostly concerning their complete and utter lack of consideration for others and their severe incompetence when it comes to driving. I feel that it should be illegal to sit in the right turn lane at a red light and not be aggressively trying to make the turn between traffic.

Ironically enough, on my way home the day I wrote this, the car in front of me stopped at the red light at the first intersection where I was turning right and just sat there until the light turned green, even though there was no cross traffic.

No new news concerning dental school/military scholarships, so I thought I would write my feelings about this last semester. After 5 long years at BYU I'm about 2 months away from leaving Provo behind and starting a new chapter in life. The realization of this has brought on a few different emotions. Firstly, I have been thinking a lot about the experiences and people I've met here, along with all the things I've learned in all the classes. The other night my wife and I watched Contagon and because of all the biochemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology I totally understood everything the movie said about the virus and disease and what not. I even caught a few parts where the movie was complete wrong. So I am very thankful for the knowledge that I have gained here at BYU. I think another emotion I am feeling as I finish up my last semester is what I can only describe as "senioritis." I find myself drifting off in all my classes, procrastinating even more than usual (sometimes to the point of not even doing the assignment), and...now I'm done typing because I lack the motivation to finish.

The day after my last post (Monday), the Army recruiter sent me an email in the late morning stating that he had sent my physical report over to the Air Force recruiter. Naturally, I wanted to make sure everything had been received by the Air Force, so I gave the recruiter a call. When I told him about the email I received, he checked and (big surprise) the Army recruiter hadn't sent the file. Not only was this bad because the deadline for the Air Force scholarship was that day, but the Army recruiter had lied to me. I decided that enough was enough. I called the Army guy and told him to forward the file to me for my own records, this way I could have the file myself and submit it to the Air Force recruiter. I did just that, and got everything in on time. Later in the week, the Army recruiter called me and said that I received the Army scholarship! Great news because my backup plan is in place. Now all I have to do is wait and see if I get the Air Force scholarship.

Fast-forward to this past Friday. All my paperwork for both the Army and Air Force had been turned in and everything was set to go to the committees. I got out of organic chemistry around 4:50 and had about five messages from the Air Force recruiter saying that the Army hadn't sent a copy of my physical test results and that he needed them by Monday morning or else I would miss the deadline. I proceeded to call the Army recruiter who made a few miserable excuses and said he would send the physical. Well, by 11pm that night the physical hadn't been sent, and of course no government/military worker ever picks up their cell phone on weekends. So the plan is Monday morning I will call and harass the Army recruiter until he sends it, and hopefully it is not too late. It feels as though the Army recruiter knows that there is a deadline for the Air Force and he is purposefully holding things up so that I have no choice but to take the Army scholarship. I would rather have the Air Force scholarship because overall the Air Force has better facilities and treats their people better. We will see what tomorrow brings.

So here is the problem: the scholarships given by the Army are determined by the year that you graduate from dental school and since all dental schools are four years, except one, they give all scholarships away for the graduating class in four years. This is a problem because I want to go the only three-year school in the nation. My graduating class is 2015, which means that the Army gave away the 2015 scholarships in 2011. To top it off, I had been working with the recruiter since June 2011 and notified them that I wanted to go to a three year school and that they should get things going so it would all work out. I think the recruiter didn't believe I would get into the three-year school (University of the Pacific, or UOP) so he didn't do anything until December, when I received my acceptance letter to UOP. He then started telling me that I couldn't go to UOP with the Army because they were not providing a scholarship to that school. I did a little digging and called up some other recruiters, and found out the Army is still proving scholarships to UOP. When I told my recruiter what I found out he wasn't too happy but reluctantly said he could make it happen.

TBC

Adventures

I used to think that the U.S. Army was very efficient and organized, always having the answer in a chop chop fashion. Little did I know that trying to get a simple yes/no answer as to whether I could attend a three-year dental school and still be covered by the Army Health Professions Scholarship Program would be nigh impossible even after months of reminding and nagging.
I am not a fan of debt. Never been in debt and never will. In June 2010 the reality of going to dental school hit when i took the DAT and then paid thousands of dollars in application fees, then the reality of the actual cost of dental school sunk in as I attended various interviews around the country. $300,000+ here, $400,000+ there, not including food, gas and other miscellaneous items needed to survive. I didn’t want that hanging over my head for the rest of my life (because surely it would take that long to pay off that much debt). My half-brother Tim had faced the same thing a few years back and decided to have the U.S. Army pay the bill, and in return serve as an army dentist for four years (with all the benefits, salary and post-grad training). Seemed like a pretty good deal, which is why I started down the same path.

To Be Continued