Mentor Log #5

So last Tuesday, April 16, I took the opportunity of the whole star-testing schedule to go to my mentor much earlier than usual. I arrived there around two and the place was packed with patients. Every single chair had a person sitting in it waiting for Dr. Yamat and her assistants to do their procedure. The first patient I watched was getting a crown delivery. The assistant told me that she needed to receive a crown delivery because her real tooth was all messed up. Fillings, she said, are also not going to help so they make a fake looking tooth to mimick the temporary one she had in her mouth. The patient had to take her blood pressure first, as usual, for safety reasons. From what I observed, Dr. Yamat took out the temporary tooth (it looked like a half of a tooth) and put in the crown delivery. The patient also told Dr. Yamat that the temporary one was getting colored by the food she would eat. After putting the crown delivery in, they used a blue light which is called the curing light because it hardens the cement placed on the tooth.

The next patient I witnessed was a man receiving a deep cleaning. I thought it was really weird because the man uses dentures and before the procedure, they had to take the dentures out. Dr. Yamat was telling him that he has gum problems so she would really go in between his real teeth and underneath the gums. The dentist also told him he had a lot of tar. Moreover, she said that she needed to realign his dentures. The assistant took his dentures to this one machine that I guess took off some scum off the base and then took this pink powder called Jet Denture Repair Powder to make it into a sticky paste so it would stick on the roof of his mouth. The paste helps the dentures keep it tight. Before she put the dentures back, Dr. Yamat put it these things that look like screws and this yellow paste that would get hard after a few seconds. I'm not really sure what it was or what she was doing and I forgot to ask her afterwards because there was just too many patients waiting!

The next patient I watched was a patient getting his braces tightened. I kind of came during the middle of the procedure so all i really saw was Dr. Yamat trying to put in the last wire on his bottom teeth. The last patient I saw that day was a woman also getting a deep cleaning. Unlike the other patient, this woman's teeth was clean and very well taken care of. Just like any other deep cleaning I saw, Dr. Yamat would really dig into her teeth.

What I learned on this day is that dentistry is so tiring! After spending a little over three hours in the office, I was exhausted. Exhausted from walking back and forth from patient to patient and looking at people's mouths. What I also learned is how the dentist would try to build friendly relationships with the patients. I remember thinking how annoying it was to have the dentist talk to me while they were working on my teeth. But I realized how awkward it also is when they just sit there and work. All in all, I realized the hard work that people really do put into their jobs everyday for the benefit of others. No wonder they get paid a lot!

Total: 3.5 Hours

Running Total: 20.5 Hours.

Mentor Log #4

On Tuesday, April 9, I was able to watched a man receive a regular cleaning and a tooth extraction. I was really excited because like I mentioned in my previous posts, the most I saw was a bunch of tooth cleanings. The man was getting his third molar out, which is really just a wisdom tooth. After the cleaning and before the procedure, he was giving me advice about how I should get my wisdom teeth pulled out as soon as possible because he said it's much harder once you're older. Anyways, during the procedure, Dr. Yamat and her assistant kept giving him anesthesia because he kept tensing up and they needed to make sure that his blood pressure didn't get too high enough or it will lead to major consequences. She would also have to take breaks because his blood pressure would get too high. Dr. Yamat was also having a hard time trying to pull out the tooth. She mentioned how she was able to pull out the other two molars easier before. Because of this, she said that she had to split the tooth. I wasn't able to ask her about the tools she was using because first, I didn't want to break her concentration and second, she went off to work on another patient right after. Anyways, the tools she was using looked like a bunch of screwdrivers. She would use to to dig into the gums while her assistant would use the "sucker" to suck out the blood. There were times where I couldn't even look because it looked very painful. It felt as if I could feel the pain too! When she finally pulled it out, the tooth was really small. It was much smaller than I expected. After the procedure, they gave him an ice pack and told him to rest. I didn't want to talk to him because I feel like it would just hurt him. Overall, as disgusting as the procedure was, I thought it was really interesting. I cringed most of the time but I was very interested. I couldn't wait to see something cool like that next time.

On Friday, April 12, I went into the office again hoping that I would witness something just as cool as I did on Tuesday. Unfortunately, they said that there isn't much going on when I got there so I just watched a patient receive a regular cleaning. Dr. Yamat's assistant kept telling the patient that she needed to brush and floss more because her gums kept bleeding. To be honest, that advice is something I really kept at heart. Watching the patient helped me remember of my old habits. I used to hate flossing, especially when I had braces. But because my dentist would tell me that my gums would always bleed, I started to take her advice more seriously not only because it would improve my oral health, but because she would tell me that in front of other patients and it was just really embarrassing.

I really do this this whole experience got a lot more interesting than I expected. I really do hope to see a little bit more before my time is up.

Tuesday, April 9: 3.5 hours
Friday, April 12: 1.5 hours
Total: 5 hours

Running total: 17 hours

Theme/Motif in The Great Gatsby

One of the most important themes in F. Scott Fritzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby, is the theme of the American dream. The American dream can be defined as someone who becomes happy and successful in life through hard work. Fritzgerald uses this theme to show how the American dream can fail. Although Gatsby became rich, he did it through illegal practices, the practice of prohibition. He did this because he thought he would be able to win the love of Daisy Buchanan. Unfortunately, his American dream only failed due to his obliviousness to the faces of reality. The reality of realizing that his money will never be the same compared to the Buchanans who were actually born in the American dream. Aside from Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson is also another person trying to achieve the American dream. Her desperation to reach that goal goes to the extent that she would cheat on her husband with Tom so she would be able to receive all the material items that rich people would have. She likes to act as if she belongs to the upper-class. However, it is obvious that she can never be part of the upper-class such as when Tom punches her in the face for mentioning Daisy's name. Tom shows that just because she's dress like she's rich, it doesn't mean that she's actually rich which means that she has no right to speak about them in vain. Tom shows that he is much superior than her and will always be.

A motif in this novel is the color green. The color green is seen through money and the green light on the dock.Green money represents the people's desire to attain wealth which is also the American dream. The green light represents Gatsby's dream-Daisy. He uses that green light to watch Daisy on her dock. He would always admire her whenever he saw her.

A Modern Hero

A modern hero is defined to be someone who is your average every day man. However, that person carries a sense of human weakness which causes them to make sacrifices for the sake of the greater good. An example of a modern hero would be Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fritzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby's human weakness of becoming wealthy for the sake of his relationship with Daisy Buchanan only leads to his own tragic downfall, thus making him a modern hero.

Just like any other modern hero, Jay Gatsby appears to be an average man. In the eyes of the public, he is young and very wealthy. However, after learning about his past, readers learn that Jay Gatsby is not the same man in which the other characters in the novel, aside form Nick Carraway, sees him to be. For instance, readers learn that unlike Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby is not born into wealth and privilege, but rather comes from a poor farm family. However, Gatsby likes to portray himself as if he is born wealthy and would create stories of where he comes from, such as when he lies to Nick about him coming from San Francisco. Gatsby's goal to achieve the American Dream only blinds him as he continues to lie about his identity. Even Nick Carraway is able to see right through Gatsby's lies when he compares Gatsby's idealism to a world that a seventeen year-old boy would create. The fact that another person can identify Gatsby's fake identity shows that Gatsby is only an average man who has high hopes and dreams in life. 

Not only does Gatsby like to think he is rich and wealthy, but he also blinds himself from facing reality. For example, Gatsby's unconditional love for Daisy Buchanan causes him to think that she is the most perfect human being he has ever seen. He uses his fake persona to attract Daisy because he thinks this is the only way that she will be attracted to him and therefore, be willing to marry him. However, it is obvious to  readers that Daisy is nothing close to perfect for she is only in for the money. Gatsby does not realize that if it wasn't for the army suit he wore when Daisy first saw him, she would have never cared for him in the first place. Gatsby likes to think this way because this is what he expects to happen in his own idealistic world. He expects that if he continues to put on his fake identity, not only will Daisy accept him, but the rest of society as well. He believes this is the only way he will gain their respect. However, as much as one tries to run away from the past, they can never get away from it because the past will always be there behind them. Gatsby does not realize this because he is so caught up in his own idealistic world that he cannot even distinguish whats real and not real. He can't realize that just because he is rich does not mean he is actually rich. The fact that he had to go to turn to illegal ways, such as bootlegging, shows that he will never be like Tom and Daisy. 

Gatsby's desire to become rich for Daisy only leads to his own tragic downfall. Not only is Nick able to see right through Gatsby's lies, but Tom Buchanan as well. Although Tom's actions leads to Gatsby's death, it is Gatsby himself who actually brings himself to his downfall. Gatsby's unconditional love for Daisy causes him to lie for her and also causes Tom to show strong hatred towards him, resulting in the action of killing him. If it wasn't for his fake identity, none of what happened to Gatsby would happen in the first place. However, the fact that he decides to put on an act for Daisy shows that Gatsby is unable to move on from his "American Dream". He is unable to move past his "perfect world" simply because he believes he finally found his dream: finally being able to spend his life with Daisy. It is evident in the end that Gatsby did not achieve his goal after readers learn that none of the people, except his father and Nick, he thought accepted him didn't even go to his own funeral. This only proves that in reality, Gatsby never really achieved the life he thought to have lived after all. He never realized that he never really did have money, a lot friends, or Daisy.  

Gatsby's struggle to achieve the American Dream only leads to his own downfall. His weakness of trying to become rich for the love of Daisy Buchanan is what makes him a modern hero.