My Halloween Costume/ Movember/ Shout Outs

Hey all,

In the Classroom:
Its been a little bit since my last update here. Please forgive but I have been very busy the last couple weeks. Really the only thing that has been going on is school. It has finally kicked in that I am in dental school and the work load is becoming significant. I have had several tests and a presentation over the last couple weeks all of which went very well. So for all of you back in Canada, know that my academics are going great so far.

Anatomy is still really cool. The last two labs we looked at the heart (So I legitimately had a human heart in my hands) and the lungs (also was holding human lungs). Really amazing stuff and it makes all of us really feel like we are in medical school. I really find that stuff fascinating.

I managed to take a picture of my tooth models in dental occlusion class. Have a look below:

Also worth mentioning was that my friend Thomas and I got elected to the students union by my DDS class this past week. Basically this means that we attend regular meetings with representatives from each year of the DDS and discuss important issues or concerns that we may have. Thomas and I are the representatives for our 1st year class. The DDS reps are also considered the social comity so I think we organize events and stuff too but I will have to look into that to confirm.

Lastly, My polish isn't developing very well since full time classes have kicked in, we are limited to one class per week for polish so it is difficult to improve in the short amount of time spent on Polish. I have however been adopting "words/phrases of the week" in polish. Last week it was "do widzenia" which means see you later. This week it is nikt which means nobody. Don't ask how I decide on the words of the week because they are in large just at random.

Outside the Class:
I tried REAL sushi for the first time (I don't count grocery store sushi as an attempt) and it was surprisingly very good. During that meal I also learned how to eat with chopsticks (or at least enough to kind of look like I know what I'm doing) so that was definitely a good experience.

I have been going out a lot on Fridays with "my crew", we tend to stick to a routine of a few beers before clubs and then go to "club czekolada" to socialize/dance/get in trouble. I figure I have to have a little fun to stay sane so don't judge me for that one.

I recently got myself an iphone, and it has undoubtedly changed my life for the better. It is so cheap to use too so its been a really great addition to keep me organized. Also, thanks to a translator app for the iphone I can confidently communicate with anyone in polish by speaking into my phone and having the phone convert my speech into Polish. Technology is ridiculous these days!

I have got into a habit of listening to Toronto radio on my walks to class. I have been listening to 102.1 the edge, more specifically the Dean Blundell show. If you haven't heard of this or you want a good laugh google this radio show and listen to it. Everyday I am walking to class and I randomly burst out in laughter while I'm walking by myself. People have been giving me weird looks but the hell with them.

Halloween:

So Here is my Halloween costume: I am going to paint myself entirely red and tie a white string around myself. Then, I am going to ride a tricycle everywhere I go. What am I you might ask? Of course I am the menstrual cycle.........People are going to be like "What are you? The Devil?" and then I will say "No! I'm much worse than the devil." :)

Seriously though, Nothing too crazy is going on for Halloween here, I think we are going to go to a party tomorrow night and dress up a little bit but nothing too out of the ordinary. I have never really been big on Halloween anyway. I'm sure most of you have probably already seen this but a Halloween video just got posted the other day and has gone viral (meaning it has spread all over the internet rapidly). If you haven't seen it check it out:

Movember:
So November is a month that has recently been deemed "Movember" which is a program that raises money for prostate cancer. Basically the idea of it is that guys begin the month of November clean shaven and grow a mustache for the remainder of the month. They are not allowed to shave it but have to shave the rest of their face. pictures are taken every week to show the progress of the mo. Since I wont have an opportunity to do the rally of hope this year I thought I would get into this. I am willing to grow a very patchy and ginger mustache if people will support it. I am registered on the movember page so if I can get a bit of support I will for sure do it. Please see the following address:

http://mobro.co/scottkennedy29

The organization is legit and all money raised goes straight to prostate cancer research/ treatment options. Please donate and support the cause. It can be my Christmas present if you want! email me if there are any issues making donations etc. I'm sure you can imagine what a hilarious looking mustache I will have by the end of a month so it will be worth the donations I'm sure.

Finally my shout outs:

KK- Get yourself a job for god sakes, stop spamming my facebook wall with videos and go out make some dough. Actually, why not just take pharmacy here at PUMS? Didn't you always want to do that?

Rach Etts- Getting her braces off and  a new smile tomorrow. Happy for ya X10000000.

The many people who have sent me emails- I'm sorry I have been delayed on responding, I really am pretty swamped but I will do my best to get back to you.

Steve Jobs- Appreciate the iphone bro, thanks for contributing from the grave. Ps. How messed up is it that one person like Steve Jobs dies and thats all anybody hears about when like a million African children have died in the last hour and it makes the news for 20 seconds right after sports and just before weather?.....Messed up!

K thats all I have. Talk to you super people soon. Cheers! Oh and feel free to post comments below, I like reading them.

42 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SK

Cadavers and Being Knighted

Cześć,

Pretty cool week that just passed, a lot of stuff went down. The most salient of which was our university's day of inauguration. So for a background to this story; there are 5 programs at our university for the English program (4 year Medicine, 6 year medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy). For Inauguration two students from each program were selected to receive their grade books on stage from the president of the university. Of course, I was chosen as one of the students from Dentistry. I show up to the ceremony all dressed up but something was wrong, I looked around and all the guys had sport coats/ suit jackets on....Since I didn't bring one with me I was without a coat. It was all I could think about through the whole ceremony. I was afraid it might be some form of disrespect toward the Polish for not having a jacket or something like that. Anyway, I obviously exaggerated the issue and it was no big deal. Here is the video: (I know its kind of boring)

Here is a better picture of being "Knighted" by the president of the university: (the guy behind me didn't have a jacket either :))

 Secondly, we started studying anatomy on cadavers this past week. It was really cool and sort of creepy. The cadavers are always pre-cut for us so we can examine the area of interest. We are currently studying the back so our cadaver was face down with the back cut open so we can see all the muscles and their origins/ insertions. Usually, unless studying the head, the cadaver is beheaded but we were given an old man whose head was still attached. His white hair, ears, eye lids, nose were all visible on the table. Obviously these classroom sessions are confidential and out of respect no pictures would ever be taken so I am only able to paint the image for you. Anyway, its really cool to study this way as opposed to looking in a book and seeing this stuff.

We have started restoration (Fillings) simulations in our dental occlusion class. We have plaster models of the upper and lower teeth and we use a dental drill to take away half of select teeth and then build them up with wax. It is really cool and by far my favorite class. I will try to get a picture of my models for my next blog and show you guys my dental skills. So far we have only built up 3 teeth but more coming each week.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at home. I was so sad to miss our thanksgiving traditions this year and it really made me more homesick than I already was. Only 58 days till I get home! But not before more crazy Polish things go down I'm sure. Till next time.

The Smell of One-Thousand Dead Bodies

Hello again,

Once again, thank you all for reading, I appreciate the support! So jumping right into things, this past Saturday I got a call from a friend in the medicine program and he said "hey man you want to go to Berlin in 45 minutes", he didn't have to ask me twice. I hopped on board with the idea pretty quick so I threw a clean shirt, my camera and a bottle of water in my backpack and got in a sketchy car driving to Berlin. The guys that joined me we two brothers from Israel- Shay and Mike Ritter, two super cool dudes. So it was us three and another random guy from Poznan in the car going to Berlin. The drive was really long because of construction, we left Poznan at ~3 on Saturday afternoon and didn't get in until about 7pm. The random guy in the car with us ended up being from Berlin and he told us about a couple cool spots to check out while we were visiting. Oh and while still on the topic of the drive to Berlin, we got on the autobahn (we think). For those that don't know the autobahn is a speed limitless highway, meaning you can drive as fast as you want without being ticketed by police. Our sketchy little SUV was going ~185km/h in little narrow passing lanes, pretty scary but definitely cool.

So we landed in Berlin and because it was a spur of the moment decision, we had no time to reserve a hotel or place to stay. So we brainstormed and started walking downtown Berlin and popping into every hotel/ hostel we could find. Every place was booked solid. Apparently (little did we know) there was the worlds biggest erotic/porn/sex exhibit being held in Berlin for the weekend. This is why it was so hard to find a place to stay.

Anyway after numerous rejections from hotels we found a place online so i went ahead and booked it. We called a taxi to take us to the location. Once we got there, the owner of this place comes out and starts saying that he has no place for us to stay and that the internet site we booked it on was wrong, blah blah blah. So again, we were shit out of luck. BUT, heres the icing on the cake, this place we toolk the taxi to just conveniently happened to be the gay district in Berlin. As we were walking around this place there were assless chaps shops, dominatrix, S&M stuff, you name it. I was being eyed by several dudes (light on their loafer dudes), very uncomfortable. Despite this hilarity that ensued some good did come out of it. We stopped into "Toms Gay Hostel" and Tom was at the desk in his rainbow colored, v-neck shirt and asked me how he could help me (with a lisp).......Anyway I told him we were looking for a place to stay and he reffered us to a place in the heart of downtown Berlin called A&O Hostel which he called himself and reserved 3 beds for us! Really nice guy........

We show up to this A&O hostel we pay the lady and head up to our room. Now, I have never been to a hostel before so i have no idea what to expect. We go up the stairs and get to our room. We open the door and the worst smell of my young life was taken into my nasal cavities. There were like 6 old dudes/ chicks already in the room sleeping, all the beds are bunk beds and its only 10pm at this point. The smell was honest to god unbearable, it smelled like the title of this blog, one-thousand dead bodies. We threw our bags in the room and left promptly. As  soon as we were out of the room we all started gagging and wish we were back in the homosexual district........

Anyway we came down from the horrid room, had an official German dinner, beers etc. We notice a hotel, a nice hotel so we decided to stop in for shits and giggles to see if they had a room. Sure enough they did, because it was 11:30 at this point I bargained with the guy (Just like my father would) and talked him down to a much better rate for the night. We grabbed our stuff from the hostel room (I refused to go back in so I made the brothers go...I couldn't do it) and moved it into the new, nice, good smelling hotel. We then went back out on the town, had more beers and called it a night.

The next day we went to the Berlin zoo (one of the best in the world), went sightseeing and saw the Berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, historic points, some of the nicest cars I have ever seen and had more beers. We got back to Poznan at 11:30pm on Sunday. It was a great weekend and Berlin is really an awesome city. I hope to go again shortly, this time being more prepared.

The Berlin Wall

Checkpoint Charlie

300,000 Dollar Bently

Next week I'm blogging about being knighted by the president of the university here in Poznan (This happened today) so stay tuned for that. Hope you enjoyed the events that ensued in this blog and don't forget to subscribe to at the top of the page via email. Once again, shout out to my family, much love sent your way.

Lastly, Shout out to my friend Dan Collins who is getting married this coming weekend. All the best to you and Christy and I wish I could be there! Have a great time my man.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone back home! Bye.