Busy Busy Busy

Long time no blog folks,

Sorry for the long gap in between blogs. I'm finding it really difficult to keep updating the blog weekly given the academic demands I have in front of me. I have tests out the ying yang as of late. Our DDS class is going home for break on December 9th so from now until then faculty has decided to make it hell for us.

The motivation to get me through the next couple weeks is the thought of rolling into the Saint John airport for sure! I can't wait to get away from this place for a little bit to be quite honest. I'm having a good time and all don't get me wrong but I am just ready to be with my family for a little bit. Ok enough whining I need to give you guys something interesting.

My friend Ben skyped me a week or so ago and surprised me with a printed itinerary for him to come to Poznan during or week break in February. This is exciting for 2 reasons; 1 because I get to show my best friend my digs here in Poznan and 2 because we will undoubtedly be checking out the swiss alps on our snowboards. My financial adviser (dad) wont be too thrilled about this but it will be a once in a lifetime experience and I'll be able to cross it off my bucket list. Very Very Excited!

Next, I'm pretty sure sushi has become my new favorite food. Hard to believe but for some reason I have been having cravings for it ever since I first tried it. Really weird and I can't explain it for the life of me.

I got to take home my tooth models I have been working on for the last several weeks! Check them out below. (Obviously the teeth in Brown wax are the ones I did):

My Mustache:
As mentioned in a previous blog, I have stuck with it and have grown the mustache through the month of November. I absolutely hate it and it annoys the hell out of me. I am hoping now that there is visual proof of the stache that people who see this will donate 5 bucks to my movember.com page: http://mobro.co/scottkennedy29 The proof is below......

 


















Next, I wanted to tell everyone about my Halloween. Myself and 3 others went to a place called the Dark Restaurant. There is 3 of them in the world apparently so it was a big deal to us. The idea behind it is that you walk in and the waiter sits everyone down and asks each person what they don't like or are allergic to. After he gets that info he escorts you into the dining room. The dining room is entirely in pitch black and the waiter uses night vision goggles to navigate you to your seat.....Seriously! We all sat down and can't see anything. They serve you a 3 course meal and the idea behind it is that you eliminate your sense of sight and your other senses of smell, taste and even touch (because you have to use your hands to eat at some points) are heightened. At the end of the meal the waiter takes you back out into the lighted area and he asks you what you think they served you. John and myself had a salad with roasted chicken and some other flavorful thing for our starter. Our main was steak with sesame potatoes with pumpkin. The girls were given a different meal than John and I and their main course was rabbit!!! The going joke of the night was that they ate thumper. Our dessert was chocolate cake with bananas and strawberry sauce. Overall it was a great meal and a really cool experience, only downfall is that it is ridiculously expensive to eat there. So I felt that to be a great alternative to trick-or-treating.

That is really all thats been new and exciting here on my end. Like I said, I have been stupidly busy with school so there hasn't been a lot of time for other things. I will make sure to squeeze in a blog before I take off to go home and will post a final picture of the mustache as well. Don't forget to donate to prostate cancer http://mobro.co/scottkennedy29

Bye for now guys! Thanks for reading. Video blogs to come.....I think.

- Scott

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.

Poland Vs. Canada

Hey all you lovely people,

It has been over a month since I have been here in Poznan and it's still really hard to believe. Things are going pretty well. Real dental classes start this coming Monday and i am looking forward to being busy again. I have had some trouble with the deans office concerning my exemptions for year 1 of the program but we are currently looking into it and I have a meeting this Monday to figure it out. I have been going to the gym quite a bit and finished the first part of my polish class this past Thursday. I have also been trying some different foods at the grocery store. I have become a lot more bold in my eating habits since moving here and having, I realized its time to expand my horizons and try some new things.....The experiment has been questionable at best thus far.

I want to dedicate this post to the major differences I have noticed between Poland and Canada since being here. For those that read this blog and have been here in Poland longer than I have, please correct me of inaccuracies and feel free to add to my list.

1. The first and most salient difference that has affected me the most has been the driving habits. People here in Poznan drive like they are late for their daughters wedding. Walking to class I have almost been hit like 3 or 4 times, while I was in a cross walk. Its just ridiculous how reckless they drive. People in Canada drive with courtesy and pedestrians have the right of way at all times. I love and appreciate Canada so much more because of this.

2. The food. Maybe it is because I'm not used to the food here and I have a bias toward Canadian food but I really dislike a lot of the food here. Keep in mind I have discovered a lot of really good new foods here, but for the most part I dislike it here. The best example I can give is a Twix bar (Chocolate with caramel and cookie inside, no not coconut). One of my favorite chocolate bars in Canada and when I came to Poznan and saw they sold them I was overjoyed. I got home and had one, it was awful. It tasted more salty and the chocolate tasted of a lesser quality. Its tough to explain but it just wasn't the same rich goodness as in Canada :).

3. The people. This is probably me being captain obvious but the people are polar opposite. People here in Poznan rarely say excuse me (przepraszam). If I'm walking on the sidewalk (the sidewalks are only narrow) people will take up the middle of the path making it almost impossible to pass those slow walking people (arrrg thats my pet peave, slow walkers). Most people here do speak enough English to get by but if you find someone who doesn't speak any English I've noticed that they don't even try to talk to you. Like i go up to most people and say "English?" and like I said most of the time I get a positive answer but if the person doesn't speak English they say "No" and turn away or not help you at all. Did anyone pick up on the fact that in this example I just gave the person who says they cannot speak English actually responds in English with "No"? A lot of times people do speak English but they just say they don't. This may be because they feel their English is poor and are self conscious to speak, but it also may be because they just don't want to bother helping you. I haven't decided if i should attribute the experience to the latter or the former.

4. Bars/ Clubs. Poland is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy better than Canada in this department. There is essentially no closing time for bars or clubs here. If people are still dancing and the place is busy it stays open. I have heard some people staying out till 6 in the morning. I obviously am incapable of staying out that late and drinking but my point is that the option is there if I want it.

5. Stores operating hours. Poland again wins in this department. Places are always open here it seems. On Sundays malls are open till 9 as well as grocery stores. It is really much more convenient here I find.

6. Prices of things. This one gets kind of confusing. A lot of things are cheaper here in Poland but certain products are much more expensive here. For example, an iphone here costs about $900 Canadian dollars, but a mens tailored suit (brand name) is only ~$150.00. Services are cheaper here as well. A good haircut is only 8-9 dollars and cabs (if the driver isn't ripping you off) are cheaper.

I am sure there is more and I'm missing things but these are the ones that stand out for sure.

I am really starting to miss home but I'm hanging in there. Miss you Mom, Dad, Lauren and Pat more than you guys can imagine.

Wish me luck for starting classes tomorrow and stay tuned to this blog because I am going to try and start being more creative, I'm thinking next week I might do a top 10 or something. Anyway bye for now. Sending Love to my family!

P.S. Sorry I have no good pictures this week. If some come along I will post them I promise. Here is one pic from a club I went to last night. It is awesome! Probably my favorite club so far in Poznan, Blueberry Bar:

The Days Go By

Hey all,

Just so people know, there is a follow by email thing I added to my blog its right here on the right-----------------------------------------------------------> All you have to do is put in your email and every time I update the blog it will send you an email. No spam, just a notification. Also, I saw the counter for the number of people that have read this blog, 545 views....not bad. Thanks for reading.

Missed a week of not blogging, but really not a whole lot new on my end. Polish is my only obligation right now and its coming along. Basic words and phrases are alright, except when i say them I have a terrible Canadian dialect so its easy to tell I'm foreign. I had my first Polish test last week and got a 95% so I'm getting it a little bit. We have another Polish test coming up this Tuesday so I'm currently studying for that.

I joined a gym here in Poznan so I could be a little bit active. The place is called platinum and it is actually really cool. The guys that run the place are really cool and make you feel like your a part of something. I am going 4-5 times a week and just lifting weights......very light weights obviously. I'm hoping by the time these 4-5 years of school are done I will have a little bit of muscle on me.

I'm still waiting for the verdict from the deans office concerning my request to be admitted into the second year of the DDS program. I am suppose to meet with the dean this week but given the progress on this issue so far I am skeptical of this meeting. Real classes start on September 26th so a decision needs to be made, and it needs to be made fast. I will keep the status of this up to date here on the blog. Keep your fingers crossed.

In other news, I'm starting to become more familiar with Poznan. I have been to every mall (I think) and checked out a couple markets, I've even been to the zoo. I'm starting to look into trips for our break between classes in February. My dream has always been to snowboard in the Swiss Alps so I started looking into resorts in Switzerland. A round trip from Poznan and back is only 150 bucks Canadian. Lift tickets are the most expensive thing, 7 days of riding is about 350 bucks. Accomodations are cheap if it is split between a couple people. So I'm hoping I can get something set in stone in the near future. Snowboarding in the swiss alps.....Tough life eh.

I only have one picture this time around so sorry for the lack of photos. This one was taken when our polish class went to the zoo. These are all dental students in the photo. See if you can spot where I am....It's pretty tough (Sarcasm). Photo credit goes to Markus.

Na Zdrowie to New Friends and People Reading my Blog

Since I have some time on my hands given I'm only taking one class a day I will try to squeeze in my weekly blog. It was brought to my attention that a surprising amount of people (excluding my family members) have been reading this blog anonymously. I think there is a follow button somewhere on this page so please, don't be shy, and follow this. It gives me a reason to actually type up some stuff on here :).

I'm devoting the bulk of this blog to new friends I met here in Poznan. Hopefully this will smooth the bitterness of not mentioning you guys in my earlier blog hahaha. Shout outs to the following people (this goes in no particular order):
John, Annsley and Lilly, thank you guys for being my first friends in Poznan. These kats invited me over to their place the second night I was in the city. We had beers, perogies and made a great friendship I really value. You guys made a foreign city a lot more bearable to me. You guys rock my socks!
Shout out to Monica. Met through John and Anns. Very influential in helping me acquire the taste for wine and finally having a good breakfast. Please remember to shut the front door (it's not that funny :) ).
Shout out to Shay. Had a great dinner at your place with friends. Your hospitality is unmatched my friend. Looking forward to more hang outs and hilarious discussions. Cheers.
Shout out to Kayla. Saw me at my worst but helped me so much in actually coming to Poland. I would not have made it here without you so thank you for the copious amounts of help. You rock. Oh and Ikea was an absolute nightmare so thank you X's a million for helping me there. Mad Props!
Shout out to the British connection of Thomas and Arnold. You guys are hilarious and I wish I had your accents. Hopefully you escape dorms alive and I hope we will be in some classes together. Cheerio gents! (I think thats how the British say it right?)
Shout out to Markus. I swear that before Polish is done I will get a date with you know who. I can't be denied.....I'm Canadian!
Shout out to Sebastian. A young man that has your back. Poland is less sketchy if you're walking with this guy. Stop sweating so much!! (Jokes)
Shout out to Matt our tour guide. Gave a wicked tour and hooked a brother up with internet in the library.
Small shout out to Justyna and your cousin. The small shout out is because you make fun of my charming Canadian Dialect!!! Good night drinking Wine!
Lastly, Shout out to Kev. Thank you for getting me to come here. It has been unreal so far and I really think this is the right decision for me. Big thanks.
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So this past week I have been studying Polish and trying to grasp it the best I can, rearranging the apartment, shopping, banking, looking into stay cards and health insurance and setting up meetings with faculty. I'm still managing to get my weekly dose of entourage and Americas got Talent so I'm rather happy about that. I found an online stream of ESPN to watch in the morning while having my honey nut cheerios so also quite happy about that. Speaking of ESPN, I almost forgot the most important Shout out. Shout out to the Boston Red Sox, the boys are in a tough fight for first in the AL east so my thoughts are with the team everyday. (When the playoffs start I fully intend on watching the games at 3am here BTW)

Everything is great here in Poznan. To my family, I miss you guys so much. I am definitely looking forward to coming home for Christmas and seeing all your beautiful faces again. I will make you guys proud I promise. Know that everything is going great and that I'll be home soon. Love from overseas!

Thats all i have this week. Thanks gang. Oh and Picture credit goes to Anns and John.

The pretty girls of PUMS

First step to acquire the taste of wine