magnetonic

so i went back on saturday, to the dentist's. that morning a corner of my tooth broke off. quite disturbing. i think the minty-fresh stuff that was there before was just there to stop the bleeding, etc.

they carved it out and proceeded to probe down to the roots of my tooth with some heinous pointy metal thing attached to a machine that beeped when - i think - it came close to a nerve. he did that for a while, taking turns with shoving another long metal screwy thing down two holes he must have made until it hit my nerves, causing me great pain of a quality that i never seen.

as he wrenched the metal pipes out of my tooth, he would call out measurements to the assistant. i think they are going to give me a root canal.

why? i've been reading. i'm getting a crown. since my tooth has very little structure left, and virtually no pulp, i need to support the crown with a post or posts. so unfortunately, i think that a root canal is on the menu.

the menu is quite pricey: W350,000 for a gold/ceramic crown, plus W70,000 - 150,000 for the root canal/post.

i've been trying to find an equivalent fee schedule for a toronto/canadian dentist, and the closest i've found is CA$1000 for a crown and CA$350 for a post.

so not only my tooth hurts.

Posted by f r e d at 12:49 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (3)

after years and years of rarely flossing, using the same toothbrush for much much longer than the recommended length of time, but never really having any problems aside from the TMJ which is more of a jaw problem, and not having my wisdom teeth pulled, i have finally got something wrong with my chompers.

a few months ago, one of my students asked me what was wrong with my tooth, as there was a small pink spot on it. i said i didn't know, and since i didn't have a mirror there, i couldn't see it, and i promptly forgot about it. then my friend told me about it, and i took a look. there was a small discolouration on my bottom, left, frontmost tooth. i tried to scrape it off with my nail, but that didn't work. it didn't hurt, so i left it.

the small dicolouration slowly grew into a big discolouration. i thought about going to the dentist to have it looked at, but i don't really like thinking about going to the dentist, and i like going to the dentist far less than i like thinking about going to the dentist, so i decided against it.

today, as i was eating my lunch - tofu, rice, soup, and dinosaur-shaped breaded chicken thingys - i could feel something funny in the back of my tooth, the one with the large discolouration. it felt like acid was leaking out of my dinosaur and into my tooth.

i flicked it with my tongue and sure enough, acid was leaking out of my tongue, too. i decided then and there that i might start thinking about going to the dentist. i went to the washroom where i looked into the mirror only to see blood seeping from between my teeth. i flicked some more and a little bit of what i can only assume was tooth got stuck to my tongue. i took it out and it was hard and white.

i decided then and there and i would go to the dentist.

of course, from 12:30 to 2:00 is pretty much every dentist's lunch break, so i hung out at school for a bit. my friends proceeded to make fun of me, saying that i'd come back with a gold crown, or that i should get the apple logo put on my fake tooth.

at the dentist's office, i was examined by a technician-type girl, who also x-rayed me. i sat down in the chair to await the dentist, and the tech-girl plopped the biggest needle i have ever seen in my life on the extendible counter beside me. it was of the big fuck-off stainless steel type that takes glass cartidges. then she dropped about six more giant needles beside the first one.

when he finally shot the anaesthesia in to my tooth, it was the most disgusting horrible pain i have ever felt in my 27 years (28 korean). fortunately it receded, though some of the anaesthesia leaked into my mouth leaving the tip of my tongue and throat a bit numb. i was afraid it would hinder my breathing, but luckily it only hindered my swallowing.

i sat there, numb, waiting for the dentist to come back from another patient. he returned and proceeded to dremel my tooth. luckily for me, i could only feel the vibrations and see the spray of liquid and tooth bits flying out of my mouth. i closed my eyes.

it was less intimidating not being able to see what heinous tools he was plunging into my mouth. i couldn't understand his korean either, so that probably helped too. 'pass me the medium three-pronged excavation pick-axe.'

i have to say that it was pretty quick service, and cheap to boot. only W6300 for the whole thing which is 50% of the full price. so even without my insurance, it would still be less than CA$20.

i now have a minty-fresh white concrete structure where the insides of my tooth used to be. i have to go back on saturday. and again after that. i'm on my way to getting a crown, whatever that is.

as long as it's blindingly shiny and gold, i don't care.

Posted by f r e d at 9:37 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (2)

i did not get in to OISE/UT (teacher's college).

yah, i know i should have applied elsewhere as well, but it's just too late now, isn't it?

Posted by f r e d at 12:24 AM in grind | Permalink | Comments (6)

i actually have been busy, really.

my new classes took some getting used to, as A) i started using a new set of texts which i'd never used before, so i had to figure out what the fuss was about; B) pretty much all of my students are low, which means they are either slow learners, idiots, or beginners. i can't say what the ratio of those three qualities are in each student, all i know is that i can hardly talk to them, most of them can't read, and some of them i firmly believe have heads full of chestnuts or something.

i was for the majority of march under my contracted course load, which meant i worked about four hours less each week, but was getting paid my regular salary. this made it less annoying to have all those new idiot classes, and i was quite happy about not working a lot and making money for not working. of course, it would not last, and i was given a new class, mon/wed/fri at 5:00, which really annoys me, as i now have to be at school from 9:40 until 6:20 every single day. i do have a 2.5-hour lunch break in there, but still.

and in other news, i've bought another bicycle. i keep it inside. this saves me lots of stress. it was quite cheaper than the other one (cf. W85,000 from 140,000), and is not so girly. i had a major issue with the seat post, as it was way too short, but i got a new one and now i'm fine and my buttocks do not hurt as much. the gears suck though, as the gear-changing mechanism is quite analog so it is hard to change gears quickly and simultaneously accurately.

today i messed up my computer somehow. i was trying to fix my external firewire hard-drive, but the boot cd would not have it, mac os 9 wasn't up for it either, and the disk itself was pretty much kaput. when i gave up on it and tried to reboot, all i got was a flashing question mark, which to me is as informative as a non-flashing question mark. since my computer was down, i could not go on the internet to find a solution. in hindsight, i should have just gone to a pc 방 but i wasn't that smart at the time. so i tried to do some mojo on the internal hard-disk, which had most of my life on it, trying to get it to boot. in a fit of frustration and fear that i would lose all of my data, i went out the the local electronics mall (on my bike of course) and purchased a samsung 80gb hard-drive for W132,000 (about CA$150). i promptly installed a fresh copy of mac os x on the external drive, went on the internet to find out how i could fix the flashing question mark problem, and soon ascertained that it was really very easy and that i didn't actually need to buy the hard-drive.

but having an extra 80 gigs is sweet, because previously, i was running out of space and could hardly download a movie without having to do random house-cleaning of junk.

other than that, i hope that all of my april fool's day victims had as good a laugh as i did.

Posted by f r e d at 3:44 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (2)