"No excuses," said Kyle Maynard, a congenital quadruple amputee and keynote speaker at the ASDA Annual Session that I attended last week. Despite the disability that he was born with, Kyle managed to pave an accomplished live for himself.

I've had the pleasure of conversing with a few applicants who are interviewing/have interviewed at the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC. Naturally, a topic that comes up without fail is "So, how do you feel about PBL?"

Today was the momentous day where I saw my first real live patient (and by that I mean it was my own patient, not a patient that I was assisting an upper classmen on). We got to shoot a full mouth x-ray (FMX) and interpret the radiograph afterwards.

The start of second trimester in dental school has been wonderfully exhausting. Between a full day (8-5) of preclinical courses on Tuesday and Wednesday, problem-based learning (PBL) on Monday and Friday, and ethics on Thursday, we've had a really busy week.

My second trimester of dental school is off to a whirlwind start. It hasn't even been a week yet and I'm already trying to catch my breath and keep up with the multitude of items on my to-do list.