Pathway to Dental School (part 2)

Moving to Miami proved tougher than anticipated. Probably because we hadn't actually anticipated it. We drove our air condition-less jeep from Salt Lake to my parents house in Oklahoma in mid August. It was in a word, miserable. We wore our swim suits and bought a hand held fan that you spray water on yourself with. We determined that we simply did not think the jeep would survive the 44 hour trek across the country, so we left it at my parents house and bought a used car from my dad's dealership.

I've always been a big fan of the Wizard of Oz. And i felt much like Dorothy when we arrived in Miami. "Danny, I have a feeling we're not in UT anymore." We started out trying to find housing by frequenting McDonalds (bc they have free wifi) and looking up stuff on craigslist. Upon determining that the majority of posts on craigslist here come from scammers in Africa, and the ones who weren't scammers were in neighborhoods where I was quite confident were the scenes of violent crimes, we felt considerably defeated.

We kept checking in and out of the same hotel-- a hotel where the front desk clerk sets behind a desk that is covered in bullet proof glass (thats how you know your in a sketch area) but at least made friends with the guy after one week of staying there. We would drive around Miami all day looking for "for rent" signs in areas that didn't seem to sketchy. We just weren't having any luck. Everything in safe areas was way out of our price range and everything in our price range seemed markedly sketchy in one way or another.

And on the seventh day the clouds opened up and we found a place to live. And it was magical. Right in our price range, right on the beach, in an amazing neighborhood and it even had a stove. (a lot of places we looked at didn't even have stoves. What the freak) Danny started school, classes were tough. He studied/studies ALL the time. Basically every waking second. Before Christmas break I think he only went to the beach like 3 times... and its right across the street.

We kept wondering if all of this work would pay off. Our greatest fear was that we would have worked so hard at school, have all of these unanticipated student loans, and that it still wouldn't be good enough. We thought our stress level with our first dental application was high... this was way worse. It has been so nice having friends here in our ward going through exactly what we are going through. It's hard to understand the anxiety if you haven't suffered through it.

August and September flew by. October 1st arrived. Then the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th. Still no phone call from Roseman inviting him to a mandatory interview. October was a month on pins and needles. Sometime in the middle of the month, Roseman called and invited Danny! He had his interview towards the end of the month, and then the waiting really began. The soonest we would hear if he was accepted was Dec 1st. November breezed by, Danny was busy studying at school and I was busy working and studying for the LSAT. Nov 31st We got a phone call from Roseman, just not the call we wanted. They wanted Danny to send in his transcripts from the end of the semester which wouldn't be available until January, which meant he wouldn't know if he was accepted or not until at least some time in January. So while everyone else was getting accepted Dec 1st... we still had more waiting to do.

We felt pretty down. Barry's curriculum had been a lot tougher than Danny had anticipated and his grades weren't right where he wanted them. He was worried that his transcipt wouldn't impress Roseman enough. So our anxiety was high, but we hadn't given up hope. So the next round of acceptances would go out sometime in mid January, we would just have to hold out until then.

In mid January we got yet another phone call from Roseman, surely a phone call meant they were accepting him! Rejections come by form of letter. We would know, we've had many. But alas, the phone call was another request-- this time for two new letters of recommendation from Dannys professors at Barry. It felt like a punch in the stomach in some ways. At least they hadn't said no... but letters of recommendation can be tricky things to get out of professors who have 1000 other students requesting the very same thing.

Amazingly, two of Danny's professors agreed. One even had it done the very same day. The other one did it within a few days. We were so grateful because some classmates of Danny's have been waiting on their letters from their teachers for months now. We submitted the letters and assumed we would hear something maybe in late Febuary or early March.

The next morning, I went with Danny to campus so I could study for the LSAT (our airconditioning had broken and it was way too hot in our apartment to concentrate). He went into class, and I sat in some chairs just outside it to study. The class had a break, and Danny came out but was looking through his phone. He said nothing to me. I thought that was weird and just kept staring at him while his classmates were all out of the class talking. His face went pretty serious and he bee lined towards the doors to go outside. I just kept staring. I waited for what felt like hours. Finally he came back through the doors with his face all flushed and the biggest grin you can extract from his face. Also he was holding a thumbs up.

I stood up. I instantly started bawling despite all the people around. I wanted to like scream and jump up and down but had to contain myself. Everyone was looking at us. We just hugged tightly and then I felt awkward with everyone looking so I suggested we take it outside where we continued to hug and jump up and down and freak out.

We can't believe the application process is over! It's been going on ever since I've known Danny, and I am HAPPY to announce that it has come to an end, and my husby is IN dental school! I'm so proud of Danny for perservering through all of that madness and never giving up on his dream. He has a real fear of rejection, so for him to continously subject himself to rejection, thrice over, was a real feat. He could easily have  gotten a job with his byu's business degree instead of sticking out the process, but he had a dream and a goal and he went for it and he did it and all of his hard work paid off.

The end. That was really long so if you read the whole thing you get a high five.