Twitter

Can I just comment on how much Twitter has progressed over the years? Well, obviously since this is my blog I can write what I want within the bounds of common decency so ignore that question and this sentence. What I am trying to say is that Twitter is quickly becoming the new Facebook in terms of silly status updates, or 'tweets' as the twitter people say. No longer are people going to Facebook to write short, meaningless posts about nothing. Now they all flock to Twitter where they can hash-tag (#) and @ people as much as they want. Obviously even Facebook have noticed as they have added the new hash-tag feature. Basically, for all of you who do not know, Facebook updated with a new feature of using hash-tags like they do on Twitter. So you can see I am not just making up random opinions and events like yesterday.

Image Source:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/the-man-who-wants-to-get-kicked-off-twitter-spammer-or-innovator/

I mean I go on Twitter every so often on the iPad and when I share my posts on Twitter I always do a quick scroll through my feed. I generally come across a number of tweets that just make me want to ask "why?" Why would someone tweet something as ordinary as "gotta buy some milk" or "in traffic". Of course, there are the users who tweet links to charities, causes or blogs (the latter including me) among other things that I do not really care about but it is nice to know people are more than just superficial. The worst part is that we, as a society, eat into that sort of stuff. I mean a tweet I saw that literally said "need some more milk #notetoself" had more favorites and re-tweets (who would re-tweet that?) than a post about a cause/charity which was right below it. Even yesterday our Prime Minister (of Australia if your new or not local) Kevin Rudd (@KRuddMP) tweeted a picture of himself after he cut himself shaving. First of all, this somehow made every news bulletin that day (even when I was at the dentist I saw it on the Television). I know, our Prime Minister cutting himself shaving is a hard-hitting news story but did it really need that much attention? Second of all, and following on from before, my Mum since told me "Oh, you Rudd yourself. Be careful" After I cut myself shaving because Dad freaked me out (thanks a lot). At first I was a little shocked that our Prime Minister's name had already become a verb (for cutting yourself shaving no less) after one day and one tweet. Do you see what I mean now? Before Twitter this would have happened on Facebook but since Twitter is the new Facebook (in some respects) this has become a growing concern.

Be careful what you tweet or it might come back to haunt you, see you tomorrow!

No Braces

It is official, I no longer wear braces. I have worn braces since around October of 2011 which means I have had them on for around 18 months which is a very long time. The weird thing is that I was so used to wearing them that my teeth now look weird without them. They sort of look naked and as if something is missing. That was actually the first thing I thought when I saw them for the first time after debanding (the process of removing the braces) and I actually thought something was wrong with my teeth. They just looked weird without the braces. Plus my teeth now feel weird that there isn't anything on them anymore besides the wires they put on behind the teeth to hold them in place after the braces are removed. I swear, my tongue has been touching those wires for so long today that I would not be surprised if the shape of the wires could be seen on my actual tongue.

Image Source: http://katesmartfitness.com/i-wish-id-listened-to-good-advice/perfect-teeth/

The actual appointment for the debanding was at 9:40 this morning and so I went to bed with thoroughly brushed teeth and woke up to brush them some more. I was just really excited to get these braces off after such a long time. We arrived early but went in to the dental room right on 9:40 (talk about punctual). After an hour of intense work (and a bit of pain as they cut down some of the teeth) my braces were finally off and an impression for a retainer to be worn at night was made. Everyone had seen my teeth after the debanding besides me and the first I saw it was in the car on the way home. Do you know how annoying it is for everyone to see something on you that you can not see. It actually is going to have to be something to get used to again and I go back next Tuesday to receive my retainer. I just can not wait to be able to have some more freedom with what I can put in my mouth (within reason of course). No longer will I have to worry about bands restricting the movement of my mouth or the pains keeping me up through the night. Finally I can feel comfort in the fact that I no longer need to wear braces. It feels good.

Good dental hygiene is very important, see you tomorrow!

These Damn Braces

So if you didn't realise it already, I wear braces (as in on the teeth, the person below is obviously not me). Most of the time they are not bad but when they are bad, they are REALLY bad. These bad times are mostly after Dentist checkups where they tighten it and your teeth hurt because they are moving around. Sometimes having braces is something you don't even notice and other times you just want to rip them out of your mouth, literally (and I mean literally).

My braces were actually supposed to come off yesterday but for some reason instead of the front two teeth becoming even closer together in the last month, something pulled them apart and I was left with a gap in my two front teeth. This gap had being growing for the past few days and so when I got to the Dentist the main dentist (who owns the place and does a lot of the work, though there are a lot of people there) who was preparing for the final check-up before de-banding (the process of removing the braces) decided straight away to cancel the de-banding because of it and instead tightened the braces on my top teeth (he left the bottom teeth untightened because they were perfect [of course they were, they're my teeth]) and then I went home. It wasn't until later that night when I was trying to sleep that my top teeth started hurting really badly (I know, great English) and I could not get to sleep at all until 5am in the morning when the pain finally eased. The worst part was we were out of Panadol so I had to just wait it out which meant a lot of tossing and turning. In the end I would have only being lucky to get 2 hours sleep all night and so throughout the day I really felt like doing this.

I don't want to scare people with braces or who are going to get braces because 95% of the time you don't realise the braces are there. It's only when you do notice them that you wish you hadn't because they can hurt. Thankfully the pain has eased off though it is still hard to eat anything hard because it still hurts to bite down with my top teeth. So braces are great most of the time but can hurt a lot when they want to.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!