Getting a Filling, and a Few Recent Things.

Pitch-black Teeth

Today I was chatting with a friend, and suddenly we started talking about his dental problems. He’s been really annoyed by toothache lately. He went to a small clinic and found out it was cavities (caries) and it’s already quite serious, requiring a root canal treatment. In short, it seems the damaged pulp needs to be cleaned out. I found it a bit scary; the tooth aches faintly.

My teeth have always puzzled me. Since I was a child, I brushed well every day; why would I still have cavities? Around the time of senior year of high school, there was a tense period when my teeth hurt again. I later went to a clinic and found out it was cavities, and the doctor saw at least 5–7 cavities, so I immediately filled two of them.

That clinic was recommended by a classmate; it has a long history, and my classmate and his father had visited here before, so they’re considered old doctors. Of course the distance is quite far for me, about 60 kilometers. The doctor recommended filling two teeth at a time, not to fill all the cavities at once, because the mouth would stay open and might dislocate, which isn’t good.

So after filling the two most severe teeth that time, I never went back to fill the remaining teeth… even when my parents urged me, I didn’t go, because… I’m lazy; there are too many reasons.

Now for some inexplicable reason my teeth are acting up again. It’s really self-inflicted; I hope the teeth don’t decay completely. This time I will fill them properly. The tooth isn’t painful; it’s a bit sensitive and uncomfortable. I’ve already made an appointment; I’ll go next week. The clinic is closed on Mondays.

80-Kilometer Campus Run

At the start of this school year, they suddenly announced something: from this year, running would be required; I had never encountered this before. For a lazy person like me, the only thing that comforted me about school was that there’s no sun-exposed long runs, nor morning runs. Previously, many of the high schools I studied at had similar requirements; a certain number of kilometers had to be reached each semester.

My physical fitness is actually quite poor. My 1000-meter run time is 5:03 (measured in the first half of this year). In middle school, the 1000m time was usually around 3:30–3:45; in high school I became more exhausted, typically around 4:10 or better. In college I turned into a mess, starting around 5 minutes. The passing mark is 4:30.

Driven by my aversion to running and my urge to slack off, I came up with a relay plan: run 5 kilometers at a time, 6 people, each person runs 2 laps (800 meters) for a total of 4,800 meters, leaving 200 meters to walk, so 80 kilometers would take only 16 days to complete. But the plan sounded good in theory, because the school is close to home; on weekends when I had breaks I would go home, and gradually the mileage fell behind. The teammates who ran together completed 80 kilometers, while I still had 40 kilometers left.

So… I found a stand-in runner… where there’s demand there’s a market. The price of 2 yuan per kilometer is really comforting; 40 kilometers would be 80 yuan. I’ve already handed over my spare phone to the stand-in… Damn running, o(〒﹏〒)o