Hos tannlegen

At the dentist.  

Well, I went to the dentist today, as part of one of my molars had sort of fallen apart/off.  It turns out that I have a cavity, which really sucks.  Furthermore, it's pretty deep apparrently (I don't know what good brushing two times a day and flossing does if it can't stop these things!) and he's hoping that he doesn't have to do a root canal.  I happen to be hoping the same thing.  The tooth is still alive, which is a good thing.  So, now I'll just take you through my day so far.  I woke up and watched some NRK while I ate breakfast (I've been eating on one side of my mouth for a couple weeks now) slowly.  Around 9:20 I started heading to the dentist's office which is maybe 10 or 15 minutes away.  Even though my appointment was at 10:00 I did NOT want to be late to get this checked out.  I sat in the waiting room for about 15 minutes reading a newspaper.  I read a few articles in both nynorsk and bokmål, always nice to have variation.  The nynorsk article that I read was about a man who was born in Somalia and lives in Norway, speaks the local dialect and everything, but has problems getting good jobs because of his name.  So at one point he changed his name to Kevin Sander so that he wouldn't get the reactions of telling people his name was Hamse Mohamed.  His mosque took that as an offence, and he eventually changed his name back.  Sometimes people think that his name is Hamsun, which he doesn't mind.  After that article I just read a bunch of music reviews and dropped eaves on a couple of middle-aged people sitting in the waiting room as well.  And I firmly believe that eavesdropping is allowed if it's not your first language (especially if you are inproficient as I am).  I always enjoy hearing the local people talk, as it's unique and different from what I'm used to hearing.  My favorite that I like to share (if I haven't put it on here already, I'm not going to check) is that in school we learn 'hva' (pronounced 'vah' in a very un-IPA format) and 'hvem' (which more or less rhymes with 'aim') for 'what' and 'who' respectively.  In the Bø area these are 'hått' and 'håkkenn'.  Yeah.  So, after eavesdropping and reading, I was finally called in.  I filled out a brief health status sheet, and went in.  I can't remember my dentists name, but he seemed like a pretty nice guy.  Most everything was done in Norwegian, but when he described my next visit he thought he'd better do it in English (I'm not to up on my dental terms in Norsk).  I had x-rays done to start with, then a generall look around my mouth to make sure everything was in order.  It mostly was, except for that tooth that fell apart.  Then I was told to hold on to some sort of device, and touch it to the tooth (he did the guiding); me holding it caused a small electric current and if my tooth was alive I would feel it: I felt it.  Then he told me that next time he would probably try to do a filling, and if worst comes to worse a root canal (praying that that doesn't happen).  So, on friday at 15:00 I go back to find out what's goin down.  I learned a few vocabulary items which I promptly forgot, so maybe next time I'll remember them and share, in case you're in my situation and need some vocab (but chances are the dentist will know enough English).  To be continued.....