A Little Bragging

Well, it's that time of year again. The kids win some major awards. Mom graduates again. You know the drill in this house. We're all just a bunch of overachievers.

Hayden

Hayden has become quite an impressive vocalist. We had no idea he had developed this talent until he came to us in the third grade and said, "I'm gonna be in the talent show!" "Oh, really? What's your talent?" "I'm going to sing." "Really? That'll be interesting." And then he belted out this country song (of all things... Let's just say that was totally his own doing) and sounded like a total pro! Since then, he has put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in to honing his craft. We even had a lady in our ward who sings professionally for movies and T.V. approach us to see if we were interested in getting him active in Hollywood for voice-overs, etc.

But the biggest accomplishment to date was his participation in a scholarship program through the Kiwanis Club. Out of all the middle schoolers in all the choirs in all the schools, he placed fifth in the district. It was one of those moments that had me so engrossed, I completely forgot to press record on the camera. The payoff was that I was so enraptured, I was brought to tears by his surprisingly mature voice, but I didn't get to show the world this amazing performance. So during the Spring concert, I made sure I got his solo performance from the "Newsies" medley. He's the little guy with the microphone that disappears as soon as everybody else stands up.

Nathan

Nathan has been in one of the best high school music programs on the planet, in my humble opinion. At his Spring pops concert, the various orchestras played the scores from movies like Harry Potter, Spiderman, Avatar, and Star Wars. We even got visited by Darth Vader and his Imperial Storm Trooper guards. It was awesome! Every one of the upper level orchestras could play professionally. We are sad that Nathan will not have a chance to build on that experience in public school any more. If we could commute him to SAMOHI just for the music program after we move, it would almost be worth it. I don't think there are any orchestra programs at the schools in Santa Rosa. We'll have to look privately if he is to continue fostering this growing talent.

At the last performance, the teachers honored two or three members from each of the orchestra groups. As they announced the winner for the Strings Orchestra (the beginning level group that Nathan is in), the teacher said, "This violinist is such a hard worker. He's the first to open his violin case when he gets to class. He practices at school, at home, everywhere!" And Wayne and I both silently thought to ourselves, "Well, it can't be Nathan." "...And the recipient for outstanding musician is Nathaniel Van Cleave." *applause, applause* ...and then Wayne, in his astonishment shouts an audible, "WHAT?!?" Yeah. We're such good parents. We totally believe in our kids' abilities.

Shana

And as for me, I had a fake graduation last week. It was all the pomp and circumstance of a real graduation, but the kicker here was that I had to go back to work the next day. When I opened my "diploma," it was blank inside. They're holding it ransom for another month and a half of work to ensure that the patients don't suffer while we go through the transition to the incoming class. But it was lots of fun to see all the family and enjoy their amazing support. My mom was crying like she did at my wedding, she was so proud. Chad was cheering so loud, I was considered the most popular graduate by my peers. (People thought I had brought an entire entourage, and 14 spectators was kind of a lot... But really, it was just that Chad is VERY loud! It was hilarious and absolutely made my day.)

Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory to be gluttons. And that was where I got teared up as I looked around the table at my dearest supporters: Wayne, who essentially gave up his career for the advancement of mine, Nathan, who has shared his birthday weekend with me every two or three years as I hog the glory for yet another commencement, and Hayden, who has no memory of his Mom outside of her studies. I recalled going in to a counselor at Palomar College as I approached the time to transfer to a four year university. As she looked at my GPA, she said, "So where do you want to go? Harvard? Stanford? You could pretty much have your pick." When I told her I had a family to consider and was hoping to go on to pediatric dentistry, she changed her tune. "Well, with a family, you can't do that! That's, like, another 10 years of school." But I knew with my cheering section, I could. AND I did it in, like, another 8 years of school. So take that, Mrs. Naysayer Palomar College Counselor Woman. *insert raspberry noise here* So, thanks to these folks (picture below) and a host of other wonderful supporters, I am nearing the end of a decade of higher education.

Woo Hoo!!!

Wayne

While he doesn't get his own graduation or awards ceremony, his biggest achievement is surviving his overachieving family and making all of this possible. I joke and say he is the wind beneath my wings (because he absolutely despises that song), but it's true. I couldn't have done any of this without you. Well, maybe I could have, but my kids would be juvenile delinquents by now. Thank you for keeping them out of jail, kicking their butts when they needed it, and kissing their boo-boos (in a very manly way, of course) when I couldn't. You have spent most of this past decade doing my favorite job, and you've done wonderfully. Our boys are very lucky that they got the chance to be brought up by a very devoted Dad during their formative years. I love you so much, Baby!

The Difference Between B's and V's

I was brought up at the head of the class--Not because I was particularly brainy or gifted, but merely due to my alphabetical circumstance. You see, I was once named Shana Berger... as in second letter in the alphabet Berger... as in, "Sit at the front of the class," "Go to the front of the line" Berger. Due to my short stature, I was also shuffled forward whenever height was the determining factor in student placement. Bottom line: I took a front row seat everywhere I went.


Life placed perpetually at the front of the classroom does something to a person. Sitting in plain view of the teacher, unable to get away with passing notes, dozing off, or daydreaming; unable to mutter anything under one's breath without being heard... It all adds up to a very tightly wound student. Being a B makes one type-A by means of simple classroom logistics.


Enter Wayne Van Cleave: My V-man. I took his name almost sixteen years ago as a matter of fact and didn't have any clue how different life would ever be at this end of the alphabet.

I learned the difference between B's and V's quite plainly in dental school. Our class was set up according to alphabetical order. We spent most of our first year of dental school toiling away in the sim-lab, arranged (of course) alphabetically. The sim-lab was a gigantic room wherein we would work on little rubber heads with plastic teeth to learn the fundamentals of restorative dentistry before they would let us loose on real teeth. The room was so large, I barely got to interact with the B's during the day. I was relegated to the side of the room housed by the students at the END of the alphabet: The V's.


What I learned from my carpool that year (Ballew and Bevens, who sat at the B end of the sim-lab, but remained outliers in the following statements about said B personalities), is that the B end was quite studious and very tightly wound. They took everything super seriously, would haggle over grades, talked endlessly about dentistry, sat silently doing their work, would freak out if something went awry... You get the picture. Many of them sat at the front of the class in lecture, too, and got quite a reputation for shouting out answers and asking endless questions. Bottom line, had I remained a Berger, I would have sat around a number of stress-cases and my perception of dental school may have been completely different.

As for my experiences with the V side of the room: All I can say is PARTAY!!! Our side of the sim-lab was MUCH more relaxed. We blasted "The Final Countdown" before every practical exam, we had weekly potlucks, decorated the walls with Christmas lights, drew faces on our rubber-headed patients, and basically lived in levity and fun (That's right folks. Despite the intense pressures inherent in dental school, I liked it! It was fun!). I thanked Wayne every day for showing me life with the V's.


But tonight I sadly learned I am still a B at heart.



Hayden recently chunked it on a Social Studies exam: 25 out of a possible 100. "Dang it!" I thought. "I'm raising a V! He's living in the end-of-the-alphabet-partay, and now his grades are starting to suck!"


Today, however, he received notification from his teacher that (aside from a smattering of A's and B's) the whole class had sucked it up on that exam. Therefore, he would omit those grades for everyone in the class. He acknowledged that it was kind of a bummer for the kids that had done so well--far above and beyond the rest of the class, but thought it better for all involved to drop the test scores.

For a brief moment, my heart stopped. I stopped chewing my dinner. I tensed up, barely able to breathe. My autonomic nervous system had reverted to my B mentality, which screamed, "NO FAIR! Those kids who got A's deserved them! They worked harder than the rest of those little slackers! Reward them for their efforts!"

The rest of the V slackers at my dinner table laughed at me, and I found myself feeling guilty for dredging up emotions directly related to my front-of-the-classroom-upbringing; emotions that stood in direct opposition to the success of my child on this particular exam. But there I was in all of my raw, type-A, competitive, stress-case B-ness. I guess you could say something along the lines of, "You can take the B out of the front of the classroom, but you can't take the front of the classroom out of the B."

I'll conclude my saga from one end of the alphabet to the other with a simple footnote: Our class valedictorian's name was Yetzer. How do you like them apples, B side?!

Biproducts of Raising Children While Trying To Study A Lot of Random Stuff

I get a lot of questions about how I ever managed to get my biochemistry and DDS degrees while raising kids. First of all, it really doesn't seem that weird to me because I've never really known any different, so I can't really imagine it any other way. Secondly, I am a chronic multitasker.

When I first started back at school and I was still managing apartments to pay the bills, I was considered a full-time employee, a full-time student, and a full-time mom. To illustrate the many hats I had to juggle, I recall an experience that highlighted all the ways I was being stretched:

I was sitting in my office, which happened to be attached to my apartment. It was the first of the month, so there was a lot of traffic coming and going as people came in to pay the rent. I was also trying to study for a midterm exam I had coming up. Hayden was still in diapers, and Nathan was in kindergarten.

So I'm sitting in the office with a biology book on my lap, my shoulder holding a phone to my ear as I was talking to a prospective applicant, another tenant sits waiting on the couch for me to complete my phone conversation, I'm cutting an apple for the boys' afternoon snack with my right hand, Hayden clings to my ankle begging for said snack, and I'm cradling a baby hummingbird in my left hand because Nathan had just rescued it after it had been pushed out of its nest (did I mention I'm a humanitarian, too... *barf*).

I remember that day very vividly because it was my life, personified: Every limb occupied with a different task, trying not to drop the ball in any respect.

Usually, however, life was not so crazy. I actually enjoyed some of my conversations with the boys as they watched me study for various classes about physics, chemistry, and especially anatomy. Sometimes I would even take them to class with me. My boys have both attended lectures at a four year university. Ask them about the time we calculated rotational velocity in physics class. They thought it was a hoot! (They actually did, as the demonstration involved my professor "rotating" a hockey puck through the wall of the auditorium with a formidable slap shot.)

One time, while studying about the brain, Nathan came in and sat next to me as I studied the images carefully, trying to compartmentalize all the various regions and functions of the human "noodle." The cerebellum caught his eye, as its texture and shape look a bit out of the ordinary, comparative to the squiggly grey matter that comprises most of the brain. So I took the time to explain a little bit about it, pointed to its general region on the back of his head, and that was that...

Or so I thought.

Weeks later, as I was helping him wash his hair in the bathtub he points to the same region I had demonstrated to him while conversing about cranial anatomy, and says, "Mommy, don't forget to wash my cerebellum!"

My studies of anatomy were not lost on my (then) three year old Hayden, either. He came to sit with me as I studied about the inner ear. A picture of the cochlea was particularly fascinating to him, as the organ looks like a snail. I explained to him that the cochlea helps us to hear. I then proceeded to explain to him the semi-circular canals, which give us the capability of balancing and, when spun around too much, give us the sensation of dizziness. I figured my toddler was just humoring me, trying to find some time to cuddle with mom, and all the while he was listening to "blah blah blah."

Nope.

Once again, my words came back to me at the oddest of times. Hayden, performing one of his favorite past times, spins himself into oblivion, loses his balance, falls dizzily to the floor, looks up at me and says, "Oh mommy! My cochlea is so messed up!"

So there's proof: Our kids DO listen to us every now and then. You just never know what's going to sink in and make a big impression.

I PASSED THE BOARDS!!!!!

GRADUATION!!!!

After all our fun and games this weekend, all the festivities finally drew to a close on Sunday afternoon... Graduation time!!! For those of you who have not been on the blog in the last couple of days, strap on your seat belts... there are a LOT of posts of late. Bear with me. I am trying to get all of this done before the move on Friday/Saturday.

The Graduation took place at the Masonic Center: 1111 California Street (My lucky number and address growing up is 1111...Cool.)

Rows 11 and 12... What would I ever have done without the hilarity that always seemed to break out at the West side of the Sim Lab?
Proud Papa: The only thing I asked of my brother Scott for my graduation was that he wear his Marine dress blues for my graduation. He was kind of timid about doing so, but I assured him that it would , in no way, steal my thunder. Nobody in the family had gotten the chance to see him all decked out, but the second I saw him walk in, I started tearing up. He looked so great!

Most of the family got to sit across the isle from me. It was great getting to share the ceremony with everyone so close to me.Rob Whiting, Bryce Williams, Dan Witcher, Brian Withers... So glad I was at the end of the alphabet during the sim lab days of first year. These guys were great!
Erik Unger... My sim lab "son." He is the one that started calling me "The Row Mom," and offered me Mother's Day greetings every year. We sat next to each other during the first year, and I will never forget that first day unpacking all of our stuff together. "What's a tanner carver? What's a typodont?" Man, those were the days.
AS SOON as I got in sight of the auditorium, I got all emotional and started crying before I even walked in the door. What a big baby!

Dean Ferillo's speechAt the reception afterwards:Wayne's cousin and one of my best friends: Kelly
All of my siblings: Amy, Scott, and Remy
The whole fam:
With Mom and Chuck
Jeff and Amy. Poor Jeff was struggling with his allergies from all of the leis and flower arrangements at the ceremony. Thanks for enduring all of the suffering on my behalf.Classmates Rhonda Bowen and Alison BarnesTracy and Dan Haws (Mr. Smartypants #2 in the class... who I carpooled with for the past year and had no idea I was in the presence of supergenious! That's what I love about the guys that got Valedictorian and Salutatorian honors: they were humble and unassuming about their talents. Nobody really knew until they were publicly recognized.)

Below that: Haws and Williams. Maybe this will be the 4th generation dental graduate?

That is, if he ever decides to give up his NASCAR career.

Other Stuff We Did This Weekend (that didn't revolve around graduation)

Was there something else happening on Sunday?

Oh yeah! FATHER'S DAY!!! Minor detail...
Here's how we celebrated...

In the morning, I rummaged through 5 or 6 boxes to find the father's day cards I had bought for Wayne. I found the one the boys got him, but mine never surfaced. I did, however, find the anniversary card that had disappeared into the moving chaos on May 29th. That card said everything I wanted to say, so I signed that and added "Happy Father's Day" to the message.

Graduation was very special for me because my dad got to place my hood during the ceremony. That was a pretty special Father's Day moment for both of us.

We also celebrated Wayne's dad. After reading his sisters' beautiful tributes on their blogs and getting all teary and emotional as we reminisced about "the Marlboro Man," we decided to pay tribute another way: By filling our pie-holes with whipped cream in true Dean Van Cleave fashion. I'm sure somewhere, there was a proud Pops smiling down at our antics.

Another fun event this weekend was the annual San Rafael Italian Street Painting Festival. This is my favorite Marin thing to do, and I am so excited we got to see this one last time before we go. Every year, the city repaves the street in front of the downtown Mission San Rafael, and artists from all over the world come to create gorgeous works of art for the weekend on the fresh, black surface. They use pastels, and recreate everything from paintings by the Masters to photographs to original pieces. Additionally, funds raised by selling 2X2 foot squares for art created by kids who attend, go towards the Youth in the Arts organization in the area. This year, Nathan and Hayden got to participate. So here are a bazillion pictures of the festival, which is (I know) total overkill, but it was too hard to decide which ones to include, and I'm too busy to agonize over such things. So sit back and enjoy if you are looking for a cultural experience. This is the only way to see the works of art that were so vibrantly beautiful this weekend, because they were washed down the gutter on Sunday night.

Family Graduation Dinner

The night before graduation, everybody who was visiting from out of town had arrived and we got together for a big family celebration at E & O Trading Company in Larkspur. We had our own little private room (which was a good thing considering how things in my family always degenerate into raucous laughter by the end of the evening). The food was phenomenal and it was so much fun to have everybody together! All of the people who gave me the strength to go forward with this crazy dental school idea were there to help me celebrate. They had such nice things to say during the toast... by the time it was my turn, I was a blubbering, weeping pile of goo and could barely articulate all the many thanks that everyone was so deserving of.

Chuck, my mom, and my sister, all visiting from San Diego.

Kelly lurks in the background of this picture of Amy and Jeff. I am sad and confused that this is the only picture I have of Kelly on this night.But Kelly was definitely there, sitting right next to me throughout the dinner, and gave me this cute stationery that says "From the Desk of Dr. Shana" with a likeness of me in the corner... So cute!

Dad and Net came down from Santa Rosa with Scott (on leave from Virginia) and Remy.My sisters: Amy and Remy, and my beautiful step-mom Jeanette.
Scott with the boys. They had such a great time together that night (one of the reasons the private room was a good idea!)Lynne and Wayno... Yeah, we see you Nate. You're hilarious.

My mom and I looking very much alike, as always. (Though she looks much more put together than me in this picture, as I had just gushed all of my makeup off in a flood of tears.)
And here's where things really started to degenerate (...and by that I mean, the best entertainment of the night!) I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

I love all of you! Thank you for coming to this special weekend!

Alumni Banquet

Every year our school has a fancy shmancy dinner for all of the graduates at the Ritz Carlton. It is by far the most elegant place I have ever stepped foot. Glistening china cabinets and chandeliers twinkled on the walls and ceilings, casting a warm, inviting glow. Fine linens adorned the tables. Scrumptious foods tickled our palates. Delightful company filled the halls. It was an unbelievable evening that I will never forget. We almost didn't attend, but received word that it would be in our best interest to go. I am so glad we did! It turned out to be quite an eventful night. Here are some of the pictures from the evening.

The Dental wives take one last shot together.Here are the folks at our table for the evening: The McDonoughs and the Ences (+Mark's Mom and Dad, not pictured)With the Carpenters (moving down to our old stomping grounds in the barrio of Escondido).The Shelleys (moving to one of my other stomping grounds: Evans,GA. Clint reported for duty in the army the day of graduation! Good luck!)Heidi Ferre (see the post about our dental school adventures in the "Dental Wives Club" post)The Pypers: Musical geniuses and all-around great people. Congrats Kendall on your award. He was honored for his ethics in dental school, and much deserved. He bailed me out on boards and gave me a fantastic patient to do the perio section. Good luck in Oregon.Christine Miller, one of my great instructors and mentors in the community service organization called SCOPE... And Rhonda Bowen. I can't even begin to articulate how much this woman helped me through. She is also a wife and mother (of three gorgeous kids) and another feisty Mormon Mama. We shared lots of good times and bad, and had a standing lunch date every Monday to eat salad and vent. She'll be near where we will ultimately settle down... She in Napa and me in Santa Rosa. I look forward to being your colleague!My classmate and good friend Cynthia Wong with two of our instructors from Group IV: Dudley Cheu and Gitta Rajapour. (I probably butchered the spelling on that.) All were great to work with. And Cynthia was great to have fun with!

Russ Homer and Clint Shelley looking fierce.Vicky Tran: My roommate for Asilomar and an ASDA conference in Phoenix. A great friend and beautiful person. So glad she was there in the sim lab, as we were surrounded by boys.

Here are a couple of those boys: Jake Yetzer and Bryce Williams... Two stellar human beings and freakishly smart! I got to work with these guys a lot, because we were all gunning for specialties, and ended up working on group projects together. Jake even survived a Berger family Thanksgiving during second year. Must've been something we fed him, because he ended up as the valedictorian! Congrats Jake.

Ben Mishler snuggles with Mick Reynolds. We are a very loving bunch at Pacific.

Here they are in a little less affectionate pose with Matt Nielson. I tried to get Matt to snuggle, too, but he wasn't having it. I guess all those years in the bishopric steered him straight.

The girls get down (sorry Bethany, Katie, Christina and Kelti... I sort of snuck up on you in the dark.)