Wrapping up the end of the intensives, I couldn’t help but feel as though it was somewhat of a bittersweet moment. The intensive period this year was hugely beneficial to touch base on where our skills were at post holidays and also revise the knowledge that we all lost the minute we finished exams last year. It was an enjoyable period for me as we got to learn new skills and actually get the opportunity to apply them on each other on the last day. Injecting each other with LA was definitely the highlight of the whole period. I found that wrapping my head around LA on a textbook level wasn’t too challenging but actually applying it to a real life human and being faced with the various obstacles you would realistically find in clinic was an invaluable experience. Although I was quite nervous, I am glad that I took the opportunity to perform my first LA injection on a fellow classmate who is much more forgiving then on a real patient. There were many little things – such as the anaesthetic dripping before even being in the mouth or not hitting bone in an IAN block and having to withdraw and reinsert – that would’ve thrown me in the clinic but I now have a much more hands on experience on dealing with these setbacks. The ‘bitter’ part of bittersweet comes with the realization that the semester is about to begin and the workload (which already seemed like a decent amount) is about to get bigger. I am anxious about having to juggles 3x the workload whilst trying to maintain a glimpse of my life outside university. Nevertheless, I am not alone in this and I’m excited to begin another semester with the friends that I have built a strong relationship with.