 Hello everybody, Andrea Maesky here. It's Halloween week as I'm sure you can tell. I don't know. I'm just trying to do something fun. I hope you guys can still concentrate and can still listen to what I'm saying. If you can't let me know, I can totally take off the costume, but I did plan to do it for the whole week just to give you guys something fun and exciting. Since I can't really dress like this at work, even if it wasn't during a pandemic, this would be way too hot, way too much, so it's just kind of fun to do it this way. So let's talk about the portfolio because it is October and as I'm sure many of you have been putting it off, putting it off because you don't know where to start. So let me tell you guys exactly where to start. So you can do one of two things. You can work backwards, which is what I've actually done with my portfolio before. I've had to submit my portfolio twice in my career or you can work forward. So let me talk to you guys about working backwards first because most of you are probably in this situation. Working backwards means you're ready to do your portfolio because you just don't want to do the exam. Taking an exam really stresses you out, so you're going to do your portfolio. Whether you have hours or not, even if you have tons of hours, tons of courses, I doubt you were organized, right? So you probably don't even know the details for more than half of them, so you're going to have to work backwards. And what this means is you need to come up with things that are of interest to you. So for example, let's say you've been doing research or hearing about silver diamine fluoride. I first heard about this a couple of years ago. It has completely changed my dental hygiene practice. So let's say you want to learn about silver diamine fluoride. Well, guess what? You guys now is the time to do it and the good news is you will have tons of things to learn about. There's tons of research, tons of links. Of course, I don't want all of you now to do silver diamine fluoride, but you get the idea. I'm not going to give you guys the exact links, the exact resources anyway. So even if you want to do silver diamine fluoride, go right ahead. But pick something that interests you and then find information on it. That is what working backwards is all about. Whereas working forwards would be you've already planned this out over your three years of what you want your actual goals to be. I doubt a lot of you guys have done it. Let's say you have done it a little bit and let's say you do have your courses mapped out. So let's say you were lucky enough, smart enough to put in your calendar exactly what courses you took. Look at all of those courses and make a goal out of it. So that's called working forward. So you're taking what you already have, but you might not necessarily have goals ready because that's what the portfolio is all about. You need to have goals for your courses, right? And if you don't have anything yet, think of what interests you and then start taking courses. You can take online courses, use the materials and the online portfolio workshop that I do have for you. And just remember to source me as a study group source. That is what people do when they take my online portfolio workshop. I am the study group source self study. I am not I don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm not like a webinar and online course. I'm considered to self study because I'm a dental hygienist talking to you guys right now. So does that make sense? Think, do you want to work forwards or do you want to work backwards? Both will give you a great start to your portfolio. So stay tuned for more videos.