Week 14 - Good Food, Black Friday Madness and a Snowstorm.

Monday November 24th

Today I got up early to do some last minute cramming for my Wildlife Phys exam which went well! Today we also got back our Vertebrate exam results for both the lecture and lab! I got 88% in the lecture and 86% in the lab exam! So close to getting an A (1.1), massive improvement so far for that class! We don't have our cat labs anymore but we had our individual group meetings on our bird projects, ours being Perch Compliance. Sadie, Nathan, Fiona and I all gathered in Bret's office with Kris and constructed some graphs for our papers and presentations that we have to give to the class. Pretty cool!
This evening wasn't anything all that exciting, I read through some more papers before I can start my habitat paper. Fiona and I watched All Dogs Go To Heaven and then we played the David Attenborough Galapagos Islands documentaries in the background while we did some work. I ended up giving up on the work and just watching the documentaries because I LOVE David Attenborough. Tonight, I watched Pitch Perfect which finished up about 1.30am, so worth it!


Tuesday November 25th

 Today is the last official day of classes. Any class I have from here on out is just a review class. This evening I spent reading some more scientific papers for my habitat paper I have yet to start to write. Basically had a lazy day today, I'm exhausted I just took the evening off. Myself, Fiona and Eoghan went to Walmart, Dollar Store and Albertsons to get ingredients for the food we would be making for Thanksgiving. Fiona and I also watched a documentary on Snow Leopards this evening as part of her habitat assignment.


Wednesday November 26th
Student Travel Day - Start of Thanksgiving Break.

Got up nice and early and FINALLY started writing my habitat issue paper! I basically got the whole thing done as well today which was pretty impressive. I had read all the papers I needed to in order to get it done and I knew what I wanted from each one. It's only six pages long including references so it's not a lot to complain about but I've done so much CA (continuous assessment) for that class it's just getting really old at this stage.. Kate and James came over roughly 7pm and we all started our preparations for what we were making for dinner. Fiona started chopping her veg and marinating them, I made queen cakes for my Missoula family, Kate made her mixture for the Yorkshire puddings and James made his caramel slices. I was supposed to make the stuffing this evening but I forgot ... We decided to watch a 'horror' movie called Beneath, about a bunch of miners who ran into a bit of bad luck and everyone ended up being killed. Not entirely scary if I'm honest :/

The only picture I took preparations evening - the vegetables for roasting :)

 


Thursday November 27th - (3 weeks until I'm going to be at home!)


Happy Thanksgiving!!

So Fiona and I both got up at 9am and we had the Turkey put on at 10am for a nice slow cook. It was wrapped up in plenty of bacon! I made my Mom's potato stuffing and also another type of stuffing. The kitchen got a thorough cleaning today and Elliot came over and did our hoovering for us - yay! We borrowed stools, plates, forks and knives from Dave and Elliot also. Eoghan made the mashed potatoes for us, he was going to the judges house for dinner so we kept his for him. Fiona and I had the dinner ready for 3pm but we had to try and keep everything warm because Kate was having a problem with the Yorkshire puddings - they wern't turning out as she had hoped!

Elliot doing our hoovering :)

Tessa the beautiful Turkey wrapped up in baconnnn <3

Dave's delicious fruit bowl!

 Dave prepared a fruit bowl for our starter which was lovely! I tried new fruit too which is a pretty big step for me hahaha. We got seated down to dinner at 4pm and holy crap was it nice! I had made the gravy as well and there wasn't anything at all that I could fault in the dinner. Everyone was so completely stuffed that we just couldn't move. Kate and Elliot did the washing up whilst Dave cleaned down the counter tops. We all let our food settle before digging into the delicious caramel slices that James had made! We put Netflix on and decided to watch Hey Arnold! the movie. I had never seen it and had loved the cartoon as a child so we all just sat/lay in silence and watched it while we digested our well deserved food babies.

Our incredible Thanksgiving dinner.

Thankful for this lot making my time here so much better :)

James' gorgeous caramel slices!

 At about 6.30 I dropped Kate and James back to campus and Dave and I went to visit my Missoula family. They were sitting down to dinner later then they had planned so we chilled out at the table with them having the chats and whatnot. We had dessert which was a gorgeous apple pie and the queencakes which I had made. Afterwards we played a game of Catchphrase - which is essentially like pictionary but you can talk and lead them with as many clues without saying the word. Pretty fun game!!


I got home and was chilling out with Fiona when I got this sudden notion that we should go and check out some Black Friday deals. I text Elliot, Kate and James and we first headed out to Walmart and bought a few bits and pieces out there - taking advantage of the deals! Dave said he was at the mall and a lot of the shops would be open all night so we got to the mall at roughly 1 am - did some shopping and eventually got home at about 2.30 am. There was some incredible deals going on and I bought a new aeropostale tracksuit for $12 yayay!

Just a couple of eejits messing about in Walmart.

Wearing camo and hunter orange to try and fit in ... It's not working :/

Friday November 28th


So I had planned to sleep in until 12 pm today but I'm so used to getting up early I just woke at 10 am (yes that is early). Slowly got out of bed, put my clothes for a wash and began tightening the loose ends on my habitat review paper. I worked on my blog because I kind of neglected it a bit this week too. I also started and finished my presentation to go alongside the paper. Preparing all the animations and how each slide was going to look and function wasn't fun I ended up getting a massive headache and retreated to my bedroom in darkness for a while in the hope it would disappear. It didn't and I ended up taking a tablet to try and help - it did eventually but not entirely.
Elliot called over tonight and we watched The Late Late Toy Show. The yearly tv programme that every household in Ireland tunes into a few weeks before Christmas.


Saturday November 29th


So I eventually woke up at 12pm today. Got the best sleep ever in the last few weeks! The weather was so absolutely gorgeous out that we decided to take a spontaneous trip to the National Bison Range (again). Once we got out of Missoula we had some very light snowfall, which soon turned out to be a lot heavier than we thought. We got to the bison range and the snow was falling a lot heavier again! We drove I'd say about 2 minutes into the drive and a car passed us by, I waved them down and asked if they saw any animals, all they saw was a herd of White Tailed Deer (we had already seen one at the entrance). So I made the decision to turn around and try and head for home. I have never ever driven in the snow before, we turned out of the bison range and eventually got back onto the main road home. I slowly turned out onto the road and my car started sliding side to side and wouldn't move - fantastic. Being honest, I was kind of shitting my pants cause I didn't just have myself in the car but Fiona, Kate and James too. They helped me keep my cool and we eventually started making our way very slowly home. I think I probably pissed off a few drivers, who were driving at the normal speed limit (anywhere from 50-70 m/hr) there was no way in hell I was going to be going that fast!

My baby with the National Bison Range signpost and lots of snow :D

So the snow is so bad, we couldn't see anything.

We eventually made it back to Missoula and there wasn't really any snow on the roads here! (compared to what we had just been through). We decided we would go out to Applebee's tonight for dinner and it was amazing. I got the Triple Bacon Burger and then for dessert I got a brownie and vanilla ice cream :). It was really nice! By the time we had finished up, it had snowed pretty heavily here in Missoula. We slowly made our way back home with my car sliding every now and again on a slippery patch of road. But nevertheless, I got everyone home safe and sound and I have decided I already hate driving in the snow -_-

My triple bacon burger and chips :D

Sunday November 30th

Okay, so this is the last day of November, really?!

Got up early today, I wanted to do some practice on my presentation. I should really start my other paper but in my logic, I was able to bash out a whole paper in a day, I can do the same next week for my other one! I FaceTimed Mom and Aisling for a while and then I finally got to have a catch up with Av, although neither of us had any news for each other hahaha. Got practicing my presentation again, we have to aim to speak for 12 minutes and leave time afterwards for questions and also for the next person to prepare their presentation also.
Fiona and I had some food to get, and I also had to get more de-icer and a hairbrush so we started defrosting the car. This took the bones of twenty minutes, scraping off all the snow, cleaning the wipers, the windows, defrosting the door handles, clearing my lights free of frozen snow, taking lumps of snow off the mudguards of the car too. Gah I'm never going to get used to this winter crap. We eventually got to Walmart, a lot of the road had not really been salted or anything so it was a case of slow and steady wins the race or my car will slide and have a domino affect on other cars, hahaha. We got all our bits and pieces and got home. I unpacked and started cooking dinner, I'm not buying any more food, trying to use up what's left here in the house seeing as I've only got two weeks left in the apartment before I leave for New York :D :D Nothing interesting happened today, kept practicing over my presentation and I wrote out a few index cards - which I have to perfect tomorrow. Productive day I think ?!




So guys, thanks for reading this weeks post! We're really starting to get a taste of Montana winter at the moment (although it's really not that cold - yes -12C is not considered cold here). I have an extremely busy two weeks ahead of me so what I think I'm going to do is mush the next two weeks into one blog post and put that up in two weeks from today. These next two weeks are literally just going to be me studying and working on papers and presentations so 1) I'm not going to be doing anything fun at all just working away at stuff and 2) I want all the time in the world for studying, need to bring my grades up in order to try and get some 1.1's going!!
So I don't want to bore you with all the details of me studying and writing papers and presentations, but after the two weeks I'll do one bumper post which will be my last before the Christmas break! I head to New York first and then back home to Ireland for a full month!! (It'll be 6.5 months since I've been at home, can you tell I'm excited?!)

So thank you very much again for taking the time to read my blog, it's appreciated :)
See you back here again in two weeks! :)

- Shannen.

Week 13 - Grizzlies vs Bobcats!

Monday November 17th

Woke up early and went to college at 9.30am to get my football ticket for this weekends football game. It's University of Montana vs Montana State, the biggest football game of the year! The rivalry is something else! Reminds me of UCC and CIT except it's a little more extreme here :/ Got my ticket and then I chilled out studying in the UC before heading to my Physiological Ecology class where we're learning about stress, which is SO interesting. We're learning about all the hormones that are secreted in response to stress and why this is so. Love this class way too much I'm going to be disappointed when it's over. Creagh also told us that on Dec 1st, she'll have our class average computed and if we have an A, we don't have to talk the final exam. If we have a low B, she also said there isn't much point, but if we're sitting between two grades she would recommend taking it as it always boosts peoples grades - which is pretty cool! We had our Vertebrate class which we moved onto feeding and digestion.
After this we had our lab which wasn't too bad, well when I say that, it didn't go as badly as the last one (I think). We'll have to wait and see!! This evening we got some of our Thanksgiving dinner food and watched Frozen to cheer ourselves up after our exam.


Tuesday November 18th

For our habitat class today our TA Charlie gave the lecture on habitat selection because the week before he successfully defended his masters. Today was Siobhan's birthday, so Fiona and I got her an oreo birthday cake and we all went over to her apartment and surprised her at her door singing happy birthday. We chilled out here for a while and then Fiona, Kate, James and I went to McDonalds and hung out here for about an hour just chatting and arsing around looking for something to do. It's nice to have an evening off with no work to do, even though I have tonnes I could be doing.

Siobhan's Oreo Birthday Cake!

Wednesday November 19th

In my Wildlife Phys class today, our TA Devin talked to us about his masters work which is studying the effects of backcountry aviation on White Tailed Deer. Incredibly cool research work and he's looking for Undergrads to help him with his work also, which is something I could possibly be interested in but I'm not entirely sure. Got home about 2.45ish and put my washing on, took an hour of just sitting down on the couch doing nothing which was lovely. This evening went back to reading scientific journals for my paper I have due the 2nd of December, so much research to do for it it's crazy. Rechecked my Grant Proposal Application that's due for tomorrow and I printed that out to hand in as well as gathering up all the drafts and peer reviews to hand them all in tomorrow. Nothing too exciting :)


Thursday November 20th

 So I went in for my only class of the day at 12pm, with all my grant stuff to hand in. Which we did in the first 10minutes of class after some chats about our papers and presentations. We were informed we were supposed to have a guest speaker today but he didn't show up, so we chatted for a small while and then they let us go home. I did some more research into my paper this afternoon. I also went and took a small nap because I wouldn't be getting home until 2am roughly tonight. We left at 9.30pm for Mockingjay Part 1 which was on at 11pm. We got there at roughly 10pm, got our popcorn and drinks and we joined the line which had about 40 people in front of us already and the movie wasn't starting for another hour! So the movie was absolutely incredible! I was on edge the whole night long (I haven't read the books so I NEED to get them.)

Myself, Fiona, Kate and James all excited for Mockingjay Part 1!!

Coke and Popcorn at The Big D (that's the name of the part of the cinema we were in, I shit you not).

Friday November 21st

Only had one class today, didn't have our usual 4 1/2 hour lab cause it's our individual groups working on our data for our birds now. Instead, Fiona, Siobhan, Desiree and I went shopping this evening. We first went to Southgate Mall, I only got two pairs of leggings in JCPennys here, nothing major. We then went out to North Reserve and first went to TJmaxx and a shop called Ross. Ross is a shop where you can get brand names at discounted prices. I didn't need to buy any clothes but I did get a good gearbag which will be handy for travelling and overnight stays for field trips and such besides trying to squeeze everything into my schoolbag (which has probably seen better days). The movie If I Stay was being played in the UC on campus tonight so we got our tickets ($3) and our $1 Fanta. Brilliant movie, it's such a brilliant movie! Loads of people were crying, I was pretty close to it but I fought it back - didn't want to come out of the place with red puffy eyes.




Saturday November 22nd

So today is Cat/Griz day! Or Griz/Cat day. I don't know if there's a right or wrong way. I did a bit of study this afternoon for my exam Monday. We went into the game for half time, only because the football games go on forever and I needed to get some study in and Fiona had an assignment to do. We got to the game and Grizzlies were winning. The Montana State Bobcats didn't score until the last few minutes of the 4th quarter. The final score was 34-7 to the Griz. They eventually let the students onto the pitch after the game. We got pictures with two of the players and when they were taking a group picture, I asked could I hop into the middle of them for a picture and they said yeah, so I got in and hopped back out in a few seconds and got a pretty cool picture with them! We stayed on the pitch for a while before hopping on the bus home. I had some dinner and then got into my study again straight away, going by the complex terms we were given, I can't remember a lot of the stuff so I have a lot of work to be doing.

I got to try on this guys helmet :P From left to right: Desiree, Me, No. 69 for Griz, Fiona and Kate.

So when they were taking a group photo, I asked could I hop in and they said yes, hehehehe.

My International Family and I at the game :)

Sunday November 23rd

 Got up at 9.30 this morning, I was meeting Taylor and Sofia for a group study session in the library this morning. I got there at roughly 11am, Sofia was sick so she didn't join us. We ran through all the complex concepts and went through all the lecture slides getting a good amount of work done. Came back home and did some more study and cleaned my room (procrastination at its finest). Elliot, Eoghan and I headed out to Walmart to get some bits and pieces. Came back and yet again, tried to do some more study. I wasn't getting too much done, my mind isn't with it right now. After this exam tomorrow, I will have 1 1/2 weeks of no exams!! This hasn't happened in a long time. Tonight, we also had a pretty heavy snowfall which was incredible! It wasn't really sticking to the ground but it's apparently very weird that we haven't got any proper snow yet. But also, after Christmas time (January) we're supposed to get a lot more snow!!



So guys, an uneventful week really apart from the football game. Sorry I'm not doing anything incredibly interesting lately, there may be a day trip over Thanksgiving but we can't make any promises. We all have so much work to be doing we can't set anything in stone just yet.
Thanks again for reading!

- Shannen.

Week 12 - Jesus Christ Fintan, It's Cold Out.

Monday November 10th


So last night we had our first snow fall, so naturally this morning when I woke up it was FREEZING. I'm talking -16C freezing. I hate the cold..
Today I had my usual classes and we had a review lab for our Vertebrate Design and Evolution lab. Kris went through the different systems we wanted her to, and I recorded her going through them, I've found this helps me out a lot better with memorizing the different parts of the cat. We had thought about going bowling again tonight but Dave and Elliot said they had too much work to be doing so we didn't bother. Instead, I started and finished my annotated bibliography that's due for Thursday, while watching Men in Black, I believe it may have been the 3rd one? I don't even know, I'm not a fan of those movies.

First snowfall on campus.

Tuesday November 11th

So today is Veteran's Day, a Federal Holiday over here, so therefore, we have no classes. I FaceTimed Mom and Dad this morning and Dad said I should probably get de-icer and an ice scraper for the car. So Fiona and I did some study and then we left for Walmart. Only, we couldn't leave. The doors of my car has frozen shut!! We went in and out of the apartment with hot water trying to defrost the door handles and the doors themselves and then we gently opened all the doors and the boot. While out at Walmart, I got two large tubs of Vaseline so I could put this on the rubber of all the doors to hopefully make it easier the next time we have to hop into the car. While we were out, we went to Best Buy to buy ink for our printer and I also got Rocky and Patch some Christmas presents in Petsmart. I got Rocky a name tag for his collar with his name on the front, and on the back I have my name, address and home phone number. It's so incredibly cute I'm getting one for Patch as well. I also went to Target to get the de-icer and when I was there I was looking around the $1-3 section and found the cutest little Santa outfit ($3) for dogs, so naturally, I got it! It was way too cute to leave behind!
We got home and I spent my evening studying for my Vertebrate Design and Evolution class exam that we have tomorrow. These exams are never ending, over the next three weeks I have an exam each week, assignments to do and also two papers to work on. I can't even start one yet because we were not able to get all the results back last Friday.

Rocky's new nametag and collar :)

Wednesday November 12th


So I got up nice and early this morning to continue with my studying for the exam today. I skipped my Wildlife Physiological Ecology class to get an extra hour of study in. I can't risk messing this exam up because I didn't do too great on the last one. We had the exam at 1pm and I was out by 2pm. It didn't go all that badly, there was some questions I was a little bit iffy on but it didn't go terribly! And Bret also allowed us to skip one question we were not sure on, and we would get full credit for it - saving my ass a little bit!! Got home and FaceTimed Mom and Dad, and my sister for a while. Mom and Dad were asking how I was coping with the cold - I told them it's so damn cold here that the polar bears will be moving in soon! (-16 C) Supernaturals 200th episode was out yesterday and it was AMAZING. So amazing, I watched it again today! It was completely dedicated to the fans, it was brilliant. Spent the evening working on my blog a little bit, watching TV and reading some scientific journals for one of the papers I have to write. Always fun -_-


Thursday November 13th


So today we handed back our Grant Proposals and got back the corrected ones from members of our class. I didn't thankfully get any negative comments just have to change things around a little bit and maybe change my wording a little bit also. I fell asleep this evening for a while too, the last week and a half of constant work caught up on me a little bit and I just passed out on my bed until Fiona rang me. So Kate and James called over this evening and we watched the first Hunger Games, in preparation for Mockingjay part 1 next week :D SO exciteddddd!! This weekend we also plan to watch Catching Fire so we'll all be up to date on the happenings in time.




Friday November 14th


I just had my Physiology class today, which we got 1 point extra credit for turning up to it! That now brings my last exam up to an A so I'm quite happy with that. We have no cat lab this afternoon so I headed home and was meeting Fiona and Eoghan to go out to North Reserve Street cause we had a few bits and pieces to get. We went to Petsmart and got Patch his nametag and Fiona got one for her dog, Mya. We then went to Walmart and did food shopping and Fiona got herself a haircut. We got back, I worked on my blog and then made a start on an assignment that's due for next week as well as reading a few more scientific journals for my paper. All work and no play for the moment!

Patch's nametag :)

Saturday November 15th

So this morning we had an open lab for our Vertebrate Design class. A lab on a Saturday, who would have thought?! We were in from 11 until 2.30pm. studying our cats. Joe and Taylor also came in and soon enough Elliot and then Evan came in also. Fiona, Taylor and I put in some quality study into the circulatory system in the cat so hopefully we'll know it well enough for our exam Monday. I have a lot of work to go into that class to hopefully bring my grade up a little bit.
We got home and made lunch and put in some more study again a little bit. We're making Irish stew today for Elliot, Dave, Siobhan and Eoghan. I just happened to look up a recipe and saw that it takes over two hours to cook with half an hour roughly to prepare the vegetables and the potatoes. So we began our preparations. Eoghan wasn't able to make it this evening so he's coming over for his tomorrow. Preparing and cooking the dinner took longer than we expected but it turned out absolutely AMAZING. Everyone was stuffed afterwards, and Dave and Desiree had brought ice cream for dessert so we all helped ourselves and then once James and Kate arrived around 8pm ish we sat down to watch The Hunger Games, Catching Fire. Again, in preparation for next week :D Yay too excited!! Got to bed at like 1.30am and as soon as I hit the pillow I was asleep.

Stew preparations!

The finished product :D

Family meal :)

 Sunday November 16th

So today was spent studying for my exam tomorrow. I couldn't get in the right frame of mind for it and kept getting distracted  by absolutely anything. I started organizing my room / cleaning it out / de-cluttering. I found my sunglasses that have been missing since September, but how they ended up in the back of my wardrobe is beyond me! Makes no sense :/ I settled back down and did some more study, and then Eoghan called to have his stew we had kept for him from yesterday and we also gave him back his pot. Back to study again. Showered as another distraction and then again, back to study. I'm feeling a lot more prepared for this exam so I'm hoping it's going to go well!

A photo of the icicles that formed outside my bedroom window :)

So this week has been a lot of the same stuff. Except it's FAR colder. Having to de-ice my car whenever I need to go somewhere and wrap up extremely well, cause if you don't you'll literally freeze. And what's even worse - apparently it's not even cold according to the Montanans. Yay. So next week, is much of the same! Finals week is approaching fast and our workload isn't easing off any bit with papers and whatnot due in shortly so I'm afraid I don't have any extraordinarily exciting posts coming up.

Thanks for reading!

- Shannen.

Week 11 - Bambi, is that you?!

 WARNING: This weekend I volunteered at the Hunter Check Stations in Darby, MT, as part of one of my classes. The animals posted in the pictures have been killed, but there isn't any blood in the pictures. If you don't want to see these please don't read my posts for Saturday and Sunday.


Monday November 3rd


Today we had to discuss our assignments that we did over the weekend. I was in the first half of the alphabet so I had to do the assignment on the relative brain size on dinosaurs, while the others in the class got to do the assignment on the Irish Elk and it's antler size. We had our Vertebrate class where we discovered our next exam is this Wednesday week. It seems to be never ending with exams and assignments here. In our vertebrate lab we were looking at the respiration and digestive systems of our cats today. Kris also told us that we could cut up whatever organs we wanted to, which got me excited! We looked at the kidney, liver, spleen, stomach and small intestine! As well as finding everything else we needed to of course!

The insides of a Kidney, pretty damn cool yeah?!

This evening a group of us went bowling in Five Valley Bowling Centre, we had decided last week we were going to go. On Mondays they do $1 bowling and they charge $2 for shoe rentals. So we played 3 games of bowling and got it all for only $5! How class is that?! It was a great night! I won the first round, lost the second round by 2 or 3 points and in the 3rd round I taught Fiona how to bowl properly (she was complaining that I was too good - I'm not! :P ) And then she ended up beating me by 1 point! Teaching me to never teach anyone, anything ever again! :P

Five Valleys Bowling in Missoula

Tuesday November 4th


Today is election day so we have no class. Kris told us she'd leave the cat lab open for us to study our cats if we wanted to, so Fi and I got the bus in at 9.10 am and got to campus only to discover that all the doors to the building we wanted to get into were locked. Every single one! So we just decided to head home on the next bus back, a little bit pissed off but what can you do.
I got back home and FaceTimed my Mom, Dad and sister and my brother popped his face in for a few minutes too. After getting off the phone to them I FINALLY got to catch up with one of my best friends, Karen, from home. We were on the phone for ages before finally hanging up to both go and try do some assignments.
This afternoon, after both doing some work, Fi and I headed out to North Reserve street to book our tickets for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. It's on in two weeks time and incase we don't have enough time to head out and grab them we said we'd get it out of the way now.
We got back and I went straight into trying to sort out my Grant Proposal Application assignment that has turned out to be the biggest pain in my ass ever. I literally have no idea how to go about doing this, and the internet in my damn bedroom doesn't work properly either. Leaving me going slightly insane! Jurassic Park was also on tonight so I watched the second half of that while doing some research on my Proposal where the internet actually works. I called over to Dave and Elliot's for half an hour to grab Elliot's hard drive so we could watch a documentary Fiona had on domestication of dogs. Interesting enough documentary but they didn't actually use wolves....they used huskys.. Nevertheless, it was a really interesting documentary :P


Wednesday November 5th


Today was basically spent trying to do my Project Proposal that's due for tomorrow at 12pm. Everytime I saved the document it changed the formatting of it and would move text around if not delete it. It wasn't fun. Spent hours researching it and finally got it done while watching the second Jurassic Park movie, yeah productive I know. Printed out my three copies and started preparing the stuff I need for my weekend in Darby. This weekend is our Hunter Check Stations class, the one class I took this semester that apparently doesn't translate back to anything at home.. Something I reeeeally didn't appreciate finding out until I got here and got registered for classes but hey, that's life I guess.


Thursday November 6th


We handed in our proposals. We had to print out 3 copies, one for Vicky or Charlie, and two for our classmates to correct. We each got handed two proposals belonging to other people which we have to go through and correct and also give them a marking scheme back with spelling/grammar mistakes and/or other mistakes they made in it. Kinda cool, I like reading through and correcting other people's work :P
I booked our Motel in Darby this afternoon and got all my washing done before making a start on yet again another writing assignment that's due in next week. This assignment is an annotated bibliography on 5 papers we will be using in our habitat conservation issue review paper. I am not looking forward to this whatsoever. I'm telling ya, once I go back to UCC next year, I'm going to be able to spit out a whole assignment in one night. Over here, you're given a whole review paper and only have a very little number of weeks to write it, no extensions, no excuses, nothing! And this isn't the only assignment you will have at this time as well, as an example I also have another review paper due the same week except we can't even start that yet because we haven't got our results back or even the general format of the paper. So we'll basically only have about two weeks to right up a full review paper as well as make a 15-20 minute presentation on the same subject as well. Not cool America, not cool.



Friday November 7th

Happy 21st Birthday Nicole <3

This morning I started packing for my weekend away in Darby at the Hunter Check Stations. I packed up my bags and headed to class at 11am, I posted a postcard home and returned a library book for Fiona too seeing as she had forgotten, and she had work. Had my Physiological Ecology class and we got our results back from last week, I got 88% which I'm really happy with! Except for the point that I was one point off getting an A, again!! I maaay appeal it but I haven't decided yet. This is the second exam in a row that I'm 1point off getting an A...

We went straight out to the Field Research Station to do the analysis on our Bird research paper with the Diamond Doves.  Fiona and I finished up our part really quickly, we had a system and we stuck to it. While the technology wasn't exactly co-operating with Sadie and Nathan, they only got three of their landings done while Fiona and I got all 15 of ours done!


We got home from our lab which seemed to just take forever, Fiona ran around packing while I went and grabbed us dinner. We shoved our food down and packed up the car and left for Darby! An hour and 20 mins of driving later, we arrived in Darby and checked into the Inn we will be staying at for the next two nights, The Mountain Spirit Inn. The owners of the Inn are so incredibly nice! We were chatting to them for a solid 20 minutes about the amount of Mountain Lions and Wolves that pass through the area and even just outside the Inn itself! The owner carries a small little self defense gun around in his pocket just incase.
We got settled and started working on assignments and blogging for the evening.

Incredibly comfy King Bed.

Our cute little kitchenette!

Our bathroom.

Saturday November 8th

Our day began at 8.45am, we had to be at the Check Station for 10am. We slowly got ready this morning and before we knew it, it was 9.45am and we had to leave. We loaded the car with our schoolbags, food and blankets.
We met Dylan, who later turned out to be our neighbor in Lewis and Clark, and also met Mark and Becky the two people we would be working with today. Essentially our biologists for the day. Becky and her family have been hunting in the area for years and are pros at aging deer and elk. On our first day we had a range of different animals come through, we had Elk, Mule Deer, White Tails, a Bison and even a Black Bear all come through our Check Station. There were two lanes to the station, the 'loser' lane and the successful lane. Anyone with game (that had successfully harvested an animal) came into the lane closest the trailer we were in, we aged Elk by their 'ivories' (their canines) and we aged White Tails and Mule Deer by cutting their cheek back and checking the sharpness of their teeth and whether certain teeth had two or three points to them. I didn't cut the cheek today I was recording the animals we got through and also manning the loser lane at the same time to keep the flow of traffic going.

Our shelter for Saturday and Sunday.

We wrapped up tonight about 7.30, Fiona and I were starving and decided to head to a place called The Blue Joint in Darby for dinner as recommended to us by Mark and Becky. I got a bacon cheeseburger (like father, like daughter) while Fiona got the swiss cheese and mushroom burger, a little more adventurous. We literally ate up every last bit and headed back to the motel we were staying in, both as full as butchers dogs! We browsed the internet for a small while and I was so shattered I was ready for bed at 10pm. Exhausted from our day! We chatted about god knows what and then fell asleep after 11pm sometime, the earliest I've been able to go to bed here in the longest time.

Our first animal of the day, a Bull Elk with a club antler.

Lovely Male White Tail packed up nicely into the boot of a Jeep.

Two lovely White Tails that were both harvested by children.

A huge Bull Elk that came through from Nevada.

Sunday November 9th


We got up at 8am this morning to pack up all our belongings from the motel room, make our food for the day and check out before heading to the check station. We left and arrived at the check station at bout 9.30am, early but they were already opened so we were off to work straight away. An incredibly slow morning.
We had a good few for the loser lane that had absolutely nothing. Becky's husband Jerry rang her and told her traffic was backed up by about 30 cars in the canyon because a fisherman was after being hit by a telephone pole and had died. We had a bad storm hit us today which knocked down a number of trees in the area which broke telephone poles and had live wires around. So naturally, we had no body come through the check station so we were preparing for a rush. We got wrapped up in coats, hats and scarves while the wind and rain battered us. I manned the loser lane noting down where everyone had hunted and how many hunters were in the car. I had the traffic moving at a nice fast pace in the loser lane, while the others aged the animals that came through and checked to see if all the tags were legit. We soon got quiet again. Becky's husband and daughter had come down to give us a hand and to speed things up a bit. Hunters tend to get a little cranky if they haven't got anything. Some could be out for two weeks and come extremely prepared and get nothing. Others though are very nice and welcome you with a smile and say 'hello there young lady, how are you doing today?', oh the simple pleasures.
 Seeing as today was incredibly slow and also incredibly nasty we were allowed leave the check station early. We filled out our sheets and left about 6.30 and we decided to stop in McDonalds in Hamilton on the way home. We grabbed our bite to eat and I drove home ever so slowly and carefully while again, the wind and rain battered the car and I was also on the look out for deer, that was something I did not want to hit with my Dad's car.
We got home and headed straight out to Walmart to get some meat before the cold comes and hits us. Very wet, very cold and very tired we got home. Elliot came over to see how our weekend went and once he left we went to bed.

A stunning Mule Deer that came through our Check Station.

I know a lot of you may not be okay with the fact these animals have been hunted and killed, as I did too before I got here. But here in Montana, there is great conservation efforts going into maintaining the numbers of these animals by issuing 'tags'. Hunters have to pay money for these tags, and this money goes to Conservation Efforts which helps to maintain a future for all of these animals. These tags also only allow hunters to hunt a certain species and age of an animal in a given area and are essentially a permit. This allows Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to maintain steady numbers of Wildlife in these areas. The Check Stations are put in place to monitor these and make sure the hunters are using their tags in the right areas and to also put a stop to poaching. Poaching is the illegal hunting of animals whether it be wolves, deer, elk or bears. I didn't include the picture of the Black Bear that came through because he was pretty bloody and I didn't want to freak anyone out but if you wouuuuld like to see him, you can ask me and I'll happily send you the picture :P



Thank you so much again guys for reading my blog! I really do appreciate all of you who take the couple minutes out of your day to read it. Just goes to show my efforts going into this aren't going unnoticed, cause it does take a lot of time and energy into it. I know some days are boring but I don't want to exclude anything so everyone can say up-to-date as it's hard to keep in contact with everyone! I only have 5-6 weeks of blogging left before I leave Montana and go home for the Christmas Holidays so I'll be taking a break from blogging for then until I come back here for my second semester!

'Til next week,

- Shannen.

Week 10 - Pumpkins and Hallowe'en.

Monday October 27th

So today I was exhausted from Yellowstone but I had an exam to study for and two homework assignments to finish off before heading into class. Had my usual classes today and my Vertebrate Lab where we were looking at sheep hearts, I enjoyed this so much! Monday evening consisted of studying for my exam that I have for Wednesday - so much to learn for it too.


Tuesday October 28th


Today I only had my meeting with my academic advisor here and she was able to override me into the classes I want to do next semester. Thankfully, I was able to register for the classes I want to do and I'm way way way too excited about them already! I went to the library and did some study for my exam again because this evening I went to my Missoula families house to do some pumpkin carving :) Shannon had made us STEW for dinner. I was literally saying yesterday in my lab how much I missed having stew for dinner so this made my week! She had also made brown soda bread and it was amaaaazing!! We had apple dumplings for dessert which were unreal too! I had never had these before, I'm gone mad for trying out new foods since I got here! :P We got home around 9pm I think and I just stayed up doing some study for my exam tomorrow.

This was my finished Minion Pumpkin :) What a first attempt :D

The incredible brown soda bread and stew Shannon made us for dinner :D

Wednesday October 29th


So I had my Wildlife Physiological Ecology exam today and it was incredibly strange. A rather large portion of the content we learned didn't show up on the exam which I found incredibly weird. It seemed to be a lot shorter than the others and it was just weird in general. I'm not sure how it went! We had our Vertebrate Design and Evolution class afterwards as usual and I finished up my day around 2.30pm. I FaceTimed my Mom today for a while and then I had to get ready for a presentation by the President of the Univeristy, Royce Engstrom, thanking the community friends (MIFP) for taking on International Students and also thanking us, the International Students, for taking part. We had a nice buffet dinner meal and cookies were served for dessert. We had starters of a variety of foods and nachos with a load of different toppings as 'dinner'. Saying that, I was pretty stuffed after it too! We stayed on after the talks and chatted with Shannon and also with some other Internationals. Dan, Shannon and I took a picture with our flags, which turned out pretty nice!
Fiona and I watched the first of the Planet Earth documentaries tonight while trying to finish off our Habitat Issue that we want to write a review paper on that is due in for tomorrow.

My nachos with a variety of different stuff thrown on them :P

Me with my Irish flag, Shannon and Dan and his Swiss flag at the MIFP meeting!

Thursday October 30th


Dr. Dreitz loved my habitat issue that I want to research into more, and seeing as it's official I'll tell ye now cause I can just tell that the suspense is killing you ......... ha. Aaaanyways, the topic I'm choosing is: The effect of the invasive plant species, Rhododendron ponticum, on the community of native plants and animals in Killarney National Park, and how, over time these plants and animals have adapted and learned to cope with this invasion. Hopefully I won't get asked any questions that are too complicated.
My Dad was flying back to Ireland tonight and I had a missed call from him during class so once I got out I rang him back. Unfortunately, it came with bad news, BUT it's okay! My sister and her best friend got knocked down by a car in Cork City, they were both brought to hospital and checked out, they got xrays and thankfully everything came back clear. My sister was let out but her friend had to stay in overnight just as a precaution. Obviously, they're both in a lot of pain. Of course I got upset and thankfully Siobhan just happened to walk by me on campus and she came over to me and brought me back to Dave and Elliot's apartment. I hadn't told them what was going on at this point but Dave welcomed me with a hug and they made me tea and settled me down a bit while I rang one of my aunties back home to see if she knew anymore of the story than I did.
She reassured me everything was going to be okay that my uncle was driving my Mom and brother to the hospital. My sister text me then later on telling me herself she was okay and her friend would be as well. I had been contemplating going out tonight but I didn't bother, I wasn't in the mood for socialization. Elliot and Siobhan called over for the evening to see me and Fiona didn't go out either. Dave was working but we went for ice cream this evening as a pick me up. I also hadn't eaten all day since breakfast so I went and got Wendy's cause I didn't have the energy to cook.



Friday October 31st


So apparently it's a thing that you wear your Hallowe'en costume to classes over here?! Funniest thing ever. And if I may say so, there was some pretty good costumes around also! I had my Phys. class and then afterwards we had our Vertebrate lab  where we were looking at the circulatory system / blood pathways in our cats. It was pretty awesome! They had dyed the veins blue and the arteries red to make them easier for us to see. And they were awesome! We did some comparative with Bruce the Shark also and we got out of the lab about 4.30pm. We headed home, had some dinner and started our Hallowe'en preparations. Nobody had any definite plans for going out and all the Hallowe'en parties were a rip off in town and had queues to get into them. We went to Aoife's apartment first to the other Internationals and then left and went over to Dave and Elliot's to wait for Kate and James to come over. More girls came over and we ended up spending the night here just arsing around and drinking/listening to music for a while. Turned out to be a really fun and relaxed night. I didn't want to go to town, but I didn't want to stop anyone else but they didn't end up going in the end.

Fiona and I all decked out for Hallowe'en.

Saturday November 1st

It's November already?! Wow.


So today was kind of a write off with regards to college work. I started one of my assignments but Fiona and I ended up cleaning the apartment from top to bottom! Absolutely every inch of it was cleaned cause it was manky dirty. That took us approx. two hours to do the whole lot.
Eoghan called over to us around 4 and we chatted and then went to the dollar store to pick up a few bits and pieces around 5.30 ish. We made dinner and watched a documentary on Snow Monkeys before Kate, James and Bridget called over for a horror movie night. We watched the Uninvited first which is a brilliant movie! and Then we watched Zombieland which is a horror/comedy - hilarious and it was a nice one to finish the night off with.



Sunday November 2nd


I spent this morning working on two assignments I had due for tomorrow and trying to study for our weekly quiz also. We had a lot to learn considering we had the whole circulatory system in the cat to learn :/ Eoghan was cooking a roast dinner for Fiona and I this afternoon and I could not contain my excitement! I haven't had a roast dinner in so long it's going to be fantastic!
We called over to his about 2pm after FaceTiming Sarah for a while for a catch up. The dinner was amazeballs. It was long overdue! We did the clean up and stayed and chatted for while before heading home again to do my assignments.

Eoghan and his masterpiece!

The incredible, and much anticipated, roast dinner!

I fought with the internet in my apartment for the evening, as it's gone pretty shitty I don't know what's up with it at the moment but it's driving me insane! I also called over to Dave for '15 mins' which turned into 2 hours just for chats, and to distract him from studying for his exam tomorrow.



So thank you guys again for reading this weeks post. It's been a bit of a weird week really. Not too sure what to make of it! Just some of the hardships that are all part of doing an exchange for a year. Next month and I'll be home for Christmas though! Where does the time go to?!

Thanks for reading!

- Shannen.

Week 9 - Internationals on Tour.

Monday October 20th


We started some climate change lectures in Wildlife Physiological Ecology today as a change from normal lectures, and I loved this! So very interesting! We also got our lab results back today and even with all my study, it didn't pay off! Slightly pissed off/disappointed because of all the study I had put in. Dave cooked Fiona and I an unreal stir-fry for dinner today. He'd make a fantastic chef so he would! Spent all the rest of this evening studying for our exam that we've got tomorrow.And holy Christ it's cold today. You can definitely tell winter is on it's way!!



Tuesday October 21st


Another fabulously cold day today. We had our dreaded Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management exam today. It was a seriously long exam for only 50minutes - NINE PAGES LONG. My watch fell off the table half way through, so I lost track of time, Dr. Dreitz announced when we had 15 minutes left to go and I still had two long questions left to do, so I hurried through and got them all done (just about). I'm not sure what way it went, kind of hit or miss really, I feel I did okay, but then again I thought that about my lab exam from last week so I'm not sure now, we'll have to wait and see. How to Train Your Dragon also happened to be on the TV tonight so we decided to sit down and watch this as a study break :P



Wednesday October 22nd


 Had more of our Climate Change lectures today, they're so interesting! This time though, we talked about how climate change affects different animals in various ways. I absolutely love this class so much! She's a very engaging lecturer too and always tries to come up with new ways to make us enjoy the classroom experience more. It's brilliant. In our Vertebrate Design and Evolution class we've moved onto nerve functions and the mechanics behind them. Thank the Lord we've moved away from the Physics stuff because I really hated it.. Fiona suggested we watch a movie tonight after both of us started and finished our Lab Reports that are due in tomorrow. We watched 'Warm Bodies' which I really wasn't all that gone on to be honest.. Fiona enjoyed it, and there was bits I did find to be funny but I really didn't enjoy it :P



Thursday October 23rd


Called up the RV company today and set up our time to collect it tomorrow morning. So excited! Watched the videos on how to work the RV and such as well today, just giving myself some background information on it and whatnot. We moved onto talking about communities today in Conservation and Management today which I enjoyed, Dr. Dreitz is trying to get us to be more engaging in class so two of us got called up to the board today (I was one) and we just had to interpret a diagram, wasn't all that bad. I don't mind speaking in front of crowds so much when I know what I'm talking about, haha. We also got handed a nice big assignment which I think is worth 30% of our grade. We have to write a review paper on a habitat issue of our choice, but the issue had to have an affect on a certain community which we also have to talk about. As well as this paper, we have to do a 15 minute presentation on it on December 2nd in front of our classmates - which to be honest I'm quite excited about, I've never done a proper presentation before so it could be kind of cool.
I already know the kind of issue I want to talk about, so I spent most of this afternoon, while on Facetime to Mom, researching and finding different Peer Reviewed Literature Papers on my chosen topic, which I will tell ye about, but more so when I've made a definite decision on what it is I'm going to be doing.


Friday October 24th


So today, my Wildlife Physiological Class was optional because it was just a review class, and seeing as we were leaving for Yellowstone today I didn't go because there was a lot to organize and pack up. James and I left at 9.30am and picked up the RV and brought it back to Lewis and Clark. I started to load up some stuff into it with the help of my roommate Sarah. We began our journey from Lewis and Clark about 4pm and headed for Yellowstone National Park. We swapped drivers half way with James taking over and driving the second half and we arrived at Yellowstone RV Park roughly about 9pm. We got our electrical hook-up and wifi going and we settled down and made dinner. We had a gourmet dinner of hotdogs this evening with some mash potatoes also :P I also saw one incredible shooting star and we could just about see the milky way also, truly stunning!!

This was the big ass RV that I really enjoyed driving!

The inside of the RV :D

Another view of the RV, Dave and I claimed the bed above the drivers cabin, so comfortable and incredibly warm!

Saturday October 25th


We woke up at 8am this morning and left the RV park for 9am and headed for Yellowstone. We paid our fee to get into the park, $25 gets you access for a full week which is class! We spotted a small herd of pronghorn first, we were heading for the Lamar Valley and accidentally missed the turn so we ended up carrying on straight and heading for Norris, stopping at a few places along the way. I'm just going to put up pictures of basically everywhere we went besides talking through step by step where we went. We ate lunch in a picnic area near a waterfall and set off to see more of the Park again, such as Artists Paint Pots (big disappointment, nothing artistic about them), we then went and saw the Fountain Paint Pots, Grand Prismatic, Excelsior, Old Faithful, Roaring Mountain and loads of other random little stops inbetween.

A nice group selfie :)

Roaring Mountain.

Some geysers on the Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail.

Grand Prismatic - It's got a variety of colors going through it based on the different bacteria. They each have their own optimum Temperature at which they work best at. These bacteria are colored differently, giving the Spring it's different colors. It's truly amazing.

Old Faithful. This geyser erupts often, being given the name Old Faithful. Depending on the amount of water, and the duration of each eruption, the scientists in the park can determine when the next eruption is going to happen, normally plus or minus 10 minutes.

We got back to our RV Park between 8/9 pm, we were gone for a full 12 hours, we did and saw so much it was incredible! Fiona cooked up a nice dinner with the help of Kate, of burgers, mash potatoes and potato salad. We lay on the ground relaxing with a few drinks just looking at the stars and having a laugh. No better bunch could have gone to Yellowstone, we all get on so well it's fantastic.

The Open Road - Yellowstone National Park.

Sunday October 26th


We rose early at 6am this morning to leave for 7.15am in order to try and get to The Lamar Valley for sunrise. This is the best time to try and see wildlife, the main reason we were coming to Yellowstone really. We drove to basically the  of the Lamar Valley. We drove passed what I was almost 100% positive was a bear, but we didn't stop the car, which upset me quite a lot because I REALLY wanted to see a bear :P After we turned around we did pull over and I hopped out with binoculars and low and behold there was a fine fat grizzly bear munching on what appeared to be a carcass of some sort. I thought I saw a cub there also but we watched the bear for about 15/20 minutes and I didn't see a little bear anyways so I'm not incredibly sure. But I don't care, I FOUND A GRIZZLY BEAR!! We then left and continued driving and I don't think 5 minutes had even passed and we saw A WOLF PACK running across the mountains in the distance. This had already been the best day of my life and it wasn't even 10am. Unfortunately, both the Griz and the wolves were too far away from me for my camera to make them out when I zoomed, so I'm slightly disappointed but what can ya do!

We took a right turn onto Slough Creek, a notorious place to spot wolves as there is (or used to be, a wolf pack called the Slough Creek Pack). We didn't see any wolves but we did see a massive herd of Bison! We parked up here at the end of this road and had our breakfast. We then turned back and started to have an RV Sing Song with our road trip song - Mi Mi Mi. Our incredibly amazing singing startled a small herd of bison which caused them to all run away from the RV (technically a stampede). They stopped on the road ahead of us and stared at the RV - slightly intimidating, these animals are huuuuuge!! We slowly crept passed this herd of bison only to be greeted further on by an exceptionally large herd of maybe 150 bison all alongside or on the roads. We crawled along the roadway, being careful not to disturb the bison too much, this is critical because these guys could throw their body one way and completely write off a car - not something we wanted to happen!

Just a small few of the bison taking up the entire roadway..

We then went to Mammoth Terraces, since I had seen these with the other Yellowstone trip I went on, I dropped the other 6 off at the top of the terraces and then I drove down the hill and met them at the bottom instead of them walking up and back down the terraces again, it just made more sense. We parked up and had some lunch, we noticed some very light snow started to fall at this stage so we were starting to rethink our afternoon. From Mammoth, it would have taken over an hr to get to Yellowstone Lake due to road closures and bad weather. We decided it wasn't worth the trip down there because we would have got back to Missoula far too late and everyone had something they had to be doing for college. We had our last family meal of the trip and headed home!

Our last family meal, the fantastic 5 + 2.

We made the decision to head back to Missoula and we eventually made it back home for after 6pm sometime. James drove the first part of the journey while I took a power nap or two using Dave as a pillow. I drove the second part then back into Missoula. We spent about an hour or so cleaning out the RV and unpacking all our belongings. We filled back up the gas tank, and the propane and emptied out the dump tank and returned the RV to Lolo.

Had the best weekend ever with the Bison Bunch / Fantastic 5 + 2.





The weekdays aren't really all that exciting anymore, it's all college work, assignments and exams and I really don't want to bore you lot with the details so I'm just shortening them down a little bit. This weekend was a bit of an exception, seeing as we spent it all in Yellowstone. We've already started planning our next trip away together as a group for Thanksgiving. I know this weeks post was a long one but I didn't want to shorten it down because I know a lot of you would like to hear about the Yellowstone trip! I hope ye enjoyed this weeks post!


Thanks for reading!

- Shannen.