So today's the day. The first day of classes! So unbelievably excited and so nervous at the same time. I haven't had to go into lectures and not know anybody in a long time. My timetable is so nice, I don't have classes everyday until 12 pm. Today though, I woke up early so I could get a chance to FaceTime home for a while since I was too busy with the last few days to get the chance to do it and the time difference makes it so awkward. I needed to go to the library and print stuff off for some of my classes so I decided I would go in nice and early so that I didn't have to be rushing around looking for my classes. The University run shuttle buses for those living off campus called the U Dash. These buses pick anyone living in Lewis and Clark up right outside and carries us over to the college. They also run a separate late night U Dash bus from Thursday - Saturday, this bus finishes at 2 am. Basically making it a lot easier on students to go out in Missoula. One particularly brilliant invention if you ask me, saves a lot of time, and also when it gets colder here people wouldn't be as tempted to skip class due to the bad weather. This service is again free to all students and faculty members.
I got all my notes printed off in the library so I strolled around the campus for a bit before sitting down on a bench outdoors and eating my lunch. By this time, Fiona had already had two of her classes and she had gone home for her three hour break. I went to my first class, Wildlife Physiological Ecology - WILD 346 - which sounds amazing. I'm technically not signed up for this class properly yet as I was waitlisted and they've since made a second section which I am able to get into once I can get a registration override. Registration overrides are required when a student doesn't meet the prerequisites which are put in place by the University. These normally include having to have done certain modules during your earlier years in the University.
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| This is what a registration override form looks like. Once it's signed by the lecturer it enables the student to register for the class straight away. |
After this I went and found the classroom for our Vertebrate Design and Evolution class, which Fiona is also taking, and it turns out it only has 11 people in it. We met our lecturer, Bret, and the lab assistant, Kris, who are both so lovely and took the time to get to know everyone's names, where they were from and their majors. Apparently, Ireland is an exotic place -_- . We had our lecture and from here we were straight into our first lab where we played with the bones of cats and it was up to us to be able to figure out which bone was which and also what are the different parts of the bones by using a lab manual which we were kindly provided with for today. It is recommended that we buy the manual because we will be using it a lot during our labs but seeing as the class only runs up until Christmas and the book costs $170 both Fiona and I are not sure what we are going to do as of right now. Hopefully find one online somewhere for cheaper! We were able to finish up our lab early so we headed home to have dinner as we were both starving!
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| The Zoology lab where we have our Vertebrate Design and Evolution labs on Mondays and Fridays. |
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| Our notes out in front of us to help identify the different bones on the different specimens. |
I felt like going on a walk this evening so Fiona said she would join me and take me on a nice path. Little did I know this was going to turn into a hike more than a walk! We walked along a trail way up a mountain which was really nice and so tough! The worst part for me was the breathing, because we are so high up here in Missoula, 978 m above sea level, and Carrauntoohill is 1041 m above sea level, which is crazy! We took frequent stops along the way to catch our breath while seeing some white tailed deer. But once we reached the top, the view was amazing! We saw a hawk fly over our heads which we could soon here in the distance as it got closer to the forest hunting for food. We heard a coyote howling in the distance which was freakingggg cool! We waited at the top for it to get dark where we started to watch the stars above our heads (how very romantic, I know!). It was so dark we had to use the flashlights on our phones to guide us down the dirt path home, I was so paranoid that something was going to jump out of nowhere and frighten / attack me. Hahaha. All in all - a fab evening!
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| The view from Mt. Sentinel. |
Tuesday August 26th
Seeing as I have probably one of the nicest timetables in the world, I didn't have an early rise this morning again, thank God. I went into college for 11 am so I could print off some lecture material in the library for tomorrows lectures. Today we had our first Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management lecture. Again our lecturer is lovely! She also took the time to get to know everyone's names by making each of us deliver a 3 minute elevator speech. This is a speech basically for us to boast any experience we may have in the Wildlife industry and to try and convince her to 'hire' us. In the Wildlife Biology course here in the University of Montana having at least two years of valid work experience is vital or you're not able to get your degree. Everyone spoke a little bit about themselves, saying what they're future goal careers were and what kind of experience they've had in the past. Yet again, when everyone heard there was two International Students in the class they all got very excited. Especially being from such an 'exotic' place as Ireland! This lecture gave us the basis for what the module would contain. Our final exam in December is only worth 13%!! We're used to all our final exams being worth between 60-80% so this is very different for both Fiona and I. There is a lot of continuous assessment involved in the modules here which I think is a great idea as it keeps you working all through the year and not just for a mid term test after a couple weeks and then possibly a few lab reports. This way I hopefully won't get bored with a continuous workload right up until Christmas. The weather here is particularly gorgeous again today. A bit colder in the morning but my God did it get hotter as the day went on!
Today I also had a bit of a disaster with my six year old laptop. I think it is officially on it's last legs. I was able to turn it on and off but I wasn't able to do anything else with it - not good. After turning it on and off a few times, as well as restarting it, and turning it off and taking the battery out, and turning it off and just leaving it off for a while, I decided to give up on it. However, I used to see an option to turn it on in safe mode with networking so I said I would give this a try. I had some important documents on it that I hadn't got around to transferring onto my external hard drive. And thank the Lord it worked! It has a very weird set up but at least I'm able to use my laptop to get my college assignments. Yes, assignments and it's only the second day of college! Fiona's camera also got delivered today so of course she was going around taking pictures of random things (me) testing it out.
Wednesday August 27th
Today's Fiona's 21st birthday!
I left about 10.15 am to go into college because I was bringing my laptop into the tech center to see if someone in there would be able to help me out with my crisis. I met Aoife, Kate and James along my way so of course stopped and had a chat with how the first week of classes were going for everybody. Turns out a lot of us have got a flu of some sort - Freshers Flu - which it's known as. Always in the first two weeks of college everybody goes crazy leading the majority of people very run down and therefore contracting Freshers flu. We basically had our own freshers week during Orientation Week which was crazy fun! But I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one that's sick! Haha. I then headed over to the tech support in the University Center. Two very nice, but very new, girls were behind the counter and they did everything they could to try and help me out before I had to leave for classes. My first class of the day - Wildlife Physiological Ecology - where I got my registration override form signed so I'm officially registered for my class! :D Then went to Vertebrate Design and Evolution class afterwards where we started to learn a bit about Phylogeny - LOVE this class.
When I finished classes at 2.30 pm I went back over to collect my laptop, and to see if there was any progress made. There was a different guy behind the counter this time and he also had a look at what was going on. His first conclusion was a virus - keep in mind I got new anti virus software not too long ago. He basically said it doesn't matter and that if the virus is good enough it's going to make it's way into your laptop and basically destroy it. Also, seeing as it's so old and running on Windows Vista - he said I would be better off with an upgrade to a new computer with Windows 8. It was only a matter of time before I would have to upgrade but I really, really didn't want to get rid of my old laptop. It was essentially my baby.
This evening, Fiona, Elliot, Dave, Siobhan, George and I all went out to dinner to celebrate Fiona's birthday in the Iron Horse Brew Pub. The food in this place is amazing! I got the chicken fajitas which were amazing and Fiona ordered her first legal drink which was of course - cider. There's a brand of cider over here called Angry Orchard Crisp Cider and it really is (almost) nicer than Bulmers! We hung out here for a while and had a laugh and chats on how the first week of classes were going for everybody. It's so nice that everyone is clearly very happy here!
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| The Chicken fajitas from the Iron Horse Brew Pub. |
Thursday August 28th
No classes today until 12pm as usual. Left my apartment at 9 am to catch the bus outside Lewis and Clark to head out to North Reserve Street where I could find some decorations for the party we were throwing for Fiona tonight. I went into the party shop and bought some decorations, there wasn't a very huge selection which I was quite disappointed with, but nevertheless, I got stuff. I then walked over the Best Buy to price some laptops. I literally only had an hour in this place before I had to rush back for my class so I couldn't spend too much time laptop hunting. I had done some research online and found a laptop that I liked the look of - it had everything in it and it was a good price too. There was good reviews on it so I went and had a look. One of the guys in Best Buy said it was a good laptop so he talked me through the features which I was pretty happy with. I then headed off for the bus back to campus.
Met up with Fiona and had lunch before heading off to our Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management class. Here our lecturer gave us a run down of what the syllabus includes and the various field trips we would be partaking in.
Fiona went to work in the Food Zoo while I headed off home and started the party prep. Sarah drove me out to a liquor store (off license) where I got the vodka for the Jelly Shots I was going making. We also bought the mandatory red cups for the party too. Everyone was due to arrive by about 9 pm so we were hoping and praying the Jelly Shots would be set in time. Sarah blew up all 20 balloons while I hung up a Happy Birthday banner, put up some streamers and hung up some of the balloons around the place. While I was making my dinner, I was also making Jelly Shots for the party - multitasking at it's finest! Jak from downstairs gave us the use of his speakers for the night so I helped him bring them up the stairs and he set them up for me. Eventually, I got the Jelly Shots made and Fiona got home so I was able to shower and have my dinner while she took over some of the preparations for me. Siobhan, Dave and Elliot went cake hunting for me today and the cake they picked up was called - 50 shades of chocolate - PERFECT!
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| Happy Birthday banner and streamers |
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| Some of the 20 balloons. |
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| 50 Shades of Chocolate Cake. |
Everyone started arriving, and we played some drinking games (of course), sang songs, danced to music and had an all round good time! To be honest I could not even tell you what time the party finished up at but it was a brilliant night! Fiona enjoyed herself which was of course the main thing.
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| What a mad bunch of people from all over the world. |
Friday August 29th
Woke up pretty early this morning and I started the clean up - if anyone knows me, they know I don't like mess in the kitchen! I filled up three bin bags full of bottles, cans, cups and rubbish. With the help of Sarah, we began scrubbing the counter tops which were covered in Jelly Shots, scrubbed the floor, also covered in Jelly Shots, the walls which ALSO had both jelly shots and champagne on them and alcohol of all sorts. With the two of us it didn't take us too long to get the place cleaned up before I left for my class which was at 12 pm.
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| The three full rubbish bags! |
I arrived to class early so I sat in the lecture hall and I got to have a lovely chat with my lecturer Dr. Creagh Breuner, all about me being on an exchange and my thoughts of the place so far. There was a welcome feast going on right outside the window of where our class was being held so before people began coming in I sat and watched what was happening, cheerleaders dancing (just like in the movies!), the national anthem was played followed by a minute silence for a student who very sadly died in a car accident while on his way to Missoula to return to college. I watched the team mascot - Monte Bear - dance around on the grass for a while. Class began and Dr. Breuner could not compete with the noise levels that were going on outside and everybody wasn't really able to pay too much attention with the music outside so she called an end to class (2mins in) and let us all go for some free food. Yes. FREE food! Everyone on campus could line up as many times as they wished and get free hots dogs, taytos, apples, cookies of all sorts and free drinks too! I've said it before, but this place is awesome! I met up with George and Elliot and we got some food before heading off for classes at 1 pm.
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| Free unlimited hotdogs! You could literally queue three times or more! |
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| Some of the crowd at the welcome feast on the oval. |
My lab at 1 pm included looking at skeletal structures of various animals and comparing the bones and naming the different parts of the bones as well. These labs are very relaxed. It's perfect. It's up to you to do the learning and to ask questions if you're stuck, you use the lab manuals and also the internet to help answer all your questions. I find when you have to do the work this way yourself it makes it a lot easier to learn.
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| Alligator skeleton. |
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| Fish skeleton. |
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| Gliding lemur. |
This was the day my car was being delivered from New York! I was way too excited - I was literally like a child on Christmas morning! We met the truck driver out at Missoula International Airport as he needed a big space to be able to unload the car off the truck. I signed for the car and both Fiona and I headed off to Walmart to stock up on some food for tomorrow's road trip! :D
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| The truck my car was delivered on :D |
Saturday August 30th
First Road Trip.
I got up quite early to make some lunch and dinner for myself for the day but to also take the Envoy for a wash because it was absolutely covered in dust! There was no way I was going to drive it looking like that! Luckily I didn't have to go too far to find a car wash. Afterwards, I collected Fiona and George and while they went to Walmart, I went to Best Buy to buy my new laptop. It's an Asus X551C and it's perfect. I'm in love with it. We came back home and gathered up our belongings as well as Elliot. And head off.
This was the first long distance journey I have gone on while in America and also my first and only time on a highway which wasn't at all as bad as I had imagined! The speed limits here are crazy, in most parts the speed limit is 70mph. Our destination today was Flathead Lake. Flathead is the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. With a surface area of between 496 and 510 sq km, making it slightly larger than Lake Tahoe. The lake is a remnant of the massive glacial dammed lake, Lake Missoula, of the era of the last interglacial. There is no words to describe how absolutely stunning this place is. We stopped in Finley State Park first and had a look around here.The water is crystal clear and even at this time of the year it's not all that cold! As demonstrated by George, Elliot and Fiona who went swimming in it. I did go in a little bit but my main thing was not wanting to stand on the rocks barefoot with all these disgustingly massive spiders that kind of hop along the rocks - gross.
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| Panorama of Flathead Lake. |
From here we headed up to another one of the State Parks on the shore of the lake called Wayfarers Park. This park was on the North Eastern side of the lake and again, the views were magnificent. We did some exploring about the place before sitting down for some dinner at a picnic table and then we headed for home. One of the other girls out from Ireland was having her birthday party tonight with a Thrift Shop theme but I was way too exhausted and still dying with the flu to even find the energy to go. I think I drove close enough to 200 miles overall today. Crazy.
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| Another one of my classic looking out into the horizon kind of photos. |
Sunday August 31st
Happy 21st Birthday Kisha!
Today had to be one of the laziest days I've had so far. I slept until 1 pm and got out of bed about 1.30 pm. Dave and Elliot called over for a while. We all have homework to do - yes we get homework in college. All this homework counts towards our grades too so it's important to spend time on them getting them right. As well as doing homework, I just worked on my blog a little bit and tried to sort out my schedule with dates that assignments are due and what field trips we have coming up etc., etc.
I am way too excited about all the classes I have picked for this semester! However, something I have noticed is how far behind everyone else in our classes we are. A lot of them are seniors, masters or post graduate students. A lot of them are also on their second degrees. They all have more of an educational background and also a lot more work experience than we do. It's a little daunting, but who doesn't like a challenge?!
Next week will be about my second week of classes, my first assignment, my first class quiz and wait for it - TWO road trips!
Thanks for reading!
- Shannen
