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.
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| 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.)
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| Myself, Fiona, Kate and James all excited for Mockingjay Part 1!! |
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| 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.
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| I got to try on this guys helmet :P From left to right: Desiree, Me, No. 69 for Griz, Fiona and Kate. |
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| So when they were taking a group photo, I asked could I hop in and they said yes, hehehehe. |
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| 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.
