8am start again this morning with genetics and evolution. I got my homework done and turned in last night to get it out of the way. We're currently learning about independent assortment and sex-linkage so it's pretty interesting. Every week we have homework that has to be submitted online, it's just a couple of questions so nothing major. This was followed by an hour break and then Ornithology as per usual. Kris talked about the grant proposal we need to do. We have to come up with an original research idea and try to pitch it people who would possibly fund it. Right now, I'm not entirely sure what I want to do it on.. I'm thinking of something that can relate back to Ireland, but I think it'd probably be easier to stick to something in the states so that it's easier to get help on.
I hopped on the bus home and started reading a 34 page page due for tomorrow for my recreation behaviour class.. Not fun! BUT the class is interesting so it makes it worthwhile :P
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| Even with muddy grass, this place is still beautiful. |
Tuesday February 10th
Class starts at 11am on a Tuesday which makes a nice change to my usual 8am starts every other day of the week. Had Rangeland Ecology followed by an hour and a half off and then my Recreation Behaviour class. I really like both of these classes and the professor for Recreation Behaviour is so lovely, she refers to Fiona and I as her 'Irish girls'. We had our Wildlife Society meeting this evening and we had a guest speaker talking about some of the work he does with Raptors, mainly Golden Eagles. The rest of the evening I spent it doing some readings for my Thursday classes and also got some of the genetics homework done for next week, although I'm not 100% sure what to do with it. Nothing too exciting :)
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| This is Bertha, the Moose head that is in the Forestry Building on campus :P |
Wednesday February 11th
8am start with Genetics and Evolution and at the moment we're studying meiosis and mitosis and the workings of each. An hour break then Ornithology with Kris. Every day I love this class (and birds duh) a little more than the previous day. At the moment we're discussing the different methods of flight that various birds use. We then had our Genetics lab. In order to get our participation points every week we have to submit a question online regarding some aspect of genetics, in order for our TA to make sure we're still thinking about stuff.. Or else we could just have a genuine question that we want answering about the lectures. I got home and started working straight away on another assignment due in for tomorrow and also another reading for Rec and Behaviour but this time it was only a 12 page paper (not bad in comparison to 30). Lewis and Clark were also having a Valentine's Day / Singleness Awareness Day dessert evening at the community center. We got our fair share of cheesecake and some muffins with unreal icing on them. I made Fiona a Valentines Day card (cause I'm sound..and we also married at the Foresters Ball :P). Sarah and I made our own little name plates and we also made one for Fiona since she was working for this event. We put these above our coat hangers inside the front door of our apartment and I think they look so cute! :P
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| Valentine's Day Card making & dessert :D |
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| Our name plates we made <3 |
I studied for my bird quiz tomorrow with Jamie via Facebook. She would send me pictures of birds, I would guess them and then vice versa and I'm telling ya, it really helped :P
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| How to tell the Sharp-Shinned Hawk from the Cooper's Hawk. |
Happy Birthday to my uncle John :)
At 6am this morning the rubbish truck woke me up emptying out all the bins. I wasn't impressed... 8am Ornithology lab this morning. We had our quiz based on all the raptors we did in last weeks lab and then moved on to shorebirds. Jamie, Fiona and I had to research into the Common Tern and Foresters Tern comparing and contrasting them. We used our good friend google for this and also our field bird guide which I got on Amazon for nice and cheap :D We did our bit and got it over and done with quick and easy. We also moved onto the bones of the birds which I was thankfully able to remember from my Vertebrate Design and Evolution class from last semester. This enabled both Fiona and I to leave early and get some extra time between classes. I used this time to make summaries of all the birds discussed in the lab today (probably near 30). Also met up with Kate for a while during this time off.
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| This is just some of the birds we have to know by next week... |
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| And this is me studying with my Apple Juice :D |
Headed to Rangeland Ecology which every Thursday there is presentations of the papers that required reading during the week. An hour and a half off so we just chilled in the UC and listened to some unreal piano playing and also got free buns in honour of University of Montana's 122nd birthday (nice!).
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| Happy 122nd Birthday UMT! |
Then met Kate again for the last bit of our break at 1pm until Recreation Behaviour at 2pm. We even got to use our phones in class today. Libby has a verrrry strict no phones policy and it's really nice cause everyone actually pays attention and the class is very interactive. We were all assigned groups (I was group 10) and we were given a topic which we had to take a picture describing that topic. These all came from the paper we had to read for today to do with information processing and how different people convey that information. Our picture had to do with the assumption of incompetence. Essentially, how you might just look at someone and automatically assume they haven't a clue what is going on. So I came up with the genius but also cruel notion that we could take a picture of another group from our class. I was originally joking but everyone seemed to agree it was a good idea so why not?! I think Libby also enjoyed it :P
Seeing as my schoolbag is on it's last legs I decided to head out to ROSS on reserve to try and find a new and decent/colourful one. Nobody here has colourful schoolbags and I lovee them :P But I did get a really nice new one and it also fits my laptop into it nicely, compared to my old schoolbag. On my way back I met Alissa and Joe and I was taught how to play the card game rummy :P Which was fun, except you can get negative points?!
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| Playing Rummy :D |
Friday February 13th
So, yesterday was busy :P Today, not so much! Genetics and Evolution and then Ornithology again this morning and I was home by 11.10am. In genetics we also did a colourblindness test.. And I couldn't see what needed to be seen leading us to think I am colourblind. Soooo, Jeff (the lecturer) kept talking and said girls can be carriers of the gene and still exhibit some colourblindness. GREAT! Hahaha.
I stopped by Shannon's house after college, she had left me my favourite oatmeal cookies with cranberry and white chocolate chips in them outside her house for me. YUMMY! I then took my car over to the car wash and washed it myself cause the amount of dust on it was just disgusting.. I hate driving around a dirty car :P So now my car is lovely and clean :D
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| Shannon's incredible oatmeal cranberry and white chocolate chip cookies!! |
Kate came over at 5.30 and we ordered some Domino's for dinner :D Seeing as it's Friday, I feel like it's allowed :P And we have a long weekend! We have Monday off cause it's President's Day whooo! We also watched Cloud Atlas, which I really didn't like.. Not that it was a bad movie I just don't like that time hoppy crap haha. Then Music & Lyrics was on afterwards which made my day :D
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| Yummy! |
Happy Valentines / Singleness Awareness Day!
So cause my body clock is so used to waking up at 6.30am 4/5 mornings of the week, I woke up at that time this morning.. Not impressed! But I did manage to go back to sleep until 8.30am so I just gave in an stayed awake then. Facetimed Dad seeing as he's heading off back home tomorrow and then got ready for our Valentines Day hike today with Kate, Fiona, Caitriona and Aoife. We were going climbing up behind Mt. Sentinel and go exploring for a while :P
So today, Dairy Queen reopened and both Fiona and I couldn't contain our excitement. If you remember way back in October I think, Dairy Queen went into 'hibernation' for the winter time and we were gutted. So, we headed out to Walmart (Fiona, Kate, Caitriona and I) and we got some food for the week and I also bought a basketball. There is a basketball hoop here in L&C and we decided we're going to go out and play it some evenings. On our way home, we stopped by Dairy Queen and got our blizzards. I got my usual Oreo Cheesecake, while Fiona and Caitriona got ones with brownie and Kate got a smoothie (we have peer pressured her into getting a blizzard next time :P ). They also gave us loyalty cards, buy 8 get 1 free. I can see that happening hehehe.
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| Myself, Caitriona, Fiona and Kate at Dairy Queen. |
Sunday February 15th
Thank you body clock for waking me up at 9am this morning..... Stayed in bed til 12 pm though hahaha. Got up and started working on one of my assignments that is due in this week. It's a two page paper on a major issue facing parks, tourism and recreation management. Not too bad really, I'm focusing on the impact of invasive species. Hopefully nice and simple, I can use some of the information I gathered from my paper and presentation from last semester and there is an abundance of papers on invasive species so yay. I listened to Kerry Radio while I also read my paper that is due for Tuesday, handed in my genetics homework and watched more episodes of Bones. Stayed up until near 3 am just so I could get the first two episodes of season 10 started :P
So it was really just a typical week this week.. Also I kinda wanna get some feedback from you, so if you've read this far (thank you!) I have a question for you. I want to do a different style post for my 25th post on this blog, I'm already on my 20/21st so I've got some time to go. I'd like it to be something different but I honestly have no clue of what to do it on. If ye could leave me some suggestions in the comments section that'd be great to give me some sort of an idea. I could do one where I give a mini tour of Lewis and Clark (where I'm living) or one around campus maybe? I could venture around Missoula town itself (I actually think it's a city but to me it's more of a town :P) and just put up some pictures of Missoula? I don't know, I need help! Haha.
But, thank you for reading yet another one of my blog posts. It means a lot :)
- Shannen.
