Monday, April 27, 2015

Week 29 - Birding, Hurling and a BBQ - Yay!

Monday April 20th

Today was an ordinary Monday. Nothing too exciting happened today! I spent a lot of my 'free' time doing both of my proposals that are due today. I also slept for like two hours! Aoife and I went and did a tiny bit of shopping, I didn't get anything though so yay for me! :P

Tuesday April 21st

Cherished my sleep in again this morning :P Had the usual classes starting at 11am and I finished up at 3.30pm so not too bad. This evening also consisted of finishing up my two proposals, I still haven't finished my rangeland one - oh well! This evening, Fiona and I went to the Wildlife Society meeting and got to vote in the upcoming elections - exciting stuff! We afterwards went to Dairy Queen cause I have a buy one get one free voucher, so seeing as it was a gorgeous evening out we said why not! :P This evening I started to do some work on my ornithology slideshows I had been making all semester long with the birds to know. I have a lot of improvements to make to them to help me learn the birds! Next Thursday, I have my birds of Montana practical exam. We have 100 questions on it, 10 of those will be the songs of birds, and the other 90 will be identifying the birds we've already done. It's going to be tough but I'm picking up my bird call pretty easily thankfully! :) Fiona and I watched a David Attenborough documentary to prepare ourselves for our exam Friday :P

Wednesday April 22nd

Today in genetics we have started talking about human evolution which is incredibly cool! Probably my favourite part, tied with speciation :D Nothing more exciting happened in my classes today. This afternoon I took a trip out to Walmart to buy a swimsuit to hopefully use this weekend at the Hot Springs! :D This weekend is another busy one with plenty assignments to get done and both people and places to see :P I got to watch Supernatural tonight as well as making head way on some ornithology lectures. So much to learn, so little time!

Thursday April 23rd

Today is my last 7am field trip! Yay! Once again, Jamie picked us up and brought us to campus :D We headed out to some gorgeous spot near Missoula somewhere, this place doesn't have a name but has lots of cute little trails. We did some more bird watching. We got to see some Red Naped Sapsuckers, Flickers, Song Sparrows, Tree Swallows, Turkey Vulture, Black Capped-Chickadees - loads! We also did a 10 minute point count where we all had to go quiet and count the numbers of birds we both heard and saw - so that was kinda cool too! Testing our knowledge out a bit :P I then decided to be a bit bold and not go to my other two lectures today, I have a load of work to get done for my exam tomorrow and since the weather has been so nice I'm not in any mindset to do study so I haven't got much done all week.
Jamie came over this evening and we watched another 3 of David Attenborough's documentaries on The Life of Birds as study for our exam tomorrow :D

Our Field Trip Location.


Friday April 24th

Up bright and early this morning, talked about human evolution some more in genetics and then had my ornithology exam which went okay I think. We had the added stress of trying to sort out an extra roommate for our house for next years house for college which is always great craic!
I got this mad notion today to start packing up some stuff, so I did.I packed up my wintery stuff into a suitcase. It makes me sad to think I leave in three weeks from today. I got to chat to Mom and Aisling on Facetime for a while in my free time, and then I sat down and started reading my Missoula Mom's thesis that she did for her PhD! I got halfway through before starting on some college work due for next week. I powered through and got my rangeland summaries done, as well as my rangeland proposal.


Saturday April 25th

 Got up bright and early this morning to go do some bird watching with Fiona. We have a lab practical next Thursday where we have to learn to identify birds by song and sight. We were delayed leaving cause of some fun drama with our house for next year in Cork again. It never seems to end!
Despite the drama, we got to see some cool birds, a great horned owl for example! As well as some waterfowl like mallards and wood ducks. We saw a Killdeer, some Red Winged Blackbirds, as well as some swallows and identified various birds by their calls. Successful day!

We got home and grabbed a quick lunch before heading off to campus for the Grizzly Hurling matches that were on. We went and had a look at the craic there before taking a stroll around campus. For the longest time, I've wanted to walk around and take some random pictures of the campus so we got to do that today, while it was nice and quiet. Fiona, Kate, Aoife and I messed around and posed with the Grizzly statue and of course the UM Clock Tower :P
Grizzly Washington Stadium - Hurling!

Griz Statue, UM Clock Tower and Mt. Sentinel. This place is gorgeous!
 This evening, Fiona and I were invited to a BBQ at my Missoula families house. It was such a nice relaxing evening, I'm so grateful I got to meet them! We had a fine feed and I tried 5 new foods today! A brat (which is like a really fat sausage), I tried spare ribs (yes I know, don't judge me :P), I tried hummus, which I loved! I also tried a piece of a horse radish, which I wasn't a big fan of and some pea things, that were okay, but I wouldn't have them again :P
The insane spread of food at Shannon and Craig's house!
 Sunday April 26th

Two months until my birthday! :D Today I got to watch a new episode of Game of Thrones and then I went to work on assignments due for tomorrow. Such as my ornithology peer review, and then I also went to work on my genetics homework. I also put a lot of time into preparing my ornithology presentations for my bird exam next week. Fun times!

This evening, I met with Fiona, Lauren and Jamie on campus to go over some birds together for our exam. Nothing too exciting happened today I'm afraid!



So guys, another week down. Thanks again for reading and I hope you're enjoying my blog posts! Things have been slightly more exciting these past two weeks but things will also be quietening down a little bit as finals week is fast approaching :(

Until next week,

- Shannen