Week 17 - It's Good To Be Back!

Hello again! And welcome to my first week of classes for semester 2 :D


Monday January 26th - First day of classes.

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY KAREN!


So, I literally didn't sleep at all last night because of being sick and when my alarm went off at 6.30 am I was like no way can I go into class like this.. I looked like crap, I sounded like crap and I felt like crap.. Nah ah! So I emailed my lecturers, they were cool about it - so yay! On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I have Genetics and Evolution, it's a 200 level class, so I'm hoping I'll find it easy enough and the lecturer for it is young (and possibly good looking....) so that's a plus! I also have Ornithology (study of birds) which Kris was kindly able to override me into the class as she promised me before Christmas break :) I didn't miss too much anyways so that's good and I also got to watch 8 episodes of Season 2 Game of Thrones today, I'm making some good progress! Fiona told me the 9th episode is usually the season finale and I was too tired to watch another one so we're leaving it until tomorrow night :D


Tuesday January 27th

So I had my official first day of classes today.. I had my Rangeland Ecology class and then afterwards met Kate for lunch and then I had my Recreation Behaviour class. Both I love already! And the lecturers are really nice. The only thing is, for every Tuesday and Thursday I have an awful amount of reading to do for both classes! Rangeland usually requires 2/3 papers to be read and a short summary of each paper written for each class as well as a book chapter to read too (usually 20 pages). For Recreation Behaviour I have one paper for each class, Tues and Thurs, to read also, and basically go through it with a fine tooth comb! I did say I wanted to read more but this is not what I had in mind - haha. Nevertheless, I do like my classes though! Siobhan called over for chats this evening and afterwards, I finished Season 2 of Game of Thrones - YAY! Flu update : still dying.

Blue skies, and some snow that's been on the ground for weeks. I love this campus.

Wednesday January 28th

Today's schedule is the same for Monday, Genetics and Evolution and Ornithology. My lectures start at 8am but on the bright side I finish at 11am, for this week anyways. From next Weds onwards I have a Genetics 'lab' from 11am to 12pm so that's not all too bad either! I FaceTimed Mom and then Aisling today and had a catch up with them. Also got to catch up on Supernatural and then I squeezed in all my readings due for tomorrow's classes. Just barely! Nothing too exciting.. Oh and I'm also still dying with the flu..


Thursday January 29th

Still dying with the flu.. Feel even more crappy today (if that's even possible). 8am start again this morning with my first Ornithology lab. We had 24 (roughly) birds that we must be able to identify by next Tuesdays lab. So we went around the room with our list of names and ticked them off one by one. For me, I took pictures of each of them and wrote down something that would hopefully help me to remember them.

Just an example of one of the birds we have to be able to identify.

 I got home at around 4 pm and I just lay down in bed and watched some YouTube vids for a while before finally catching up on Pretty Little Liars from earlier in the week.. After dinner I started working on a presentation which is basically just my own personal revision guide for my Ornithology lab. I put all my pictures into slides and descriptions about each bird. Kate and Desiree also called over this evening for a while and Kate gave me a present of some Irish chocolate, Frozen CD and also an Olaf USB stick!! This was a thank you present from her for me collecting her from the airport and also bringing her shopping during the week for apartment stuff. Oh yeah, KATE'S MOVING TO LEWIS AND CLARK! YAY! We chatted about having a 21st birthday party for Dave this Saturday night also and we made a couple plans :D


Friday January 30th

8am start again this morning with Genetics and Evolution first. It's amazing how fast I'm getting accustomed to getting up early :P An hour break then between this class and Ornithology with Kris. After these classes were finished with, Fiona and I headed back to the Ornithology lab to catch up on some birds that I had possibly missed out on yesterday. Found two birds that I had missed out on lab yesterday so I ran through them and also some of the birds outside the lab in a glass case. We have to be able to identify each bird and for Montanan birds, we have to be able to recognize their calls (fun I know ...). I'll admit, I'm not a bird person, although I do have a love for Raptors, but this class is making me like them more and more!
TODAY IS MOVING DAY! Kate is moving to Lewis and Clark today so both Dave and I are helping her move her stuff into my car and then from my car to her NEW apartment in L&C, YAY!! It's all very exciting! Fiona, Kate and I went to Walmart to do a food shop, even though I went during the week I was only going for a small few basics and a nice bit of medicine to try and cure this flu (still hanging in there!).


Saturday January 31st

Am, so it's the last day of January?! Feels like yesterday I rang in the new year at home in Ireland having a onesie party with my younger cousins.. Whoah!
So this morning Fiona and I went over to Jason from the Wildlife Society's house. The society were given a wolf skeleton that had been hit by a car just a little north of Missoula and had unfortunately died. He is an incredibly huge sized wolf and he was aged to only be 1 year old! If you want to see a video on the wolf you can search " brain scoop getting the wolf " on YouTube and you will be able to see an introductory video on him. There are other videos on there but they are not for the faint hearted so I wouldn't recommend watching further than the first one! :P Anyways, we gathered at Jason's house out in his garage where he had a nice set up of four hot plates. Each hot plate had a saucepan on it with boiling water and Borax in it. This worked to soften the softer tissue on the bones. At one point there was 7 of us, sat around the table, working on various bone bits scraping to get the cartilage off but being careful to not damage the actual bones. By I think 12.30 pm we had all four feet bones done and made a start on the toe bones. But unfortunately, the cold started to slowly get at all of us and we called it a day. BUT we still managed to get a lot of the project done! After we clean the bones, we will have to bleach them to whiten them up and then once this is done, we will be putting the skeleton back together and he will hopefully be placed somewhere on campus. I'm hoping it will be done before we go home cause I would love to see it finished!

Our bone cleaning set up this morning at Jason's house.

The box of wolf bones we have to get through and clean.

 Went to Albertsons and picked up some alcoholic beverages for the partaay tonight. Then once we got home I made a start on the jelly shots, I've become famous for them since I got here :P I made strawberry flavoured ones with vodka and triple sec and then I also made lime flavoured ones with Captain Morgan and they were by far my favourite! Fiona and I also did a massive spring cleaning of the apartment. Like, big time! We cleaned out every nook and cranny, emptied out some of the cupboards, scrubbed the counters/floors and hoovered. The place is looking well now, just hope it lasts for a while at least!

Lime & Captain Morgan and Strawberry & Vodka/Triple Sec flavoured vodka jelly shots :D

This evening then at 7.30 pm Bridget called up and we headed over to Dave's apartment where we finally got to meet his new roommate, Dale. The apartment got a badly needed make over! There are antlers mounted on the wall that Dale himself hunted, and he also brought a tv for the apartment too. Bridget brought over her speakers so we could get some music going and before we knew it the party had started! Antonio brought over his beer pong table so there was some beer pong games going all night. It was brilliant to catch up with everyone that came over and then we eventually went downtown. Where there was some amount of laughs had! Couldn't have asked for a better gang :P Eventually made it home at roughly 3 am I think? Chatted to Fiona for a while before feeding ourselves with toast then headed to bed :P

Myself and the birthday boy.

The red velvet birthday cake Desiree and Kate made for Dave's birthday, decorated with dinosaurs :P

Sunday February 1st

Happy 21st Birthday Daaave & Happy Superbowl Sunday!

 So a very hungover and dehydrated Shannen woke up this morning.. I hadn't planned on going downtown last night because I'm still sick with the flu (yes, still sick). But I was convinced otherwise and had a blast! Still have genetics homework to get done but Kate, Desiree and Dave called over this morning and Fiona made some pancakes for breakfast while we watched She's The Man :P
Once everyone left I made a start at the homework but I couldn't concentrate.. I also fell asleep on the floor for a short while.. I then procrastinated further and rearranged my room a little bit.. I eventually sat back down and made a start at the questions, and no I didn't watch the Superbowl. I have no interest whatsoever in American football -_- But I did watch the half-time show cause Katy Perry is amazing and she thankfully, didn't disappoint.
Nothing too interesting happened for the rest of the evening here in Missoula. We also had a mad snow shower here today which lasted for a few hours and it put a fresh blanket of snow on the ground (basically everywhere).




Okay so that's my first week back in Missoula so far! Already have assignments, homework and required readings to do.. Gahh.. No rest for the wicked! But nevertheless, it's reeeeeally good to be back! And I'm super happy to be back blogging again, I did miss it even though I was incredibly busy over the winter break. And after I wrote this up I realized I didn't take many pictures this week (sorry!). I hope to stick to my Tuesday schedule for posting my blog, although, as per usual I may be a little busier some weeks more than others so it could be up early or late but everytime I post it I'll try have it at a convenient enough time for those of you in Ireland that read my blog so it will hopefully show up on yer Facebook pages.

Thank you again ever so much for reading! This week my blog post hit 1,300 views and I literally did not ever imagine I could get that many! So thank you again!

- Shannen