Week 5 - Homecoming!

Monday September 22nd

Happy 21st Birthday Amy!

Today I had to hand in an assignment for my Wildlife Physiology class first. We also got the results back from our exam last week, I got 80% which I have quickly learned isn't a great grade here. It was my first exam though and I have the chance to drop it as only four out of our five exams in this class count as credit. Yay!

For our Introduction to Perch Compliance assignment we just had to email it in to either Kris or Bret. They are trying to move away from paper so they find with such a small class of only 11 people, emailing it in is quite sufficient. After class we then have our lab, today we were doing comparative dissections. We all did different animals such as, two fish, a stingray, a turtle, a frog, a salamander and a shark. Fiona and I chose the frog, which I really didn't want to do because I love frogs and I was quite happy not knowing what's on the inside. But we did anyways, and he was pretty cool. His skin was awesome the amount of capillaries on the under side of his skin was amazing. We soon discovered he had an amazing assortment of muscles and the ones on his legs were huge for all his jumping. We all then taught the next about the different muscles on the animals we dissected.

We just came home and relaxed for a while because thankfully, we have no assignments due in this week it makes a change! We decided after a while of blogging we'd go up the mountain behind Lewis and Clark to do some deer watching for one of our assignments for our habitat and management class. For this class, we have to do roughly 6 hours of watching a vertebrate animal of our choice, so Fiona and I chose an animal that's common around these parts and easy to watch for 6 hours - White Tailed Deer. Obviously not 6 hours in one day, we're going to do it over a number of days. We then met up with Eoghan and went to Walmart and on our way back we stopped off in Big Dipper and treated ourselves to Ice Cream!

The sunset while we were deer watching. Gorgeous.

Tuesday September 23rd

Just another usual day on campus, had Conservation and Management with our guest speaker. He spoke to us about populations in Elk and the factors affecting their growth and survival. The biggest factor affecting Elk populations is in fact humans. This is because the Elk have been hunted out of the prairie lands where they do very well and they have plenty of food availability in order for humans to farm. They have instead moved to the mountainous areas where the food would not be as good quality for them to live off and feed young off also. Humans have more of an impact than wolves and also surprisingly, grizzly bears also have more of an impact on Elk than wolves do. Really interesting stuff!

We got home and had a quick lunch before heading off to Southgate Mall to try and get some warmer clothes for the cold weather we are expected to get. We also got Roxiberry frozen yoghurt while we were here, I just love it! Unfortunately, they don't have their more winter stuff out yet as the weather here is still quite warm. Pity because this is a nice quiet week for me with no assignments to do, yet! I'll have to try and sit down and possibly do some study so I won't get too lazy about college work I guess!

Roxiberry Frozen Yoghurt <3

Wednesday September 24th

Just another average day at college today. Had my Wildlife Phys. class and we found out that we have no class this friday, yay! Had vertebrate design and evolution then afterwards, nothing major to report here.
This evening, Fiona and I set off out again deer watching for our Conservation and Management class. We sat and watched a small family of deer for ages with the younger ones getting all inquisitive it was cute watching them slowly approach us. We were sat behind a fence though so they couldn't get too close!

Watching the deer through a camera for close up action.

Happy out after our mini-hike deer watching!

 We watched some more of the Frozen Planet documentaries tonight again, educating ourselves a little better haha.



Thursday September 25th

Today I got to catch up with my sister before heading to college. Went in for another guest lecture in Conservation and Management. I went to the Griz Store on campus after class and got myself my first Grizz football t-shirt, a hoodie and temporary face tattoos also for the Homecoming game I'm going to be attending on Saturday afternoon!
Getting quite excited about it now.

I had a splitting headache this evening but I got to talk to Av and Kisha from home, getting all the news and just having a catch up. Didn't really do anything that exciting today, just messed about the place and took a spin to Walmart with Dave tonight cause I needed to get stuff for breakfast and he had to do food shopping also.



Friday September 26th

Seeing as my 12pm class was cancelled I didn't have anything on until 1.30 pm today which was delightful. I still got up early though cause I was dropping my friend home from the dentist after he got his wisdom teeth out. Only a couple of blocks away too so that was handy! Met Sofia at Lewis and Clark at 1.15 ish and then collected Fiona on our way to the Field Research Station. We made our way out there and ended up being the first to arrive even though we were five minutes late! We broke up into our different research groups and started on the assignment given to us by Bret and Kris, where we got to work with the equipment and learn how to use it and whatnot, which was pretty cool!

Finished up and headed home then, both Fiona and I didn't feel like cooking a dinner today, and see as it's a Friday we said we'd go for something to eat somewhere, so we got Dave and I brought them to Wendy's for the first time. We got dinner here and then very cheekily got Dairy Queen after visiting the Liquor Store/Casino to get spirits for the homecoming game tomorrow.
We were wrecked tired and had to be up early in the morning so it was an early night for us after watching another episode of the Frozen Planet tonight.

Wendys, my favorite fast food restaurant!

Saturday September 27th

HOMECOMING!!
So I got up at like 7am because we had to be in town at 8.30am and we didn't know if we would have to walk all the way in or if there would be a taxi at this hour of the morning that we could get. Luckily, there was taxis so we got one of these to town to meet up with the others that will be on our float for the parade.

Big sleepy head on me, all excited for homecoming!

I was all decked out in my Griz gear and my Irish flag for the Study Abroad float. We hopped on our float a bit after 8.30 am and we then headed into the line up for the parade, everyone was holding flags from various countries. We then began shortly after 10 am. We drove through Missoula town before heading out towards the University. After 5 minutes of sitting on the float I decided to hop off and run/walk next to it handing out stickers/cards and blow up globes to little children who were standing on the side of the street. It was so much fun!

All decked out with my Irish flag.

Afterwards, we went to Shannon and Craig's house for an absolutely amazing BBQ to provide some soakage before we started our drinking for the homecoming football game. We left around 1pm for the game after saying our many thank yous for the lovely spread of food. We found a place to stand and watched some of the game. The Grizzlies were doing really well and it didn't look like there was going to be a change in the game so instead we left early and went to Stacey's dorm room and played some drunken jenga, essentially jenga with Kings rules written on every block. Around 4.30/5 pm we all headed back to Lewis and Clark, Fiona and I went in home for some food first then we all met up at Fabien's house for some predrinking. Went to town about 8.30/9 ish (really early!!). Had such a good night! Really gutted a lot of the International Students that are out here now are only going to be here for one semester. It's not fair!


Sunday September 28th

A lot of Sunday was spent sleeping. Both Dave and I took a shopping trip to Walmart alright in th evening time but I spent it working on blog and starting/finishing an array of assignments I have due this week. Nothing too major happened as per my usual Sundays.



Sorry this weeks post is a bit later than usual. I've been up the walls with college assignments that I haven't got much of a chance to sort my blog out. I'm now going to upload on Tuesdays instead of Mondays as my timetable is a lot better on a Tuesday allowing me to be able to post up at an earlier time. Next week is basically just all assignments/exams. Very busy! We have our first weekend off in ages where we're going to take yet another trip to the National Bison Range hopefully!

Thanks for reading!

- Shannen 

Week 4 - Yellowstone, at long last!

Monday September 15th

So, I had my first 20% exam today in Wildlife Physiological Ecology, which thankfully didn't go bad! I think I did okay in it. We also had Chloe, Dr. Breuner's dog, roaming around the classroom looking for affection. Saying that, normally when I do exams, I may think I've done well but it doesn't turn out to be the case. I'll have to wait and see..

We had our Vertebrate Design and Evolution class from which we went straight to our lab. Again this week we worked on our cat dissections, dissecting this time the muscles. This was a three hour lab. We had our first quiz on muscles also at the beginning of this lab. I think I have probably done more rote learning in these labs than I have since the Leaving Cert.!

Monday evening I spent working on yet another assignment that is due in on Wednesday. Nothing too exciting I'm afraid!


Tuesday September 16th

Today myself and Fiona had a meeting with the academic advisor of Wildlife Biology in the University.  During the late summer I had been corresponding quite a bit with Jeanne Franz as I was having trouble registering for classes, which she was kindly able to sort me out. After this we had an hour wait until our first field trip with our Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management class to the Wildlife Refuge, Ninepipes.

We left on one of the Yellow School Buses at 12.10pm (very precise in the USA). We traveled to Ninepipes which took about an hour where we met with the manager of the land who gave us a tour and chatted to us about the conservation and management they do on the land also. We learned about the various species that are on the reserve and also what organizations participate hugely with the refuge.

We got home and both Fiona and I worked on our assignments again before settling down to watch The Amazing Spiderman 2, which was incredible. Far better than the first one!


Wednesday September 17th

Had my Wildlife Physiological Ecology class where we moved onto the topic of Oxygen and why it's important. Vertebrate Design and Evolution consisted today of a lot of physics, which quite a few people in the class found it hard to grasp.  Physics was never one of those subjects I really liked anyways.

Fiona and I got to catch up with Sarah from home for a while on FaceTime which was nice to hear how different third year is at home for them. We also prepared ourselves for Yellowstone on Saturday by watching a documentary on the wolves of Yellowstone, learning about the Druid's Peak pack and the Slough Creek pack that live in the Lamar Valley.


Thursday September 18th

Had our Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management class at 12 pm today where we've moved onto studying habitat selection and what affects it, it's pretty interesting! Next week both our Teaching Assistant, Charlie, and Dr. Dreitz are away so we have guest lecturers speaking to us, which should be pretty cool. Today we were supposed to hand in our field report from the field trip on Tuesday but the questions were not made up on time so we thankfully get an extension until September 30th - lightens up my workload a small bit!

This evening just consisted of starting an assignment that is due for Monday, an introduction into our Research Project on Perch Compliance in birds. A lot of research into this paper has to be done so it's tough but thankfully this assignment isn't marked, as far as I know, it's just a stepping stone for our project.

We watched The Lion King tonight, my favorite childhood movie! Elliot and Dave called over, hadn't seen them in a few days! They've been busy doing labs for their classes. They ended up watching the movie with us for the night. I also got invited to a bbq at my Missoula families house on Sunday evening which I'm really looking forward to!


Friday September 19th

One step closer to Yellowstone! So excited and only one assignment to do over the weekend, sorted!
Not so much.... Ended up getting another assignment to do for Wildlife Physiological Ecology for Monday which didn't look too bad when I first opened it up, 6 questions, grand. Then I opened it up again later on when I was waiting for my lab to see there was actually 16 questions that had to be answered as well as reading the paper. Yaaaay ... We had our dissection lab again today but this time with Bret instead of Kris, which was a nice change! We then discovered we have homework in finishing off the origin, insertion and action off all the rest of the axial, appendicular and pelvic muscles, as well as another quiz on Monday. The one weekend I'm quite busy, classic.


So I got home and I didn't waste any time, I started on the muscle homework straight away, taking the best part of an hour to do, but I got it done with only a few missing because I genuinely couldn't find them. I then started on my WILD346 assignment which took over an hour to do also. In the middle of this I met Sofia outside Lewis and Clark as she was letting me borrow her binoculars for the trip to Yellowstone tomorrow.


During this time we also had a phone dilemma. Fiona couldn't find her phone and we literally turned the apartment upside down trying to find it. Neither of us could remember seeing it, then we thought she may have washed it in the laundry.  I suggested going out to the buses to see if anyone found it but no luck. One of the other Irish lads out here rang me later on saying that the bus driver found her phone and he was going to cycle back to Lewis and Clark this evening with it for her - how nice?! So thankfully this story had a happy ending!


I finished off my WILD346 assignment and read through half the paper, the other half I'll do on Sunday. I had a quick dinner and then began making a variety of lunches for our trip to Yellowstone tomorrow. Seeing as we are going to be leaving at 3am that means bringing something for breakfast also, and back up sandwiches for dinner. So much food!


Saturday September 20th

It's FINALLY here!

My first alarm went off at 2 am. I turned it off, falling back to sleep again until my second one went off at 2.20am. I got up to this one - such a crazy hour of the morning to be waking up at. Myself and Fiona got ourselves organized, bags packed and all batteries/cameras charged up and ready to go. We went outside at 3:10am waiting to be picked up at 3:15am. By 3:20 there was still not sign of the bus - we were slightly worried. I took a walk out onto the road to have a look and spotted the bus down at the other bus stop for Lewis and Clark! So lucky - we could have missed the bus. We hurried on down there and hopped onto the bus. We were the only two being collected from Lewis and Clark as well as one of the helpers, who never actually turned up. We boarded up the bus and headed for the Lomasson Center on campus to collect Mona, the trip organizer and tour guide, and the other students. We left campus at 3.30am and headed for Yellowstone! Everyone slept on the bus with some people even bringing blankets and pillows with them for the journey. We stopped about 1.5hours away from Yellowstone for one of the bus drivers to get off. He was resting himself at a Motel for the day in order to drive us back to Missoula that night.

We had to change the itinerary of our trip due to one of the roads at Yellowstone being closed for construction so instead, we entered from the North side of Yellowstone. Here, we got the see the very first official entrance, a bridge/wall constructed out of actual rock from Yellowstone. Within five minutes we saw our first sign of wildlife - a very large bull Elk who was bugling. There was so many cars with tourists and/or photographers looking at him and photographing him. We kept driving past him so I didn't have time to take my camera out to take a photo. We drove through the park with our first stop being the Mammoth terraces, these were pretty cool and were thriving with bacteria.

We walked around having a look at all the different terraces before hopping back on the bus and heading to our next destination. We passed so many bison along the road, Fiona and I were probably the only people on the bus who were not excited to see them as we've already been to the National Bison Range twice. Mona talked about the history of Yellowstone as we made our way to the beautiful Yellowstone Lake. She talked about the wildfires that happen in Yellowstone and the major one in 1988. Surprisingly, the animals did very well in this and not too many died. The pine trees that are in the park, actually need the fires in order to open the pine cones to release the seeds in order for new trees to grow. The National Parks Service have now since decided not to interfere with the fires unless they are going to do harm to humans and/or human structures.

 We arrived at Yellowstone Lake where we sat on the sand by the beach and had a picnic lunch.  Such a beautiful location that had a surprising amount of ladybugs there also! We had half an hour here before we had to get back onto our bus and head back in the direction we had come.

The next stop we made was at Mudpools or otherwise known as Mud Volcanoes. This was an incredibly cool stop, seeing the mud bubbling and boiling actually looked really inviting for a mud bath! We had 30 mins here also before we had to hop back onto the bus for our next stop.

While on our way to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, we got stuck in traffic due to Bison walking across the road way blocking traffic. Seeing as this is their land, you are not in any way allowed to interfere with any of the wildlife! Bison can be particularly aggressive animals and can run at speeds of 37mph which is incredibly fast for an animal of its size! We arrived at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and had between 20-30 minutes here where we got to see the beautiful Lower Falls.We walked up onto the viewing platforms where Mona talked to anyone who wanted to listen about the Canyon. Both Fiona and I got pretty annoyed here too because there was another tour bus here with people who were so rude and once when I was trying to take a picture one of them tried to push me out of her way. Needless to say I wasn't going to move. As well as this, they would skip ahead of you if you were patiently waiting to take a picture that had a nice view, they were not having any of it! This not only severely annoyed me, but many other people around.

The Lower Falls

After seeing the Lower Falls we then went to see the Upper Falls, a smaller waterfall but this time we were stood on a platform over the falls. You could literally feel the power and strength off the water gushing through it was phenomenal. It even had it's own mini rainbow to complete the atmosphere.

Again, we hopped back on the bus and next went to the Fountain Paint Pot, here was a series of geologic features again. We saw more bubbling mud, a hotspring with a gorgeous blue and green color, a small geyser erupting.

We had 30 mins here and then went onto the Midway Geyser Basin which contained the Excelsior Geyser and the Grand Prismatic Spring. The Excelsior Geyser is now inactive but it used to erupt with over 300ft of water bursting up into the air, it went off randomly some years back but since then is inactive. The Grand Prismatic Spring though is gorgeous. There is a variety of colors here caused by the different bacteria that live in the spring, all having their own ideal temperature and pH at which they work best. There was a lot of steam here though and the angle of the sun didn't help matters for photos but the colors could be seen by eye! I did pick up a postcard which I'll put it down below showing you the different colors in the spring.

 We then made our way back to our last stop of the day at Old Faithful. The Old Faithful Geyser erupts regularly, with scientists being able to predict when it's next eruption will be based on how much water and how high the water is that comes out. We arrived just in time with a viewing happening in 20 minutes. We all gathered outside and waited. It was amazing, with a variety of ooooohs and ahhhhhs from the crowd of people, everyone was amazed.

We had 3 hours to do what we wanted to here at Old Faithful, getting our dinner here was also one of the to-do things. Fiona and I went to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge 'Geyser Grill'. Dying for some proper food we got burgers and chips, which didn't last very long. We then went into the Old Faithful Inn which is absolutely gorgeous. Words cannot describe it! There was a grand piano on the second floor playing some very nice and relaxing music. We went into the souvenir shop that was here and got some bits and bobs for ourselves and those at home. We saw that there was an ice-cream shop here also so we couldn't resist and got ourselves a 'single' portion which turned out to be three large scoops of the ice-cream of our choice. We chilled and ate this, before watching the next eruption of Old Faithful on a balcony outside of the Inn - truly gorgeous.

We took a wander around the area, passing the Visitor Center where we had a chat with one of the Park Rangers about where is the best place to spot wolves and bears (already planning a trip back here), we passed the geyser again and strolled around the Inn. We were all meeting back at the buses at 8:30 pm to head back home for Missoula. Everyone arrived on time thankfully. We stopped along the way to pick up the other bus driver who was taking us back home. We arrived back in Missoula at 2:30 am. With Fiona and I arriving back to Lewis and Clark close to 3 am. A full 24hours after we left. It was an absolutely incredible day and I'm already looking forward to going back!


Sunday September 21st

Today is the biggest day of the year for anyone from Kerry or Donegal. It's All Ireland Football Final Day!!! After only 4 hours sleep, my alarm went off and I hopped out of bed and got the game up on my laptop. Way too excited for this hour of the morning I also turned on Radio Kerry just to make it feel extra homely. With the Kerry Minors winning their match, it'd be a huge deal for the Seniors to also win as they haven't won the double since 1980! After a minute Kerry had a goal scored, this is looking to be a promising match so far! I was able to watch up to the second half until the internet here caved in and wouldn't let me watch anymore.. (our wifi isn't the greatest here). I tuned into the second half with Weeshie Fogarty and Gary O' Sullivan on Radio Kerry. What I would have given to have been up at the match today! Since then, I've been to a couple semi finals if we're not in New York. Anyways, long story short, we won our 37th All Ireland Title today, beating Donegal by 2-09 to 0-12. Not a man in The Kingdom will be disappointed tonight, that's for sure!

At 5:30pm I headed over to my Missoula families house for a bbq, we had absolutely delicious steak with a range of food accompanying it. Absolutely delicious! And afterwards, we had delicious brownies that Shannon had made, which we even brought some home too! I spent the night trying to learn roughly 30-40 muscles for a quiz that we have tomorrow, as well as finishing off some of my three assignments that are due in tomorrow also. Talk about a crazy weekend!




So this week, I took a bit of a different approach to the blog, I cut down big time on what happens during the week, because no one wants to read about what I do every second. I just kind of mention the basics and that. Friday marked my 5th week here in Missoula. The 5 weeks have absolutely flown by it's crazy! We've already seen so many of the landmark places here it's just been fantastic. Really am thoroughly enjoying myself here. Fiona's blog for anyone interested in reading that is : http://fionasamericanadventures.blogspot.com/ 


Next week I FINALLY get to go to my first Griz game. And it's not any ordinary game, it's homecoming!!

Thanks for reading,

- Shannen.

Week 3 - There's more than one way to skin a cat.. Literally.

WARNING: Just as a warning to any of you who may be a bit squeamish. Monday's post may not be to your liking as we did our first dissection in class, I'm not going to describe it in detail nor will I be putting pictures of it up, but I just wanted to warn you.



Monday September 8th

Had my first class of the day at 12 pm where I got back the assignment on the graph I handed in last week. A plus means 100%, a check means 85% and a minus means 75%. I got mine back and I got a check on mine so I thought I did great getting 85%! Then when Dr. Breuner explained the marking scheme 85% is generally only average, even though I only made one mistake I was still marked down to average. The system here is a little different but nevertheless I'm still delighted with my mark!

 I had my Vertebrate Design and Evolution class at 1 pm where we discussed the origin of vertebrates and then at 2.30 pm we were having our first dissection lab. Seeing as we're moving onto the topic of muscles, we obviously needed something to work on in order to see these muscles on a vertebrate animal. So we used cats. I really did not want to do this lab knowing I would be looking at a dead cat. I was intrigued and wanted to know where the cats came from so I asked Kris. She told us that they came from a Humane Society who unfortunately put down cats that aren't adopted and are then sold onto a biological company who further supply schools and colleges for science experiments. These cats were supposed to come skinned but unfortunately, they got the order wrong and our poor cats came with their fur still attached. So naturally, seeing as we're not able to see the muscles through the fur, we had to skin our cats. I for one was not very impressed with this idea, and I really didn't want to go ahead with it. Fiona made the first incision and opened him up, so I would then carry on. Don't worry, I'm not going to describe it anymore! Basically, Fiona was a little squeamish so I had to do a lot of the work and seeing as we were only using one scalpel to begin with it made it hard so we decided to go and get a second one and we were able to work away side by side, slower than everyone else though, but we got most of the work done. It gave us a whole new light on the saying 'There's more than one way to skin a cat.' By the end of the lab, Fiona had come around and was okay with working on our kitty, while I was thoroughly enjoying myself the whole time. I'm slightly worried I enjoyed it so much. Kris then gave us a presentation on her cat and told us what our homework was then we all cleaned up the desk areas and left for home.

Some of the muscles we looked at in class, found this image on Google Images just as an example.

I got home and cooked up my dinner and relaxed and watched some Whose Line Is It Anyway. At 8pm Fiona, Elliot, Dave, Siobhan and I then went out to the dollar store that's on Brooks Street where you can get absolutely everything in there for only $1. We got all the essentials that were needed and then we headed out to North Reserve Street to the Walmart to do the rest of the shopping. I came home and worked on the muscle assignment a little bit before heading to bed.


Tuesday September 9th

Went into college for 9:45 am because sign up for the Yellowstone trip was at 10:15 am. Met Fiona in there and I also met another Irish student Eilis! Glad to meet some more Irish it really is lovely. We got signed up and paid our $85 so we were delighted! From here we went over to the library to print off our sign up for our one credit class of Hunter Check Station. I'm really looking forward to this class! Basically, we go to a Hunter Check Station (the one we've picked is in Darby), and we monitor the species, sex and ages of all the animal that are leaving the reserve with the hunters. We learn to be able to tell the sex, species and ages of the animals which should be really cool! And I was talking to one of the girls in my Habitat class and she said when she did that class they saw a wolf being carried out of the reserve, which is really unusual! When we went to the office to hand these in we picked up a couple free posters of Owls, Frogs & Toads, Salamanders and Bats of Montana - to decorate our rooms a little bit! We then headed over to the University Center where we got tickets for the Griz game on Saturday. They're free - NICE! I really hope I can go, next week I have two exams on Monday - one of them is worth 20% and I also have two assignments due in.
Went to Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management today and we got handed back our assignments which we handed in last Tuesday and I was so shocked to see i got 10/10 in it! Delighted! Basically just did about niche theories in this lecture and then headed home.

 Met Jak on the way back and he asked were we going to his ice hickey game tonight. I originally hadn't planned on it but I decided I would simply because I've never been to an ice hockey game, and I vowed to get most of my work done this evening so I could go.

The hockey game!

 I received an email from Sarah Culloty - the head of BEES in UCC letting me know we were up on the BEES website about studying abroad. We were delighted to be able to promote what a great experience this is for students! I worked on my muscles assignment and got it finished so I had my dinner and at 8:35 pm  we left to go to the hockey game. Fiona, Elliot, Sarah, Barry and I all hopped into my car and headed over. Met up with all the Internationals and had a blast cheering on for Jak's team. Being the coolies that we are - didn't head out tonight cause we have so much work to be doing - so we went to Big Dipper on the way home and got ice cream! It's so good.
Then we headed home and myself and Fiona stayed up chatting for a while before checking the time at 12:40 am and headed to bed!


Wednesday September 10th

There was quite a noteable temperature drop today. The season for long pants and hoodies is coming!

 Dr. Breuner decided she wanted to test out what we could remember from the last lecture we had so she asked us all to close our notes and she called on random people in the class to recite what they could remember from Monday's class. I didn't get called on - this time! She then gave us out a mini group assignment to do in class given the formulas we just ran through. This time I didn't escape and I got called on to explain the first part of the equation - which we thankfully got right! We then proceeded on with the lecture and we even finished up a few minutes early. Went over to my second and last class of the day in the Health Science Building for Vertebrate Design and Evolution. Here we talked about embryology of vertebrates which is quite interesting. We were also given details of our field trip to the Bison Range on Saturday with our class and we also got given our research project assignments, both Fiona and I got the project on Perch Compliance in birds that we requested. Bret also dropped some subtle hints about possible exam questions. Finished up at 2:30 pm and headed home. Made lunch and then I FaceTimed my sister for a while to see how she was getting on with her first week of classes in University College Cork. Fiona and I then went and cleaned the whole apartment because it wasn't exactly clean and we put all the dirty dishes into the dishwasher because we didn't want to wash them. We both then retreated to our rooms to work on the forever growing pile of homework that never seems to vanish.

I started the assignment Bret gave us on choosing a clade of our choice and research a bunch of different topics on them. This took quite some time, but right now I've thankfully got most of it done with! It shouldn't take me too long to finish it up. It's looking like I'm going to be able to go to the Griz game on Saturday night! I worked at this assignment for a couple of hours and then Fiona and I sat down to watch the Disney movie I have been longing to see, Tangled.

Thursday September 11th

Today was the day I got to meet my Missoula International Friendship Program family and I am way too excited! We had our Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management class this afternoon from 12-1 pm. Dr. Dreitz gave us information about our upcoming field trip next Tuesday. From here I headed home and tried to study for the exams I have coming up. Naturally though, I fell asleep for a good bit and missed the group meeting we were going to have about discussing travel plans for Thanksgiving.

I made my dinner and then got ready for the meet and greet. It was being held in Caras Park, Missoula, beside the carousel and we were being given free ice cream from the Big Dipper also. The Meet and Greet was due to begin at 6:30pm until 8 pm. Fiona, Preethy and I left Lewis and Clark at this time as it was only a 10 minute drive to Caras Park. We arrived and there was already a big gathering of students and families. We signed in at the student table, and they directed us to go to the woman in a yellow hat and yellow balloons. Her name is also Shannon and she's my MIFP! Both Fiona and I signed in with her and Fiona chilled with us while she waited for her family to arrive (which didn't take long). Shannon then brought me over and introduced me to her husband, Craig, and her daughter, Grace, who were already in line for the Big Dipper ice cream. Their son, Callan, was helping to serve the ice cream so I also got to meet him too. We got our ice cream and this amazing chocolate sauce. Dan then arrived and we all chatted and laughed for I would say the best part of an hour. Grace wanted to go on the carousel so all of us, except Callan because he was helping to clean up, got on the carousel, which was good fun! There's a mini challenge also where there is a dragon who has rings in his mouth that the person on the outside horse can try and get and if you get the gold ring you get a free ride (even though the carousel was free for today). Dan was on the outside horse and he got I think 4 rings, and I think Grace got 4/5 also.

It was such a nice evening, very relaxed and I'm very happy I got such a nice family. Everything finished up at 8 pm so we headed home and because it got quite cold this evening we had hot chocolate to heat us up a bit before heading to Elliot's to print off our homework that is due in tomorrow.

Seeing as we were shattered and cold we didn't have the mindset to do any study, so we sat down and watched Spirit, because I have never seen it. After this, I hopped into bed and did some studying for the mini class test I have tomorrow for Wildlife Physiological Ecology.


Friday September 12th

Today Dr. Breuner brought her dog into class today. She told us on Wednesday that what she normally does with exams is bring her dog into the classroom so people won't get too stressed out and can pet a dog if needed. So on Friday, she brought Chloe into class for a while to introduce us to her seeing as we have a 20% exam on Monday morning. We then had a break from 1 - 3 pm. Our usual Friday labs don't happen anymore now that we're starting up our research projects, we have to go out to the University Flight Lab which is located at Fort Missoula. Here we had a talk on our project and we also got to meet the birds we will be using. We also got a tour of the building showing us all the very cool equipment that is used in their research.

The Field Research Station at Fort Missoula.

I also got invited over to my Missoula families house this evening. Dan and I headed over shortly after 5 pm for happy hour! We chilled out on their front porch and chatted with other students from China and Germany that Shannon and Craig know. I stayed until roughly 9.30 pm, I had to be up at 5.30 am for my first field trip tomorrow morning. But, instead of going to bed early, we decided we wanted to go and try see the Northern lights as they were supposed to be visible tonight. We drove to Blackfoot River and parked up on a dirt track with other International students. The lights were supposed to be peaking between 10pm-12am. By 12am we didn't see any lights so seeing as Fiona and I had to get up early in the morning we decided to head home. I dropped Kate off at the University Center on campus and headed back to Lewis and Clark. We got home and into bed for about 1am.

Saturday September 13th

My alarm went off at 5.30 am and I really didn't want to get up but I knew I had to. For our field trip today we were going to the  National Bison Range. We left Lewis and Clark at 6.30 am and walked to campus as the city buses don't start running on Saturdays until 10am. We arrived on campus at 7am, bang on time. We met Bret and Kris and loaded into the two University minivans. We first stopped at a Cafe in Missoula for everyone to get coffee. Seeing as I don't drink coffee, I got hot chocolate which was absolutely delicious! We then headed for the Bison Range.

We pulled in the gate and we spotted herds of Bison on the hills. We all looked through our binoculars as Bret set up the scope for us to get a clearer picture. We also looked into the trees to our left and saw some Elk over there also. We started on the trail spotting some Red Tailed Hawks sitting on some fence posts as well as some Mule Deer. Soon, we came along a herd of Pronghorn Antelope which we admired in the distance. As well as a male just a couple meters away from us on the road. We also did some bird spotting in the skies along our journey, spotting plenty of Mule Deer while trying to keep an eye out for the Black Bear and her cubs - unfortunately we had no such look. We traveled up hill around some switch back trails and saw some more Mule Deer before coming onto the Bitterroot Trail. We got out of the cars here and walked a little bit, spotting some Elk in the distance through binoculars and also some Bighorn Sheep high up on the mountains. Already a very productive day in animal spotting!

The Pronghorn Antelope on the dirt road ahead of us.

A Bighorn Sheep through the scope, taken on my phone.

We continued on the trail up to the highest point on the range. Here we walked up a mini trail to try and see the Bighorn Sheep at a closer distance. The elevation here really gets to me but thankfully I wasn't the only one out of breath. After a quick 2 min catch up we finished the trek and got to the top. Right down below us there was a herd of Bighorn Sheep just laying in the sunshine. This day has just been absolutely fantastic so far! We swapped drivers here, Bret hopped into our car and Kris into the other one. We continued on the trail back down the mountain where we did some more bird watching and also some Bison watching. Along the trail down we saw some more Mule Deer and then... in the distance we saw TWO COYOTES!! I got way too excited about this. Waaaaay too excited. We watched them playing through our binoculars while running off. We continued our drive and spotted a lone coyote. This had to be the best day ever. THREE coyotes in the space of five minutes. We watched this guy before he moved off and we followed Kris and the others along. We pulled up alongside a massive Bison who we named Big Eddie, just lying on the side of the road and off to the distance on our right there was a massive herd of Bison chilling out with some of them rolling around in the dried up mud/sand. Through our binoculars we spotted FOUR more coyotes creeping down the hill into the herd of Bison. I seriously didn't think this day could get any better!

'Big Eddie'

We watched these coyotes have a stare down with some of the younger Bison. Then they all creeped up to one of the really young ones that was lying down in the grass, we honestly thought they were going to try and take him on! The young Bison just stood up and stared them down, they then playfully ran a small bit in our direction and split up before rejoining and running up onto the hills. By this time we all had gotten out of the car to watch this through our binoculars right beside where Big Eddie was lying down. We kept an eye on him because he had stood up when we got out of the car. I spotted a cute little chipmunk here also. We could also hear this grunting noise coming from the trees below us, but we were not allowed to wander too far away from the car, seeing as it's forbidden to get out of your car in the Bison Range, only in designated areas. We figured it might have just been another Bison.

The extremely cute chipmunk.

The other car had gone ahead of us so they missed out on the whole show! We drove on to try and meet up with them until I asked Bret to stop the car because there was a lone coyote, yes. Coyote number EIGHT! He was foraging in the long grass about 5 meters ahead of us. I got way too excited and used Fiona's camera to take some pictures because her zoom is better than mine. We watched him for a few minutes before he scampered off and so did we. We met up with the others who were after spotting a five point Elk chilling under the shade of the trees off into the distance. We took a look at him for a while through our binoculars and through the scope that Bret had set up. It was also close to the time of mating season for the Elk so you were able to hear the males bugling, which to me just sounded like a terrifying scream.

The incredibly cute coyote.

 We then headed to the picnic area to have lunch because we were all starving at this point. We chatted about a variety of incredibly random animal related subjects. It's so nice to be in a class with such a bunch of friendly people where we all get on quite well! After filling our stomachs, we then went up to the visitor center where we got to go into the back room and have a look at some of the very impressive skulls that were there and quite a range of other specimens! As you can see below, I 'tried on' one of the antlers of a Bull Elk. We then went to the visitor center which was outside the main gates where Bret bought everyone some Buffalo Jerky. Something I had never tried in my life. Peer pressure of course got to me and I tried some. It was quite tough and had a really strong taste to it but it was actually quite nice! It has the weirdest texture to it though. On the way home I tried the spicy jerky which was actually nicer than the original one.

 

We were back to campus for roughly 2.30 pm and one of the guys in my class kindly dropped us to Lewis and Clark because we would have to wait a whole hour for the next city bus to come, or walk. I got home and got straight into bed and slept for about 2.5 hours. It was fabulous! Fiona was heading to the Griz game tonight but I had so much studying for my exam on Monday I couldn't go! I got to FaceTime my Mom for a small while and then I also rang Dad for a chat for a few minutes. I was in the middle of doing some study when Nicole asked if I wanted to FaceTime. I was so delighted we chatted  for over 2 hours having a major catch up! It was great. And also like 6.30 am Irish time when she went to bed, whoops!

The Vertebrate Design and Evolution class with Bret Tobalske and Kris Crandell at the highest point on the Bison Range.

Sunday September 14th

 I slept in late today then eventually got up and did my laundry. I have my first 20% exam tomorrow for Wildlife Physiological Ecology as well as a quiz on the muscles of the cat. I spent most of my day studying for my Physiology exam before heading to Walmart about 2.15 pm with Dave, Elliot, Siobhan and Fiona. We gathered some food and I had to buy a scientific calculator because I would need it for the classes I would be taking here. It only cost me $10 where you'd pay E15 or so for one back home in Ireland, crazy! Came back home and did more study for the evening. I also finally watched the Amazing Spiderman which was absolutely incredible! Andrew Garfield makes for a very good Spiderman! I headed to bed about 11 pm because I was still tired from the day before and I wanted to get up early tomorrow to go for a walk and do some study. 



Such a fun week was had! I was kept busy with all my assignments and studying for quizzes and exams. Next week I finally get to go on a trip to Yellowstone National Park and I am way too excited for it!!

Thanks for reading!

- Shannen

Week 2 - A fun filled week!

Monday September 1st

Labor day! This means no classes - whoooo! Got up nice and early today to finish off a very painful assignment on finding five definitions of conservation and comparing and contrasting them. Rotten to say the least, it took both Fiona and I hours of searching through sites to try and find some half decent papers that would be worth using. We decided, seeing it was labor day, we should go and do something fun. So at 12 pm we headed off on another road trip which was about an hour away to the National Bison Range outside Dixon MT. We had no idea what to expect today but it was somewhere both of us wanted to visit. Dave went rafting with the International Students and Elliot and Siobhan were both working so it was just Fiona and I for the day! I turned on Waze, the Sat Nav., on my phone and we headed off. About an hour later we arrived here and had only just pulled in the gate when we got to see a herd of Elk - great start to our day!

The herd of Elk with the young male.

The older and larger male that was wandering off from the herd.

We drove up to the visitor center to see what our options for the day were. We could get a day pass for $5 or a season pass which would allow as many trips to the Bison Range during the year for only $15, so we went with that option seeing as it would make for a nice day out if we were day at home doing nothing! We had a look around the tourist center, took some pictures and headed off on our journey. We spotted herds of bison on the hills but none very near to us at the beginning of our journey. Also within the first half an hour there were pretty high chances of spotting a black momma bear with her cubs if we had a good look around the trees with berries. Literally, any tree with any berry at all on it we parked up beside it and stared at it and the surroundings to find any chance of seeing a black bear - but no luck! It was quite a hot day also so we reckon she was keeping them in the shade. We did, however, spot some Pronghorn Antelope chilling out and munching on some grass.

Pronghorn Antelope.

We also spotted some Mule Deer, you can tell these are mule deer because they have white bottoms and a thin tail with a black tip.

There was a lot of White Tailed Deer also. The main way to tell the difference between Mule Deer and White Tailed Deer is their antlers and their tails. In Mule Deer their antlers are forked and they have white bottoms with a thin tail. White Tailed Deer have antlers that only have one branch with a few branching off that one main branch.

A male White Tailed Deer.

A young very cute White Tailed Deer.

 We continued our drive up some switchback trails up a mountain until we came across the Bitterroot Trail. This wasn't a proper hiking trail as it was only 1/4 mile but it had an absolutely magnificent view! We sat here and ate our lunch while looking down on some particularly stunning scenery.

Questioning life's mysteries as I look down on the valley.

A selfie with the Bitterroot Valley as the backdrop. Not too shabby!

Once we had our lunch eaten we continued our drive along the one-way road system to the highest point on the range at 4,700 feet. The view from up here was spectacular, we stopped for a bathroom break and then continued our journey on a 100 foot gradual descent down the gravel road.

The view of the gorgeous valley and the Mission Mountains in the distance.

Being the National Bison Range, we didn't actually see too many bison. I did, however, get a picture of a herd of bison munching on food on the hills. These guys are HUGE.

We headed home after this and made it back to Lewis and Clark about 5.30 pm. We collected Elliot, Dave and Siobhan and went to Best Buy to buy a printer between us because printing out all our notes in college is quite expensive and this is a more cost effective way to survive the year. We bought a very good printer, 5,000 sheets of paper and two ink cartridges all for only $25 each! If i may say so myself, not a bad deal at all!

There is an ice cream shop around here called The Big Dipper and it's kind of a big deal so we drove over there this evening to try it out. The ice cream here is unreal and for the amount you get it's such a cheap deal too! I got a double scoop (did not expect it to have so much ice cream!) of vanilla oreo and chocolate chip.

Vanilla Orea Ice Cream with Chocolate.

Tuesday September 2nd

I woke up nice and early this morning (about 9am) although, I do try to get up around this time every morning even though classes don't start for me until 12 pm, it helps me sleep better at night. I got the chance to FaceTime home for a while for a chat and also to wish my little dog a very Happy 11th Birthday. I miss my dog so much I didn't think it would be this hard. I eventually got registered for my home college this morning as well - very productive so far.

Went in for my class at 12 pm. We all handed in our first assignment of the year and carried on with class straight away. We started learning the different definitions for Wildlife, Conservation and Management as well as comparing these and also comparing various different definitions. We got given a reading assignment of reading two scientific journals for our next class which is Thursday morning. Dr. Dreitz ran through the various databases where we can access specific journals for wildlife related topics which would be helpful to us for future assignments.

The Forestry Building where I have my Wildlife Habitat Conservation and Management classes.

This was my only class for the day so I was home by 1.30 pm. I checked my post box and my full drivers license had arrived! No more learner permit for me!! I made lunch and did my clothes washing. In Lewis and Clark, it's $1.50 to wash your clothes and $0.25 for every 15 minutes you use the dryer to dry your clothes. Not a bad deal really, but I don't find them to be all that great. Seeing as I was pretty busy with my first week of classes I haven't had a chance to properly organize and tidy up my room so I took this free time to do so. I put away all my laundry and hung up everything that needed to be hung up. I organized my desk some what - not very well (I tried okay ...). I then sat down to start a reading assignment for my Vertebrate Design and Evolution class which was reading a paper on Phylogeny. This paper made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I'm hoping I'm not going to be the only one in the class with this problem.  I made an unreal dinner of roasted garlic potato cubes with fried chicken and red and green peppers, red onion, regular onion, peas and sweet corn, also all seasoned with garlic. If you can't tell - I'm quite the fan of garlic! I spent the rest of this evening just relaxing and chatting with Fiona and Sarah, while both Fiona and I worked on our blogs a little bit


Wednesday September 3rd

Woke up early again today and read one of my homework assignments to see if I could make sense of it a second time around and no luck. It was jibberish! I went to my first class of the day - Wildlife Physiological Ecology - where we had a catch up lecture from last Friday on homeostasis: something I had already covered in Ireland so I had a one up on the American students for once! We also discussed the way in which Dr. Breuner wants us to carry out our group assignments. Our whole class is divided up into groups of four in which we sit with and work with them throughout the year. The people in my group are really friendly, Robin, Tyler and Mike. We had out first mini group assignment where we interpreted a graph from the overhead projector, and noted our results. Dr. Breuner then called on a random group (not ours for today) and to explain what findings we gathered. From here I walked with Joe to our next class, Vertebrate Design and Evolution. I was only too delighted to hear that he also couldn't understand the assigned Scientific Journal we had to read. Once we arrived to class, we were relieved to hear that nobody really gathered the concept of what was being discussed. Bret our lecturer did tell us it was a bit advanced but he wanted to give us a bit of a challenge. We then began to discuss the main principles and ideas in the paper by using examples on the board. This class finished up at 2.30 pm so both Fiona and I headed straight home, I began to start one of our homework assignments that is due for this Friday. We have to draw a simple cladogram and then choose from 1)vertebral column 2) pectoral girdle 3)pelvic girdle or 4)limbs and explain how each of these have evolved and changed over time. Not all as bad as it seems really!

Every time someone in the apartment cooks in the oven it sets off the fire alarms here. We're not terrible cooks and there's no smoke in the apartment! We went down to the office to ask them what the story was and what we should do. So basically, the first solution was to change all the batteries in all FIVE fire alarms in the apartment, which we have now done. So all we do is wait until tomorrow to see if someone sets the alarm off. It's quite the nuisance also because you have to wave a towel frantically at the fire alarms to wave any 'smoke' away to shut the damn things off. Not sure if this actually works seeing as there is no smoke. It a mystery if you ask me :P Tried to work on the assignments I have due in for this Friday this evening, they're so tough! And I also have two scientific papers to read for tomorrow mornings class..



Thursday September 4th

So I woke up at a reasonable hour again this morning seeing as I fell asleep about 11 pm last night I was as fresh as a daisy. I read the two scientific journals on habitats for my class at 12 pm. Went to class where we discussed these papers a little bit and then I came home. I finally got around to catching up with Av at home and getting all the news and that and after that I FaceTimed my Mom for a bit to chat to her and get the news off her also. I then settled down to try and do my assignments after eating some lunch. Fiona and Elliot arrived over at 5.30 pm ish and I had not made much progress on these assignments. Lewis and Clark held a welcome back BBQ for all residents this evening also which was really nice and they also had a raffle to win some prizes which included items for the apartment. We all had our burgers, hotdogs, taytos, watermelon and potato salad before sitting down and doing some drawings on the sheets of paper laid out on the tables in front of us. Each table was provided with colors, for what purpose we were not exactly sure but we went with it and did some 'artistic' work and marked our territory as being Irish too! We sat around and had chats for a while, a lot of people are heading out tonight but unfortunately I have an exam and two assignments due in tomorrow so myself and Fiona headed home about 7 pm to work on these.

Free food at the Welcome BBQ.

I was finding myself falling asleep while trying to finish off my Vertebrate Design and Evolution assignment so I decided to walk to the gas station and pick up a can of Red Bull to keep me awake and motivated. Now I just have to sit down and learn the bones in the cat body as well as all the little lumps and bumps that are on each bone for the quiz tomorrow. It's not that easy! And Fiona and I worked with our classmate, Lillia, last Friday in deciphering the bones but right now it doesn't seem to be that easy to recall them...


Friday September 5th

So today I had to wake up early and finish off my assignment for my Wildlife Physiological Ecology module. For some reason, I was better able to understand the graph I was to do my write up on today - rather then yesterday. Fiona sent me a text that she was in the Zoology lab with one of our classmates, Joe, going over the bones of the cat for our quiz today. I got the U Dash into college and met up with them to do some studying at about 9:30 am.

My Wildlife Physiological Ecology class started at 12 pm. In my group of four, Tyler and I did graph one, while Robin and Mike did graph two. The way Dr. Breuner works these exercises is for Tyler and I to discuss what our findings from the graph were and to make sure we were on the same page, while Robin and Mike discussed their ideas on their graph. We then all formed our groupings together and taught each other the two graphs. Then Dr. Breuner called on one group to teach their thoughts on the graph to the class. No body from my group was picked today, but someday we will be picked. In the University of Montana, they are big into public speaking and interactions between the classes so they really try to reinforce it.

My next class is when I was having my bone test at 1:30 pm. I walked over to the Health Science Building and some of the guys in my class were already sitting outside the classroom looking over the bones. More and more people from my class started filing in. Soon we were all chatting about bones, and mocking the Irish - this seems to be the all time favorite thing to do. When Kris arrived we all went into the lab and sat down to start the quiz. I honestly thought this quiz was going to be so tough, I was seriously nervous simply because there was so many bones to learn! Kris gave each of us out Index cards where we had to write our names and student numbers on and on the back benches in the classroom she had the different bones laid out with arrows on them. We then all walked freely around them, looking at each one and each labelled part, we wrote down what we thought was right. Kris also had one extra credit question with two parts - allowing us to redeem ourselves some bit if we got one of the questions wrong. Once everyone had their index cards handed up, Kris ran through the answers, turned out I only got two out of the six wrong with wasn't all that bad for my first quiz! I think a lot of people were on the same boat so everyone was happy.

We then moved onto looking at Vertebrate skulls. We had our lab handouts and we began trudging through all the terminology and looking and identifying the different parts of the skulls. Only to ask Kris for help when we were stuck on something. We looked at a Mountain Lion skull, Alligator, Fish, Loggerhead Turtle and Human. Pretty cool and so very relaxed. I do love this class.

Mountain Lion skull.

The Fish skull we looked at.

The Alligator skull and I.

Me and the incredibly heavy and huge Loggerhead Turtle skull.

We came home from our lab and had some dinner. The University have their own theater where they show two movies every weekend. This weekend the movies were Maleficient and Godzilla. A group of the International Students all wanted to go and see Maleficient, so we did at 7:30pm. The tickets in were only $3 and a large popcorn was $3 and a fizzy drink (soda) was only $1. Such good value! And a brilliant movie! I don't actually like Angelina Jolie but she was absolutely fantastic in this movie and it took such a brilliant twist also. A must see for any Disney heads out there! Siobhan, Elliot and I then went out to Walmart to stock up on food for our trip tomorrow :D



Saturday September 6th

We had a 5:30 am rise this morning to make sure we were well prepared for the bus at 6:30 am where we started our journey to Glacier National Park. We met up with the other bus load at the International House and began our 3 hour journey to Glacier. Mostly people either slept or just chatted on the way up and Mary from the Foreign Student and Scholar Services was a brilliant tour guide giving us all the historical information on our journey whenever it was required. We drove along the East Coast of Flathead Lake - which I had already done the Saturday beforehand but I didn't get to appreciate the scenery as much because I was driving so I took the time to appreciate it today. We also chatted to her ourselves about the different things we were interested in.

The BEES students from UCC with a beautiful backdrop.

Speaks for itself really, it's gorgeous here.

We arrived at  Glacier and first went to the souvenir shops by Lake McDonald. We pottered around here for a bit then boarded the buses again up to Trail of the Cedars - such a gorgeous little trail. From here we had a picnic lunch by a little creek which was absolutely fabulous and poor Dervla had this massive beetle land on her leg and pretty much scared everyone with the size of him! We boarded the buses back up again at 1:30 pm and headed down to get on the famous Red Bus Tour! We made sure to get all on the same bus together. We being - all the Europeans, one New Zealander and two Japanese girls.

Trail of the Cedars.

UCC students perched on a log at Trail of the Cedars.

A panorama of the creek we sat by for lunch.

All the Europeans in the Red Jammer Tour!

Our journey began and our tour guide Steve was fantastic, he talked the whole journey about the historical geological features in the park giving us some fascinating information. Below are a variety of the pictures I took along the tour of Going to the Sun Road.

We drove along Going to the Sun Road which finishes off at Logan Pass, at an altitude of 6,646ft the views were phenomenal! I wouldn't be able to write enough words to do our trip justice. The views were just spectacular and very disappointingly we didn't get to see any wildlife on our trip apart from a ground squirrel which wasn't very impressing...

One of the views at Logans Pass.

 There is still some Glaciers in the park but not as many as there once was! One such Glacier is Sparry Glacier and it's moving at an incredible speed of 6 inches per day! This is incredibly fast for a Glacier. The water here is also crystal clear as it comes from Glaciers, with a turquoise/green/blue color to it, due to all the minerals in it. The picture below was just supposed to prove that my new hiking boots were waterproof but the water is actually so clear it's very hard to tell I'm even standing in any. Apart from the few air bubbles. Absolutely incredible! We finished our trip at McDonald Lodge which is absolutely stunning! Out the back there is a lake with a dock where our group sat for the last hour just taking in the absolutely breathtaking scenery, while dipping our feet in the crystal clear water. A school of fish also swam passed us - so I guess technically wildlife?!

The absolutely spectaculer view at Lake McDonald Lodge.

One of the buses we were on had to be jump started so we had to wait 15 minutes for this to happen before we could leave. We left Glacier at about 7:40 pm. We were stopping for dinner on our way home, in Charlie Wong's in Kalispell a Chinese restaurant. I wasn't too pleased that this was the choice of dinner we had as I don't like or eat Chinese food. There was also only a set menu to choose from so I couldn't just simply order a plate of rice and curry. I ordered the Chicken Chow Mein which came with a good portion of rice, sweet and sour chicken, noodles and some weird vegetables that I didn't even try.

My dinner minus the Egg Roll which Elliot gladly ate.

I slowly picked at it but left a lot of it behind me. I'm lucky I packed extra sandwiches just incase I didn't like where we were stopping for dinner. We left here and began our journey home again. I think pretty much everyone fell asleep on the bus home until Mary woke us up about 10 minutes outside of Missoula. We got dropped off right at Lewis and Clark at about 11:30 pm. I got in home, checked on what the Internet was doing all day (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram) and then I crashed just after 12 am.



Sunday September 7th

An absolutely fantastic lazy day was had today. I woke at 11:30 am. I had breakfast and then FaceTimed my Mom for a while. After this, I began tidying my room. I did a load of washing and arranged my study desk and my wardrobe. Dave called up for a while and filled me in on the crazy day he had yesterday at the first Grizzlies home game - they won too so it was great! I also showed him what he missed out on in Glacier National Park. He stayed for about 3 hours just chatting then he went home and I cooked my dinner and watched some videos on YouTube. I then retreated to my room where I finally watched the season finale of Pretty Little Liars! WOW. Soon after, Sarah arrived home from her weekend away so I helped her bring the TV up to the sitting room and I connected it up and set the channels up. We get 69 cable channels here in Lewis and Clark compared to only having 13 in Farranlea in Cork last year with half of them not being any good or not even working. We have another test for Vertebrate Design and Evolution on the skull tomorrow evening so I spent the night learning the skull and also trying to finish up my blog post. I was really excited to start writing a blog but it takes a lot of time and seeing as our workload here is so high it's also quite hard to find the time to be able to just sit down and type for a while. Nevertheless though I will keep it up because I enjoy it and I also feel it will be nice to look back on when this year is finished. I had to call over to Dave and Elliot's to print off class notes, timetables and assignments which were due in for this week. Went home and started learning my skull for my second class quiz tomorrow!




This week was a crazy busy week so I apologize for bombarding with pictures! Next week I get to meet my Missoula International Friendship Program family and also go on our first field trip with college!

Thanks for reading and I hope you're enjoying the posts so far!

- Shannen.