biology – Imaginary Sunshine

Studying and pausing to reflect

Michelle — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:26:03 +0000

Do I get some kind of award for being a horribly inactive blogger? Although I’m sure there are other people much worse at updating than I am… I hope so, anyways!

It’s April! Which means that it is spring time and that also means finals season. I handed in my term project (website + paper) last week for my Animal Ethics class (website + paper was 45% of my final grade) – thankfully there’s no final exam for that class so I really just need to focus on my two other finals. I have my Health Psychology final this week and then I have my Human Sexuality final online anywhere from the 11th to the 23rd (thank goodness for online finals!). I’m quite looking forward to being done as it will be the last two finals for my Bachelors! I’m graduating in late May with my B.Sc, which is quite exciting!

Of course, because I’m about to graduate means that I’ve been pulling out my resume and tweaking it and updating it. Just need to wait until after I actually graduate to be like “Yay, my degree is no longer in progress and I’m not longer a B.Sc candidate because I’ve actually got it now!”. Job searching is scary. Sigh. Such is the life of growing up. I’m still waiting to hear back from schools that I’ve applied to for August/September. Getting all my ducks in a row for that, which is fun and fantastic.

I just finished writing the finals for my two upgrade classes (Chemistry 11 and Biology 12) today (wrote them between 10am-12pm!) so I need to wait for my high school transcript to get updated before really starting the application process for that school, but should be soon! I’m quite looking forward to being able to check that off on the list of schools to apply to.

Having scheduled classes twice a week this term has been fantastic. It made it possible for me to volunteer more on a weekly basis (Fridays) and also made it possible for me to go and write the tests and work on the upgrade classes (Mondays and Wednesdays). I’ve really enjoyed Animal Ethics (plus, I got to do a website as part of my term project, how awesome is that?) and I did my term project on the Animal Welfare Issues in the Australian Wool Industry – because I’m a crafter and I like wool products. I’ve also really enjoyed my Human Sexuality class which was distance ed and completely online (including assignments, tests, debates and the final will be online as well!). It’s a different dynamic and I kind of wish I had taken more online classes, but at the same time, it’s all about self-discipline and I probably wouldn’t have been able handle that kind of self-discipline in the earlier years of my undergrad.
Next time that I post, it’ll probably be after my finals for this term. Hope everyone’s been having a good spring so far!

Wait, March?

Michelle — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 03:47:29 +0000

I really did think that I would post more during February, but apparently I didn’t. Hello, March! We’re getting closer to spring (yay!).

Since my last post I have gotten my grad portraits done. It ended up being about 18 shots of me looking incredibly awkward (in my opinion) in a cap and gown holding onto a rather nice looking folder with my school’s name on it in gold. I’m pretty sure the bookstore sells them too, they’re pretty sweet. I’ve gotten the proofs (online) and have been trying to decide which one I’m going to get. I’ll probably only be getting one print, and it’ll be a similar size to the one that my sisters had gotten when they graduated from university. (My ego isn’t that big that I’m going to get one double the size of theirs, haha.)

Reading Week also has come and gone. I spent it studying and working on my upgrade courses (Biology 12 and Chemistry 11) and got a lot more of both classes done. I’m currently getting high 90s for both classes and my grades are based solely on the test scores, which is fine by me. I get worksheets for chemistry and practice problems for biology, but I don’t get marks based on those. I just go in and write as many tests as I’ve prepared for and move onto the next units as I go, which is pretty nice. I’ve gone through over half of each class so far in about a month and half. I’m planning on getting them all done by the end of March, which should be interesting as the teachers in BC are striking for three days (March 5-7) and I can’t go in take tests during that time, and then they get two weeks off (!) for spring break, so no test taking then either! So while they’re busy striking, I’ll be just working to get my notes ready and to just know everything so when they reopen, I can just go in and take all the tests and get it over with.

I need to start working on my term project soon (due at the beginning of April), but we all know how well that will probably go… I have to do a 10-15 page paper on an animal welfare topic of my choice (topic that I’m going to be doing is the justifiable welfare issues with the use of Merino sheep in fibre production) and then I’m doing a web presentation (as opposed to an oral presentation). My school has this blog system where we use WordPress and we have to use it, which I’m fine with because clearly I have experience using WordPress. But we have to sit through a class on learning how to use WordPress (seriously) and I’m not entirely sure if we get to change the themes or add plugins or not (if it’s on school servers, I’m thinking it’s probably a no for the plugins…).

And… yeah. That’s my life and what I did during February. I went to a doll meet in the middle of February and I’m currently on working on restoring two vintage Blythes, which is quite fun and they’re great new additions to my collection (a blonde and a brunette). I’ve been knitting a bunch, but not working on the sock that I started in January (horrible, I know, I’m planning on working on the sock this month though!) and I’ve been doing a lot of doll-sized knits. So some of the knits I did in February:

Buzz, busy like a little bee

Michelle — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:32:24 +0000

I saw my first bee of the year yesterday, which had made me very excited for multiple reasons:

Spring isn’t *really* here until the pollinators are out and about
Bees make me happy (as insects do <- entomology nerd)
Pollinators can mean fruit production. And I like fruit. Noms.
Bees aren’t around when it’s raining, snowing, hailing, sleeting, slushing, etc. Sunshine! I love sunshine!
The bee was fat, fuzzy and had her* head buried in a flower. So cute.

In other multi-legged animal news, I freaked out this morning when I saw the fattest, ugliest spider ever on the wall. I don’t like spiders. Spiders =/= insects. Insects have 6 legs, spiders have 8. Not the same thing. Insects are more fun. Spiders, not so much. That being said, when I took an invertebrates zoology class, I had to do a lab with spiders and they were called “garden spiders” but their bodies were the size of a loonie (for non-Canadians, that’s huge but not quite tarantula huge). Creepy.

My classes ended lass week (yay!) but that just means that finals begin soon (boo!). I have a lot of review sessions to attend (thankfully run by professors… which is both a good and a bad thing, I suppose – some profs are very difficult to understand, others are fantastic, some put me to sleep, some sound slightly better than fingernails on a chalkboard…) and a lot of study group sessions that I went and kinda made all the people I generally interact with in class join into. The more the merrier. Plus, I can’t singlehandedly book all the study room time by myself (I’m limited to only being allowed 2 hours per day, which is horrible!). So if notice that I’m never around, never tweeting or just never… around. I’m probably studying. Or procrastinating. Or have been locked in a room and forced to listen to my profs talk for hours on end.

* For non-solitary bees (and there are a lot of species of bees that live by themselves and not as part of a hive), the ones that go around collecting nectar are females. The only purpose of males is for mating with the queen, all the ones that collect nectar are female (but not capable of reproduction).

Protected: Thoughts on courses for 2011-2012

Michelle — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:37:04 +0000

Protected: 2010/2011 Course Schedule

Michelle — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 01:30:02 +0000

Aquarium Adventures – Part Two

Michelle — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:24:32 +0000

More on my day at the Vancouver Aquarium with my sister. We actually didn’t pack any lunch food to take in with us (a lot of people seem to bring in their own food – the prices there are pretty outrageous with a small soft-serve ice cream cone at $3.50!) beyond snack foods (granola bars, bananas) and a bottle of water for each of us. So we were pretty hungry and I was getting pretty tempted by the (overpriced!) ice cream. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed (sort of, it was a pretty hot day outside!) and we later got ice cream (and actual lunch food) when we left the aquarium (and Stanley Park).

A crab with a sea anemone on its shell for protection purposes – how awesome is that? Sea anemones sting, so if someone were to try to eat the crab, they’d get stung instead. The crabs, in return, carry the anemone to different areas for feeding, and when they’re feeding themselves, they create a current with their front claws so it provides the anemone with food as well. It’s a pretty nifty symbiotic relationship that they have.

Adult moon jellies! I loved learning about jelly fish when I was taking my invertebrates zoology course.

More jelly fish, I don’t recall the name of these ones though. =/ But they’re pretty amazing though, aren’t they? (And yes, this was taken the ‘right side up’, they all just happened to be going downwards when I was taking this photo!)

Harbour seals! They’re quite adorable and very round like little seal sausages. When they were going back towards the water, they kind of just turn to one side and roll down!

This was either a Harbour Sealion or a Stellar Sealion (there was both in the same large tank and I can’t identify them!). I managed to snag a shot while it was barking.

Harbour sealions/Stellar sealions, they were both keeping their eyes on some of the people who worked at the aquarium (who were carrying small coolers of fish!).

My favourite shot out of anything I took on Saturday: a sleeping sea otter. I have a huge love for sea otters, they are considered to be a keystone species. They have a unique relationship with sea urchins and kelp! See, the sea urchins mow down the kelp forests at an astounding rate and they’re one of the foods that sea otters eat. Without sea otters, the sea urchin population is left unchecked and that completely destroys the kelp forests, which is home to many other animals.

Two of three of the Vancouver Aquarium’s Pacific white-sided dolphins. The aquarium only has the three dolphins – all of them were rescued and deemed unreleasable due to injuries sustained when they were rescued. But they’re so amazing and very playful and willing to ham it up for the camera (and for fish).

There’s a whole area for frogs at the aquarium. This little fellow was hiding out at the back of his terrarium – I guess all the noise from the visitors can be pretty bad at times.

The Pacific white-sided dolphins again! They’re completely white on the ventral and dark grey (with streaks) on the dorsal side, for evading predators. They were incredibly playful in the underwater viewing area (after the dolphin show) and seemed to really like interacting with the people in the viewing area. They’d come right up to where little kids were putting their hands up against the glass and touched against the glass before swimming away again.

This is from the viewing area for the belugas. The aquarium has 5 belugas – 1 male and 4 females. Of the females, two of them are babies (so they’re grey in colour) and the two adult females are actually mother and daughter. Each of the adults has one calf, so there’s three generations of beluga whales in one tank! This is the best shot that I got that day and it’s of one of the adult belugas waving with her tail.

Aquarium Adventures – Part One

Michelle — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:22:36 +0000

This is part 1 of my aquarium adventures! Only because I took an absurd amount of photos (well over 300 photos and 3 videos!) and I managed to whittled down the number that I wanted to share to 22 and that still felt like a lot to me for one post, so I figured since it was an even number of photos, I’d show off 11 photos now and 11 photos later.

I went for a small day trip to the Vancouver Aquarium with my sister. It was World Oceans Week and there was a special discount of 10% off admissions for wearing blue. When we walked in, we got our photo taken and could choose to buy the souvenir photo later (the problem is, standing in front of a blue scree while wearing blue is that part of me disappeared…).

Vancouver Aquarium entrance. The aquarium is located inside of Stanley Park, there was concession stands outside (and inside) of the aquarium, as well as someone making balloon animals. This beautiful structure is the focal piece of the fountain in front of the entrance.

There are tanks and tanks full of different fish. They tend to keep groups of fish together that aren’t going to eat one another (for obvious reasons). These bright blue fish are ones that are commonly found in pet stores, but they’re just so charming (and bright!).

These dull and glum looking fish are piranhas. I expected them to have mouthfuls of visible teeth or something! According to the sign next to their tank, piranhas are unlikely to kill their prey. Instead, they’ll pick out bits and pieces of them (like fins, parts of tails).

A parrot in an aquarium? The aquarium has a whole section dedicated to fish (and animals) of the Amazon. This pretty bird preened itself in front of an audience of young kids that were catcalling to it to try to get it to talk.

I nearly missed this one until I was looking up because a leaf fell near my head. This is a sloth! I’m not sure if it was three or five toed, but it’s a sloth nonetheless. It was very sleepy-looking.

Caiman crocodile… My, what big teeth you have…

Sea urchins (the balls of spikes) – what not a lot of people know is that they’re actually closely related to sea stars/star fish, sea cucumbers and brittle stars. They’re fully capable of moving, albeit at a slow place. The fish in the tank with them are an endangered species – I wish I could remember their name! The sign stated that the fish only exist naturally in one small part in the Indian Ocean, I believe. It used to be that people would capture up to a million of them every year for selling for people’s aquariums at home. The babies of the fish that are bred from this species (at the aquarium I went to yesterday) are sent to other aquariums with fish breeding programs to help conserve the species.

Sea dragon with some very awesome camouflage.

Sea horses that are tangled up together – they had a little game of tug-a-war with their tails!

Hey look, I found Nemo, Merlin and Dory, all in one tank together!

The underside of a Sunflower Starfish! They can grow up to a metre in diametre and are pretty vicious predators. This one was about 60cm in diametre, so getting up there in size! I love all the little arms that they have.

Productive days

Michelle — Thu, 06 May 2010 03:41:14 +0000

So today… I cleaned my room, cooked, cleaned part of the house (yay for the vacuum cleaner…) and checked for my grades (again!). I’ve only gotten 2 of 4 of my grades in so far. I’m still waiting on math (the big nailbiter) and my plants biology class. I also got the grade for my paper for my plants biology class – A+ on my paper about global warming and how it concerns polar bears (yeah, I know, I wrote about polar bears for my plants class paper). Weirdly enough, my school has a grading standard where A+ is not the same as 100%, but I’ll take it nonetheless!

I have also been working on items for a Blythe ‘geekcraft’ swap that I’m participating in (conditions include… all handmade things by the giver only):

On the left is Tertiary Jane (wearing a Mario mushroom hat) and on the right is Sophie, wearing a black beanie with the Star Trek logo (yay, for internet for letting me know what the logo looks like).

Bleh…

Michelle — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:22:08 +0000

So I had my math final last night (starting at 7pm, bleh). I felt like it went fairly alright (then again, what do I know?). I had my biochemistry final today (yes, I know it’s a Sunday, someone should inform my university about that little tidbit too). And fudge it was difficult. =( On one hand, that class is not a prerequisite for any classes that I want to take in my 3rd and 4th year. On the other hand, it was freaking biochemistry and a difficult course and I spent a lot of money on the course, not to mention time. I’d finished nearly all of the problem sets (except for the second half of #8 – which was 30 pages long, by the way) and the practice final and all the tutorial problems and I feel as if all of those questions that they had made available to us did not fairly represent the difficulty of the problems that they were going to put onto the final. I left the room just before the professors told us that no one could leave as there was only 10 minutes left. There were people openly crying outside of the location of my biochem final. Openly crying. I saw one of my classmates on the bus after as I was leaving campus and she thought that was grossly unfair (in terms of difficulty when compared to the difficulty of the practice problems that we had). If they’re going to prepare us for the final, they should give us questions that reflect the level of difficulty or knowledge that we’re required to have for the final.

Just one more final before I’m done for the term… I won’t be getting my final grades until after the exam period is over (last day of April), but all of my professors have until mid-May to officially submit their marks (which is a lot better than when my psych professor took nearly a month after the final to input his grades). Whoot.

One more final, then I’m done for a couple months! I start work on May 3rd, pretty much looking forward to my almost week long break and to working again.

My sister was volunteering today at this convention and got a free ticket for my other sister to go and my sister (the one who wasn’t volunteering) met Mantracker! She got her photo taken with him and his autograph (one for her and one for me!). And I jokingly told her to ask him why he was so awesomely cool and then she did. His answer was “I’m not sure how to answer that without sounding vain”. Ahh, funny. I’ll take a photo of the photo card he autographed for me later!

Questions:

If you’re in school, what are you doing your summer term/break?
What is one thing that made your day today?

I kicked invertebrates zoology’s butt :D

Michelle — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:40:54 +0000

So I had my final for my comparative invertebrates zoology class today (it’s a prerequisite for a lot of the classes that I want to go on and take for my upper-level courses – including animal behaviour, the insects class, marine invertebrates, etc.). And I am so fucking glad that I went over the study guidelines so much over the weekend and in such detail. Everything that was required for us to know on the study guidelines was on the test. Also, we had a bonus question that was what was the course number (i.e. kind of like for PSYC 100, the course number would be 100) of the 4th year biology course that he recommended (it’s not going to be available until Sept 2011 though, hopefully I’ll get to take it, it sounds awesome!) and that was worth a total of 8 marks on my final. My final is out of a total of 200 marks, so the bonus mark was essentially 4%. 4%!

Dear Professor L.,

I’m solemnly regretful of the negative things I may have allegedly said about you in my last blog entry. You’re kind of super awesome. Now just make sure that your TAs are super generous when marking (especially when they get to my test!).

Sincerely,
Michelle

I left the exam room (about 90 minutes from when the exam started – the first person left an hour into the exam, we’re allowed 2.5 hours to write the final) at the same time as another girl and she was visibly upset because she said she didn’t realize we’d have to draw so much (which was mentioned, a lot, on the study guidelines) and that she thought the exam was “completely unfair” for those who didn’t have enough to study for it (???). I didn’t share the same sentiments, but I didn’t say that quite out loud.

Oh, note to self, don’t go into an exam without eating first! I ate breakfast at around 7:30-ish and didn’t eat lunch before my final (which was at noon…) and my tummy started rumbling at me and making its presence generally known just 20 minutes into the exam. Oh self, stop being such a distraction.

Hope you all had a wonderful Monday! I’m back to studying for my three remaining finals (math, biochemistry, vascular plants).