entomology – Imaginary Sunshine

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).

That time of year…

Michelle — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:20:27 +0000

And I don’t mean the winter holidays (although I so wish I was talking about that!). In just under a week, I’ll be writing my first final exam for the term (for my ecology course). At this point, I’m usually in some kind of weird head space, just trying to go over everything and remember everything. It’s so helpful when I have professors that put together practice problems that reflect the difficulty of the kinds of questions that will be on the final exam. It’s also so helpful that my ecology profs will be doing a combined total of six review sessions. I’ll be avoiding the ones that are occuring the day before the final – I cannot deal with crazed and panicking people who didn’t bother to start studying until a night before. But I’m definitely going to at least one review session per professor (both go by a Q&A style, which I like).

For my other classes, they all just have extended office hours, so perhaps I’ll make a day out of it (going to campus to ask questions and such). I’ll be certainly making use of the office hours for my Oceanography class – beginning to doubt myself in that case, although I can recall the most oddest (but useful) facts in that class. Like the entire Redfield Ratio (106 mols of Carbon : 16 mols of Nitrogen : 15 mols of Silicone : 1 mol of Phosphorus) or how to calculate N* (N* = [N] – 16*[P]). Which is actually a good thing, seeing as those are some of the things not available on the formula sheet… Have you noticed that I’m a complete science geek sometimes? I have (noticed).

I wish I could just think about sugarplums dancing in my head but I just… can’t. My brain’s all wrapped up in how animals swim, fly, walk and run (animal mechanics), how species richness changes with changes in the environment and human destruction (ecology), the beautiful and not-so-beautiful insects of the world (entomology ) and plankton and why they exist where they do (oceanography). Just, such a geek overall.

But… this geek did take a stop by the bookstore at school today! They were having a sale so obviously I went to take a look. There was a lot of crap to dig through, as well as a lot of classics that I would have been interested if I didn’t already own them in one cover type or another (seriously, there’s only so many copies of a Dickens or Austen novel I can have before people start thinking that I’m a complete nutcase). I got Holy Sh*t: The World’s Weirdest Comic Books by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury and a package of Jones Soda Co. Carbonated Sours (candy). Delicious. And I always love reading about comic books – it’s a full colour, glossy-paged, hardcover book that’s absolutely gorgeous when I flipped through it. Not recommended for the children though, as some of the world’s weirdest comic books includes ones with covers that feature scantily clad (or completely naked) women. Oddly enough, they don’t have naked men anywhere (or at least that I’ve seen so far).

And now… I’m just going to go and watch television for a bit, seeing as how I’ve spent over 4 hours today studying (since getting home – I studied on the bus and at school before class…).

I hope everyone had a fantastic day and that your life is so much better now that you know what the Redfield Ratio is!

Whoosh!

Michelle — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:43:29 +0000

I made the decision to go private on Twitter recently (erm, today) after getting more and more spammy-types of accounts following me and then sending me messages with spammy-type of messages. I could go through and block ’em all, but it was just so much easier to just go private all in one fell swoop (accounts that *I* don’t follow can’t send me messages). But if you wanted to follow me (and maybe I’d follow back, if you’re not a spammy-type of person), you can find me at @chelleshocks.

This weekend I’ve been working on my insect collection (due on Thursday, December 2nd) – just finishing up a few small things like gluing teeny tiny insects onto little triangles cut from index cards (I’m using light purple) and typing up all the information I’ll need for the tags that will be cut out and pinned as well. It’s going well though, I’m nearly completely done with a few days go about finishing it and putting down the final touches.

I have, at the time of writing, 3 more Oceanography assignments to do and 3 more online Oceanography quizzes. I also have maybe 2-3 more Ecology online assignments/quizzes to complete. There’s 5 more days of lectures, since I go to school Monday to Friday. I have one more project to hand in (my Entomology project that takes the place of a lab final, yay). After this week I have 4 finals before I get my Christmas/winter break!

I got really sad today because one of my stick insects had died. She was the one who moulted nearly a month after the other one and had a lot of issues with moulting (wasn’t able to pull free by herself) so I think in my heart, I knew she wasn’t ever going to really ‘make’ it because of that, as she had a lot of issues. She was the one that started off with the remaining egg casing stuck on her foot. The other one is still doing well, very much alive and eating and drinking whenever it wants (it’s fun to watch her eat because she eats a lot in one sitting). So while I’m really sad that one of them died in my care (although with all her issues, it’s possible that it was just nature taking it’s course), I’m quite happy that one of them is still doing well. This particular species is supposed to live for about 8 months, so we shall see how long I can keep her alive for (hopefully for the full 8 months, because then she’ll start producing eggs – no males/mating required).

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend!

Monday happenings

Michelle — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 05:12:44 +0000

I went shopping with my mom and sisters…

Light purple heart hoodie with zipper and front pockets – $9.99 from $16.99
Brown hoodie with applique owl and embroidered and appliqued leaves over the front pocket – $5.99 from $10.99
Navy blue ‘boyfriend cardigan’ (says so right on the tag!) – $11.99 from $20.99
Two super-soft face towels – $0.99 from $5.99

Aside from the face towels, guess who has new school-friendly clothes? I avoid wearing office-work clothes to school, only because hoodies are just so much more comfortable when sitting in uncomfortable lecture hall chairs and writing on a cramped surface.

Out of curiosity, who’s idea was it to market a ‘boyfriend cardigan’? Because I’m 100% sure that I have never seen my boyfriend wearing a cardigan like that. Also, the store had pink ‘boyfriend cardigans’ available. And it wasn’t a pink that would be flattering on anyone.

I also went to gather more food for my stick insects. The problem with the fact that they now eat is that they also produce an absurd amount of frass (poop). Although I suppose it is to be expected, they are rather small insects right now. Also, did you know that a single caterpillar can produce up to a pound of frass in a week? Crazy, no? But I cleaned out their jar today, gave them some more food and they’ve haven’t touched the new food at all (it was even from the same plant, same area, everything!). Granted, they seem more active when I’m sleeping (silly bugs) so I guess I should expect to see nibbles in the morning instead of right now.

My stick babies are still alive!

Michelle — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 05:21:50 +0000

Apparently internet research is a win! I’ve managed to keep my two stick insects alive so far!

I learned that since they were clearly new hatchlings (since they were attached to their egg casings still), they can take a little while to actually start to eat. They were fairly active and now they’ve slowed down a bit in activity and no longer run around like little sticks on too much sugar.

They also occasionally keep all their legs in place and just move their body back and forth (swaying, it looks like dancing). And incredibly docile, they easily go onto my fingers and walk around a bit. Plus they’ve eaten! I’ve seen evidence of their munching on the leaves I’ve given them – they’re so adorable. Also, a response to them actually eating now is that they leave very little amounts of frass (poo) onto the bottom of their jar, I’ll need to clean it soon.

Could you have said no to them?

Michelle — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 04:05:00 +0000

I bought home pets. Without permission. (I’m clearly an awful daughter.)

I got these two cuties from my entomology professor during the lab today. Anyone who was doing the insect collection could get one or two, if you weren’t doing the insect collection, you could get one as well. Also, my professor’s trying to encourage us to keep these stick insects alive, so all we have to do identify the Family and Order without pinning them for our insect collections (hello, another Order for my collection!).

They’re quite small, but I’ve already been able to tell some behavioural differences between the two of them. One of them (the one with that little bulge, which I believe is the part that remains from the egg casing, on the tail) is a lot more active than the other (has the remaining part of the egg casing on a metathoracic leg). I currently have them in a very makeshift home – glass gar, tulle that’s over the opening with a rubber band, a stick that I cleaned off and a few blackberry leaves that were washed off and left a little damp so they can have some water as well.

Catching up and all that jazz

Michelle — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 02:58:55 +0000

Wow, I don’t blog often at all. Some new things that have happened since my last blog entry…

About the bugs…
I bought a butterfly net at an educational toy shop for my entomology class (choice between writing a lab final or doing an insect collection? I know what I’m going for!). There’s a bunch of frozen insects in my freezer right now, I just got the pins today. I also had my first official entomology lab today and it went fantastic. They have some amazing models for teaching all of the specialized mouth parts of insets and it’s pretty awesome.

About the study group…
Oh dear… I joined a study group for ecology. Mostly because ecology is majorly kicking a lot of peoples’ butts at the moment (last year, the midterm average was below 50% and had to be very scaled in order to get a 60% average). So I joined a study group – there’s 7 other people and we’re all pretty worried about ecology (hence the study group being formed) – so it’s pretty awesome, like-minded people who all offer a different perspective on the material. The nice thing about the ecology is that it’s mainly open-ended questions for the midterm and final – meaning as long as we can logically justify our answers, it’s okay. I think. I don’t know, ecology is a major pain right now. I mean, the material is fascinating (not as interesting as entomology though!) but it’s definitely a course that requires higher concept thinking than any other course that I’ve taken so far at the university level.

About the new appreciation for Timmy’s…
So I really only have one day a week that’s long right now (Wednesdays will be even longer, just three times a semester) and that’s Thursdays because I have early morning classes followed by a break, then another class, then a break and then a lab before I go home. So I now have a new appreciation for the only close place that serves food to those buildings where I have my lecture and lab in (besides a certain coffee shop that I loathe). Even though they serve coffee at Timmy’s, I must say that their sandwiches are delicious and their breakfast foods? Wonderful. Especially when I’m eating breakfast at 9:30 even though I’d been up since 6am. They have this lovely breakfast bagel sandwich, it’s bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato (with cheese!) and I had it on the cheese bagel. Delicious. And now, I am hungry.

What’s been new with you?

Entomology (and other ramblings)

Michelle — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 05:45:45 +0000

I had my first entomology lab today, it was just a little introduction where we went over how many orders there were (and sub-orders, cripes). We have an option of doing an insect collection or a lab final (no midterm). I’m definitely in the “insect collection” camp! It was pretty fun, even though it was just introductory and we didn’t actually do anything hands-on. As a group, we took a long (loooong) walk to the far end of the campus to check out awesome places to find insects (and there the the most fattest spider I had ever seen in my life on the plastic sheet after my TA had shook the tree to get some bugs – it’s body, minus the legs, was about the size of a toonie). It was absolutely disgustingly huge. There were so many bugs that came out of that tree after about a minute of shaking it – including a really pretty beetle with shiny green colouring that the TA scooped up for his own research (graduate student). Entomology is definitely one class that I’ve been enjoying so far. There’s things that I like (and dislike) from all of my other classes, but entomology has my heart right now.

In other news, I’ve been playing around with plugins for blythelife.com (now mobile friendly, same with ImaginarySunshine.com!). I finished off another oceanography assignment (yay!) despite things going terribly bad with my printer (it absolutely refused to print the first 4 pages of an 8 page journal article, in pdf format – I ended up reading it on my computer, which help saves paper, but I hate reading journal articles on my computer, especially when it’s in very tiny print and all the zooming-in in the world doesn’t help and just makes everything fuzzy).

I’ve also been baking… Just cupcakes lately. I only really like making dessert, and love for frosting really helps! No photos, because I keep on eating them (or having people eat them) before I remember that oh, maybe I should take a photo. Such is life!

What have you been up to lately? What’s one thing that’s gotten you really excited recently?

Protected: Breakdown of term 1 classes

Michelle — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:55:51 +0000

Ready for school? Maybe!

Michelle — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:51:41 +0000

My last day of work was on Friday. It was rather bittersweet, seeing as I knew I had to go back to school (tuition’s already paid for and my school is incredibly stingy with doing refunds) and I was actually quite happy that I no longer have to go and do reprints of everything printed previously (the rate at which people lose important paperwork is astounding). Although, to be perfectly only, right up until 5 minutes before I was supposed to leave, I was reprinting paperwork. Oh, I also didn’t leave on time on my last day either (oh, OT, I’m going to miss you after my last paycheque!). Needless to say, I don’t miss the people at work right now (save for my boyfriend), but I’m sure I’ll miss them (eventually). Where else am I going to find people with children that can be willing (unwilling?) hat models for me?

Preperations for school have kind of stalled. I got some new clothes yesterday – but nothing with long sleeves, nothing for the weather I’m supposed to be preparing for… So instead, I’m all set for spring of 2011! Awesome, yes? But I did get 5 pairs of knee socks to replace some of the ones I bought last year that are just starting to show any sort of wear (beyond a little bit of pilling). I made a list of all the textbooks I need (one of my classes finally listed a textbook – it’s $16.07 online!). I’ll go and do a little comparison shopping with my school’s bookstores before committing to buying anywhere (if worse comes to worse, I’ll order them all online and probably pay the $5 for express shipping just so I don’t wait for too long for them to arrive). In other awesome news, I got all new bed stuff (fitted sheet, flat sheets, pillow cases, comforter, and pillow shams… I still don’t know what that actually is). I was hoping to get dark purple, but my mom found this set in shades of blue and it’s alright… better than the pale pink one that’s currently on my bed (and slightly clashing with my lime green walls!).

I finished my readings for my first oceanography class on Wednesday… I also have an assignment and an online quiz to do for that class before my Friday’s lecture. Already. Apparently each class will have an assignment, and they do random collections (so excited? At least I’ll be forced to keep up with the material!). I’m really glad that I never sold or threw out* my 100-level physics textbook set now, as the class borrows heavily on first year physics (that I took in 2007 and 2008…).

So I am looking forward to going back to school… and I’m not all at the same time? I’m taking two courses this term that have physics listed as a prerequisite, so I’m kind of nervous about how much I actually need to know (class 1: oceanography. class 2: animal motion and locomotion – focuses on flight, undulations, swimming – I’m actually really looking forward to this). So far, the class with the most expensive textbook(s) is my entomology class (yeah, the one that I really want to take is going to cost me the most money!). But looking forward to it all the same – insects galore!

Still some things to do – primarily selling back an old English textbook (that a professor is finally using again, I wonder of it’s LM that’s teaching that class? I liked her, she incredibly difficult to please with papers, but it was a good kind of challenge), figuring out if I need the textbooks listed, sorting through old stuff all around in my room, cleaning, more baking, etc. Such is life.

I also have 2 domains I’m still working on… Oy. What’s new with you?

* The other day, my father was trying to convince me to throw out all my books because he never sees me reading them. This included pointing at my physics text and my anatomy & physiology textbook. Cripes. I’m never selling that one (the A&P), it was $200+ and the most beautiful textbook I have ever owned.