zoogeography – Imaginary Sunshine

Study Mode: On

Michelle — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 08:22:02 +0000

Not a whole lot to report, but I have the urge to just blog right now. Granted, I’m starting this at 11:57pm on Friday… So yay, this’ll be posted on Saturday, of course. I don’t know why I felt the need to mention that, I mean, you can tell by the date stamp when this post goes up. I may schedule posts over at BlytheLife.com (which is the only reason why posts go up three days a week over there, because I schedule everything like a month in advance, because I’m cool like that), but I don’t do that here. Mostly because it’s my personal blog and it seems weird to schedule posts for that? I mean, I used to do ‘sponsored’ posts here, but I haven’t done that in ages. Mostly because people don’t seem to think that bloggers are worth as much money (for the most part), so all my posts are all just written for me now (yay).

And now I’m all rambling…

So I’ve been working on study notes for the last week. I actually got up early enough to head out to school on Tuesday to study in the library. All the other days I either woke up around 8am (when I wanted to be at school already) so I just stayed at home to study. Which worked well, because I love the fact that I can just stay in my room in my pjs and comfy fleecy robe (which is warm!) and just work away on my laptop. I’ve also been watching podcasts during my study breaks (and listening to them as well). Mostly knitting related, because I’ve suddenly fallen back into knitting (I did take a loooong break without knitting a darn thing). I haven’t been able to find any crocheting podcasts that I like. I’m a big fan of the ones with video, not just audio, because I like getting to see the projects. I also caught up on the Savage Love podcast. Because who doesn’t like to listen to Dan Savage answer his caller’s questions about sex? (The answer: prudes.)

I’m actually ahead of my studying schedule. I finished all my study notes for zoogeography & paleogeology. I’m almost done going through learning goals for my climate change class (whoot). I finished the notes for my parasitology take-home final, which is another essay. I did a little bit of outline for that paper, not as much as I would have liked to have done, but I did most of it. I’m hoping to finish the climate change study notes & parasitology paper outlining Saturday morning, because I’ll be going out for lunch with the family and then listening to my sister’s choir sing Christmas carols in the mall (horrible acoustics there, just got to say…).

I got an email from an offlinefriend asking me why I never blog about Clay anymore… Not sure if she was more concerned or if she was just being nosy. I’m going to go with concerned, because being nosy is never cool. There’s not really a whole lot to report on the boyfriend front. We are still together, we had our third anniversary in September of this year. He works a stupid amount of hours (like seriously stupid amount of hours) and I spend a lot of time studying. Well, I always have an abundance of free time to spend with him, but he works what feels like 24/7. It’s probably closer to like 12-16/7, but that’s still a lot of hours in a week and he does need to sleep. I’ve also been using my sadly boyfriend-free time to work on his Christmas present. It’s going to be awesome. And he’s going to love it. Mostly because I say that he will… I’m really trying to put together something thoughtful and practical and useful and all those things. But I always end up coming up with something impractical, but still super awesome. So we’ll see how that goes… Wow, rambling. We also don’t live in the same city (maybe ~30-45min drive, depending on the the traffic, so it does make things difficult at times. But I don’t know, I haven’t been all gushy about the time that we do spend together, because if I did, my blog posts would be like “So, I saw the boyfriend and we did A and he made me B for dinner.” and I would also have to totally censor my blog posts from some of the activities that occur, for obvious reasons… And with that… Change of topics!

This didn’t really get mentioned on the blog, but my dad went away on vacation/trip/whatever for three months. He went to visit relatives and whatnot. Came back with a lot of gifts, which is always appreciated. He was away during my birthday so he brought me back this:

Yes, it is another Blythe doll. (He also got me another one, but she’s under the tree for Christmas.) The doll’s stock name is Simply Bubble Boom. She’s a limited edition doll, at 1500 dolls in this model. She was actually part of a trio of crime-fighting skaters. Yes, I said skaters. She came with some super cute orange skates, not pictured. The other doll that my dad got me for my Christmas present was Simply Sparkly Spark (who has blue hair!) and the last of the trio (that I’m not getting) is Simply Thumpty Thump (who has a bright purple hair colour). I’m really happy with her. Her hair is a neon reddish-orange, so it looks rather pink in some lights and rather orange in others. Which is kind of really awesome. I decided name her Moxie, and she is my 8th Blythe doll and first in the FBL mold.

(For those who don’t really like Blythes or just dolls in general; sorry about the photo and the blurb… But I like ’em! And I do try to restrict dolly talk to the designated blog when I can. But I was just super pleased at getting a new doll for my birthday… and there will probably be photos of my Christmas doll too.)

Oh hello, December

Michelle — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 05:44:48 +0000

Over the last two weeks, I wrote a lab final (parasitology) and three papers (one zoogeography; two parasitology). A total of a lot of stress (lab final) and a lot of research (7, 1 and 10 for the total number of references that I used for my papers) and several thousand words typed in 12-point words, double-spaced with full citations.

My 3 topics of choice for my papers:

Ursus maritimus (polar bear) and Ursus arctos (brown bear) and their sister species relationship (evolution, phylogeography) – 25% of my grade.
Schistosoma mansoni and influences on a mollusc intermediate host – potentially 27.5% of my grade.
Trophically transmitted parasites and the methods of transmission – potentially 27.5% of my grade.

I have a week off between end of lectures and the beginning of finals. Whoot… I’m so incredibly excited for studying, haha. I’m spending all next week (at least, Monday to Friday) at school. Got a whole study schedule planned. I have a paper to write as a final for parasitology. More writing about all the gross things that you can get from drinking water and cuisine?! Yay! I didn’t really how much I’d like parasitology until after having taking the course. It’s fascinating what’s in our food and we don’t even realize. Or what kind of normal ‘hosts’ that the nastier parasites have. So cool to learn about the world still.

And with that, I’ll be online minimally (sort of) until I’m done with finals… Until then, have a lovely December!

Patience is not my middle name.

Michelle — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:02:51 +0000

I’ve been doing my pre-course readings and my weekly readings (and don’t let me forget about extra readings for Friday in-class activities because my professor thinks that a lecture hall of 100+ students is a great class size for in-class activities where we have to make up our own groups – clearly he’s had too much beer [1. He’s Scottish and has mentioned three times now that the beer in the UK is much better than the beer in North America. I’m sure he’s telling the truth (in fact, things I’ve previously learned in a biology class tells me that he’s telling the truth, but my current class is neither about beer or UK vs. North America]) from photographs that I take of a textbook that is in reserve in one of the newer libraries. Why photographs? Well, for starters it’s a lot faster than using a scanner and it’s cheaper than using the photocopier. Oh, and I also ordered the textbook (which is why I don’t feel bad about taking photographs of the pages that I need to read) but it hasn’t arrived yet. And I still need to do the readings. Therefore I take photographs of the pages that I need to read. So, you know, I don’t fail this course. Yay.

So I’m waiting for that textbook to come in the mail. Earth Through Time, 9th edition – in case anyone cares.

I also need to head into the post office today because a certain Purolator driver decided to just shove the ‘we missed you’ card through my mail slot instead of ringing the door bell first to see if anyone was home (for the record, I was). Bleh. But in other awesome news, I got mail today (!) that wasn’t bills (!!). I got a pair of handpainted eyechips (it’s a Blythe/doll thing) and my ‘winnings’ from the pin code I entered in a few weeks ago and won a free bottle of laundry detergent (voucher/coupon for one). All in all, a decent mail day. I’m hoping my textbook arrives tomorrow though, I hate reading off of a screen. (I’d borrow the library’s copy for a longer period of time, but it’s only allowed out for 2 hours at a time!)

In other news… I’m heading back to volunteering tomorrow (yay!). I was really bad about going to volunteering during the summer due to having plans (since I had changed my volunteering day to Sundays) and then I got sick in August/early September. That really sucked. But I’ll be back tomorrow on Fridays, which is a day that I really love. Sunday is a lot more low-key, but most of my duties as a volunteer is to help out during the church service (local churches have people come in to run services for those in the same faith at the long term care facility where I volunteer). I’m not religious at all, yet now I know all the words to a bunch of church songs. I also know the hand actions to the song “Jesus Loves Me”. Fridays is a lot more upbeat. There’s card games or active games and it ends off with a movie or ‘social hour’/happy hour with watching seniors drinking alcohol and thinking that they’re ten beers in when it’s really only one or two (the limit is two drinks per person). So hilarious.

And with that, I should really get back to studying. I also need to print out lecture notes. And organize things.

Also, I need to write a paper on species distribution and I need to focus on one species. If you were to write a paper about an animal and where it is found, what animal would that be? I need ideas!

Protected: First impressions, yet again.

Michelle — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:48:06 +0000