Monday 4th May-
After my morning classes I was able to head home! For the first time this semester I didn't have to rush to work after class. That left me most of the day to finish off my paper for recreation behaviour. I did my paper on how increasing tourist numbers are resulting in increasing conflicts with wildlife.
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| Beautiful sunset from my room. |
Tuesday 5th May-
I had my last class for rangeland ecology. Our lecturer Brady wished us all the best in the future. Shannen and I will be taking the final exam on Friday because we already have two exams on Friday. Brady had no problem with us moving the exam which was great. In my recreation class our lecturer Libby came back from maternity leave just to prepare us for the final.
Wednesday 6th May-
I had my last ornithology lecture today. Kris thought us about the future for birds and what conservation actions must be taken to protect them. I spent the afternoon going through all of the papers for recreation behavior. A few of my recreation class decided to meet up that evening to study together. We did more talking than actual studying though, and decided to meet up again tomorrow morning before the exam.
Thursday 7th May-
We had our last ornithology field trip today, which was a field quiz. We wandered around Missoula for 3 hours identifying birds we heard or saw. It was pretty cool to use the skills we learned in class out in the field. After lab Shannen and I headed to the library to meet Boston and Emma and study for a while. Then it was time for our first final. It was a pretty odd test seeing as it had been written by both Libby and Mike, who'd taken over for Libby. I was glad to get it out of the way and over with. That evening I did some study for my rangeland final the next day and also started to pack up my room.
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| Bird specimens |
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| The wildlife biology lab |
Friday 8th May-
I had my last lecture in UM today on genetics. It was a nice one covering the evolution of behaviour in animals. I spent the rest of my morning studying rangeland for the final at 2pm. I don't think I've ever been so relaxed about a final exam before. I really enjoyed this class and so felt fairly well prepared going into the exam. It went fine so I was happy out. That evening Shannen and I were having a potluck party at our house. I spent the evening cooking up some dishes including Irish pudding for our American friends to try. Bridget brought up some Hawaiian leis, hairpieces and a beach backdrop. We had a lovely evening hanging out with friends and played some Cards Against Humanity later. Bridget brought up The Princess Bride and I watched it for the first time.
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| Potluck dinner. |
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| Me, Shannen, Kate, Aoife and Bridget |
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| Me, Kate, Shannen and Desiree |
Saturday 9th May-
I had a genetics take home exam to get done so I spent the morning working on that. I started revising for the genetics final then. I got through the first third of the lectures before Kate and I decided to take a break on go for a hike. We headed up the trail behind Lewis and Clark and all the way up and across to the top of Mt. Sentinel. We headed down to the M just in time to watch the sun set. I was really glad we made it up as it was something we'd both wanted to do before we left. Mt. Sentinel is 1572m (5157ft). The whole hike took us over 3 hours and a half but was so worth it.
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| The trail up Mt. Sentinel |
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| At the top! |
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| Arrowleaf flowers |
Sunday 10th May-
To make up for my long study break the day before I essentially spent the whole day studying genetics and evolution. I worked out that if I get 100% in the final I would just scrape an A, whereas if I only get 50% I'd get a B. That made me more optimistic about the whole thing, you gotta love continuous assessment.
Monday 11th May-
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My room before I started taking it down :( |
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| My nature collection from trips all year |
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| Pressed pennies from trips :) |
Tuesday 12th May-
I spent the day studying for my last final, ornithology. This exam is a MCQ format covering everything we've learned in class. I essentially spent the entire day learning bird facts.
Wednesday 13th May-
So today's the day, my final final at the University of Montana :'( . The exam was 100 questions long and went ok I feel. It was nice to see my classmates for the last time. When I finished the exam I headed home with Shannen. We met up with Aoife and Desiree to go to Costco. Desiree was letting us use her membership card to bulk buy some road trip snacks. This worked out so much cheaper than buying stuff individually. When I got back to the apartment it was time to pack away all of my clothes and stuff properly. I didn't realise quite how much stuff I'd bought all year, so when I weighed my first bag it was 35kg (about 77lb). Eh, quite a bit over the 23kg (50lb allowance). So I started on the mass cull of my clothes. I decided to abandon most of the clothes I'd first brought with me. Having done that with both of my bags I got them down to about 21 kg each. That's not even including the clothes I'm keeping out for the road trip. I'm going to have to wear about 10 layers of clothes on the plane to make the weight limit.
Thursday 14th May-
Shannen and I got up early to finish packing and to clean out the apartment. We decided to leave all the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom stuff we bought for the Irish students that will be coming to UM next semester. We thought it'd be nice for them not to have to fork out for everything like we did. We scrubbed the apartment clean for the inspection. I packed up the rest of my bits and bobs and then relaxed for a while. That evening Kate, Shannen, Dave, Siobhan, Aoife, Desiree, her friend and I all went to the Iron Horse for dinner. We thought it'd be fitting to finish our trip to Missoula with a meal in the first restaurant we ate in. We had a nice relaxing night until the goodbyes began. First we called to Shannen's Missoula family who had essentially adopted me too for dessert. They had a lovely chocolate cake baked and made Aoife, Shannen and I American tie-dye T-shirts for our road trip. They even offered us a roof rack to attach to the car so we have more room. We decided to see how we get on first and if we need it to call back tomorrow morning before we leave. Then it was time to say goodbye. Shannen will get to see them again when they visit Ireland during the summer, but unfortunately I'll be away in Spain. As we said bye Shannon brought out a big bag of baked goodies for the road trip. They were such a generous family, I'm going to miss them. After that we went to Albertsons and rented The Guardians of the Galaxy to watch. Kate had to leave to study for another exam so it was time to say bye to her then. She promised she'd come visit us in Ireland, so it's only bye for a while thankfully. Aoife had moved out of her dorm room earlier so was staying at ours for the night. Dave and Desiree called over to watch the movie too. After that we had to say bye to them too. Dave will spend the summer in Missoula but I'll see him back in Cork next semester. After all those goodbyes it was time to head to bed to sleep for the road trip to come.
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| Dave, me, Shannen, Aoife and Siobhan. Thanks for the photo Kate. |
So my time in Missoula, Montana has come to an end. Tomorrow I leave to go on a 10 day road trip with two of the coolest people ever. I'll spend a few days in New York and then it's home for a week
before I head off again for an internship working with wolves in Spain.
This year has been one of the best in my life. Spending a year at the University of Montana turned out to be everything I was hoping of and more. I've had the
opportunity of a lifetime here and made some extraordinary friends. I'm
going to miss this place and all the people here. Thanks for an unforgettable year. My next blog will be about my road trip from Missoula to New York. - Fiona
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| John Steinbeck quote from Google Images |
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