Spring term part 2

Even the last half of spring term feels like so long ago now, but I thought I’d sum up how it went and what I got up to! I already wrote about all my classes in the last post so I won’t get into those again, but I managed to finish the year with a 3.85 GPA (an A grade overall), so I’m really happy with that! It’s been hard work, especially getting used to the much higher workload in the American university system, but it’s also been so interesting and so much fun too! This half of the term didn’t start off so well as I managed to completely smash my phone screen, despite having a life proof case and tempered glass screen protector on, so I had to buy a replacement phone and the screen is really dodgy on that one too, so going on social media is kind of risky now as I keep clicking things I don’t mean to haha. But aside from that, the term was SO GOOD!

It was my birthday in May and I spent it at the coast with Karlee, and since she was spending the term studying at Hatfield Marine Science Center there, she took me on a tour of the whole place which was really cool. We also went to the part that’s open to the public which has some cool stuff there and you can see/touch some of the species, play with the wave machines, etc. The coolest part was definitely the sand box though, it’s got a topography projector thing above it so when you pile the sand up it turns into a mountain on the map, and you can sprinkle your hand to make it rain and build lakes, it’s so cool and I definitely sound like a 4 year old now but I was really impressed with the technology lol. We then went up the coast to Depoe Bay and Boiler Bay to go whale watching, and went to one of the state parks on the beach too. I also tried salt water taffy for the first time, and I definitely see why Ross on Friends gets so excited about it haha, I got about 20 different flavours! We also went to see the sea lions in Newport and there were so many, it was great. The day after my birthday I went to a Science Pub event with Nicole and celebrated with some cider and cake while we learnt about hummingbird pollination.

The weekend after my birthday I went on a hiking trip to Sweet Creek Falls which was a really nice day out and just reinforced my love for Oregon. Waterfalls, forests, so much wildlife and nature, fun people, country music – the whole day was just so much fun!

Speaking of wildlife, the past few months I’ve seen so much wildlife without even leaving my apartment! There was a wild turkey I saw from my window a while back that I went out to see and it was huge and had some speed to it, you can see and hear so many birds from my balcony (including cool stuff like acorn woodpeckers), and I finally got to see my first local deer! Me and Ashley had been to Nicole’s graduation at the end of the term, which was in the football stadium and was really cool, though I got a pretty bad sunburn. When we got back to mine we saw a deer in the woods next to the car park. It let us get pretty close and then it just strolled off literally across the parking lot, without a care in the world haha. Then later that evening I saw one in the grassy area below my balcony, and as I was taking a video of it, another one appeared and walked right past my balcony! I was loving life and have a full video commentary of how excited I was, it’s probably a good thing I can’t upload videos to this blog haha.

Another highlight of spring term was ticking a huge item off my bucket list – I got to shoot a gun! Well, that’s a huge understatement, I got to shoot 4 different types of guns and try out 2 scopes! The one I thought was going to be the scariest actually ended up being my favourite – the semi automatic rifle, and I also got to try a bolt action rifle (felt like a total badass with that!), a shotgun, and a semi automatic handgun. Chris taught me so much about gun safety and how each one works, how to check everything on each of them etc., and then we had some fun shooting targets and clay pots that he’d brought. It was really fun and something I’d wanted to try for ages, and it was so nice to do it in the mountains with a good friend, rather than in a shooting range with a stranger teaching me. I was actually pretty good at it too, which surprised me as I’m never good at any sport and generally have no coordination haha, Chris said I’m a natural! Here’s an action shot…

I went to some more PhD/Masters defenses during the term too, as I love learning more and seeing what kinds of things the graduate students here have been researching, and I’m hoping that will be me soon. I also went to a really interesting talk by Patricia Brennan about the importance of basic science, and how her research had been attacked for political gain. As a female, foreign, aspiring scientist pursuing a career in wildlife research, this was really interesting and also kind of intimidating knowing the reality of some barriers I’ll have to face, but it only made me more determined to succeed.

Me and Ashley went on a tour with the natural history collections club during the term, the same one I did with Karlee in winter term, but each term they have a different theme and you get to see some different specimens. We got to see so many cool things and they actually had some birds out this time so I was really happy! Me and Nicole also went to explore campus some more too, since it was her last term at OSU (and I’m just super nosey). We found a cute gallery in a building we’d walked past most days and never knew was there, and had a really good laugh getting lost in some buildings. On the last day of term we also finally drove up to Mary’s Peak, the highest point in the coast range (the mountain range that runs down Oregon between our town and the coast), and that was really fun but we probably picked the worst day for wind and visibility!

I’ve  extended my stay in the US to get some relevant work experience over the summer before I start my final year of undergrad back in England, so I’m currently working in a wildlife genetics lab on campus which I really love. I’m planning to do a post all about my summer adventures and job, so keep an eye out for that soon! 🙂

Spring term part 1

It’s been forever since I posted anything and since spring term was so fun and busy, I thought I’d split it over two posts and this will be about the first half of the term. My absolute favourite class this term was Ornithology (the study of birds), which I had been looking forward to since the bird class I took in September! My professor for the class made it really fun and he’s so knowledgeable and friendly, he even took us on a 12 hour birding trip where we got to visit wildlife refuges, the coast, and some off the beaten path spots in between to see some rarer species (and we also saw an elk, grey whale, seals, and sea lions!). It was so fun and we got to 100 species of birds! As part of the assessment for this class we could choose to do 5 bird observations and write a report about each, so me and Nicole had lots of adventures visiting different places to go bird watching which was really fun too.

These pics are from Yaquina Head lighthouse, one of the stops on our Ornithology field trip. The second pic is a Brandt’s Cormorant, they have bright blue throats and pretty entertaining displays which we got to see! The third is a White-crowned Sparrow which is quite a common bird around here, but I really like them and they have a cute song!

My other favourite class of the term was Mammal Conservation and Management, taught by one of my favourite professors from the previous term. We also got to go on some cool trips with this class – the first to learn about wildlife damage (from e.g. bears, mountain beavers, deer) in the mountains, another to do some distance sampling to estimate deer populations (again in the mountains, it was so pretty!), and we also got to take part in a necropsy with deer, a beaver, mountain lions, and a bobcat! This was probably the most challenging class I’ve taken here, mainly because I knew absolutely nothing about how the American model of conservation works, or anything about hunting, which is really important in so many ways. I definitely changed my perspective on a lot of things during this course (and my opinion of regular hunting completely), and it’s the one I feel gave me the best insight into American life and wildlife conservation, so it was really interesting. We also looked into aspects of trophy hunting (which I definitely do not like) and contrasted the American model of conservation with the Scandinavian and African approaches, which I really liked.

One of the fieldwork locations for my mammal class!

I also took Evolution and Global Change Biology, both of which I learnt a lot in and found interesting, so I really enjoyed my classes this term. For Global Change we had to do a group presentation about a topic of our choice, and my group chose to focus on ocean acidification, but since this is really overdone in regards to coral reefs, we chose to look at the effects on other species such as fish and urchins. Even though I didn’t take Invertebrate Biology, some of my friends were in the class and were allowed to bring a friend on their fieldtrip, so I also went to the coast with them to spend the day studying invertebrates which was really fun, though climbing down/up the side of a cliff and falling over slippery rocks made it a bit more eventful!

Seal pup from the invertebrate biology fieldtrip! The mum was swimming around close by, and we gave him some space after the initial excitement of him popping up on the rocks!

Quite early on in the term I went on a hiking trip to Silver Falls State Park with some other international students. It was so beautiful and had been on my bucket list for so long, and I met some really nice people too (and saw some of my favourite birds!). There’s a big trail that takes you past all of the 10 waterfalls, and at some you can walk behind them which is really cool! We only did the south part of the park on this trip since we were only there for a few hours and stopped so many times to take photos, but I’ve recently been back with Ashley and we did the north side so I’ve now seen all 10 falls!

Me and Diana carried on our tradition of going to the sports games this term, though since the football and basketball seasons had finished, we went to check out baseball! I have to say it’s probably my least favourite American sport, but it was really sunny and they serve alcohol, so it was a pretty fun day even though I got really bad sunburn! That made a nice change from the first few weeks of term though when it rained CONSTANTLY. You would think I’d be used to that, being from England and all, but it was something else. It’s been so nice since around May though luckily, and I’ve had a few more sunburns since!

We got there way too early as usual!

Earlier in the term I also went to a graduate school application event that the Fisheries & Wildlife club put on. There were 5 current grad students talking about their experiences, applications, how to choose a supervisor, and all sorts of information and advice. It was so helpful and definitely enforced my feelings of wanting to apply for grad school here. Also like every other event at OSU there was free pizza, drinks and snacks, I honestly love this place so much haha. My friend Chris was also at the event so we went for drinks afterwards at a local bar that I’d been wanting to check out for a while, so that was fun!

The second half of the term has been just as eventful, in fact a lot more so, so I’m going to do a separate write up for that soon, and also one about my summer here so far too.

Winter term (where did you go?)

I can’t believe winter term has been and gone, 2019 is going by so fast! I’d normally do a blog post every 1-2 weeks but this is just gonna be a mash-up of the entire term because I’ve not had chance to write one since it started. I thought that it would be a great idea to take a heavier course/credit load during winter term, thinking that since the weather would be miserable I wouldn’t be missing out on anything so may as well be stuck inside studying all term. Turns out that was a silly idea because it ended up being really stressful, but at least now I have a relatively nice term ahead as the weather improves so I can enjoy life more this term and actually go outside! Although it has been difficult, both the volume of work and also the difficulty of some classes (*cough* genetics), I managed to maintain a decent GPA and got good grades overall so I’m pleased.

I’ve been going to the graduate student seminars every week too, I went to a couple last term but this term I went to all but one. It’s where current grad students invite and host professors from around the country to visit and talk about their research. Although not aimed at undergraduate students they’re open to the public, and I like hearing about what people are working on and how they got to where they are, especially as someone just starting out on this career path. One of my favourite TA’s from last term also gave a talk at the Audubon Society in town about land use change affecting the habitat of birds, so a couple of us went to hear him talk about his PhD work and went for drinks (because combining science and cider is always a good idea).

The courses I took this term were: Genetics, Human Impacts on Ecosystems, Ecology, Mammalogy and Animal Behavior. The latter 2 were definitely my favourites, but I also really enjoyed ecology overall, despite wanting to cry multiple times over the equations/isoclines. Our instructor was really patient though and she was always available for extra help which was nice. The teaching styles here are definitely a lot more interactive overall – we learnt about functional responses using different types of cookies, used the Pokemon Go app to model species richness/evenness for point/transect counts around campus, and were taught optimal foraging theory using bags of gumballs around a lecture theatre! Snacks and science, a winning combination in my book. Mammalogy was a highlight of my term, due to both enjoying learning more about mammals and because Dr Epps is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. I actually changed a course I was planning to take next term to be in his mammal conservation class instead because his work is really interesting and the field trips & labs sound so good. Animal Behaviour was my favourite course at Sheffield last year and I’m really glad I took it here too because it was more in depth and used examples relevant to Oregon. Dr Blaustein who taught the course made it really entertaining and has so much experience, and also gave us honest advice about being scientists in general, publishing papers, translating science to the media etc. which I really respected. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to pull my hair out over anything more than Genetics, it was a lot more in depth with the bacterial stuff than I’d hoped. I did find elements of the course really interesting too though, particularly the inheritance, disease and population genetics stuff.

I got involved with more stuff on campus this term too, and it really feels like home here now. We went to a game night with the Integrative Biology club and I haven’t laughed so much in ages. There was free pizza & drinks and Sarah, one of the girls I went camping with in Fall term, made some amazing fudge too. Two of the guys who were at the game night are in the Natural History Collections Club and told us about a tour that was running the week after, so we also went to that. We got to see the university’s arthropod collection, the herbarium, the mammal collection and the ichthyology collection so that was cool. A few of us went to the Youth Climate Strike event that was happening around the world the other Friday, it was kind of depressing but also pretty inspiring at the same time, and there’s some really good organisations in Oregon fighting to make a difference.

I had early classes every day this term so my latest start was 9am, but this meant I got to see the sunrise every morning on my walk to class which was quite nice. I finally got to see Oregon in the snow too, and it makes the campus look so pretty! Though like back home, it’s a bit pathetic here compared to other parts of the state – campus had delayed opening a few times so we got a snow day, but it was always gone by the afternoon, whereas an hour away they had it a few feet thick. Mike took me hiking a few weeks back to see some better snow though, we went to a state park that had some cool water falls and forest and it was really pretty.

My daily morning view:

If you’ve read any of my blog posts before you’ll know that me and my friend Diana go to the OSU men’s basketball games quite often, and we went to a couple this term too, and our first women’s basketball game. It was the Civil War a few weeks ago for the men’s team against the University of Oregon (our rivals), and that was an amazing atmosphere just like the civil war football game was last year. We got so much free stuff too – t-shirts, gym towels, bottle openers, socks, popcorn, light sticks etc. And we got to be on TV! My friend took a picture from the replay that was online, and also found a video of us which was really funny. I have loads of videos on my instagram from the game to show the atmosphere if anyone’s interested since I can’t post them here (sarahjayne.9). I also went to watch my first gymnastics event with Karlee and that was really fun!

Look under the word ‘Network’ and there we are haha

I also went on a trip to Portland early in the term to watch a professional NBA basketball game with the Portland Trailblazers playing the Cleveland Cavaliers. Admittedly half the reason I wanted to go was to boo Tristan Thompson for cheating on a pregnant Khloe Kardashian, but it was also really cool to watch the pro’s (while eating a hot dog, in true American style).

I got to watch the Superbowl for the first time this term, and since American football is my favourite thing ever, this was great. I was invited over to a friends house to watch it which was really nice, and it was a fun afternoon even though the Patriots won (ugh, it still should’ve been Chiefs vs Saints). I need to find people and a pub back in Sheffield to watch Seahawks games at, if anyone wants to volunteer to join me please do!

Finals week was really stressful, but overall it went pretty well. I went for cocktails with Karlee and Ashley after our worst 2 exams were over, and also as a goodbye for Karlee who’s moved out of Corvallis now (*cry*, I miss you already). I was too poor to really do much for spring break, but I spent last weekend in Portland house/dog sitting at Emily’s. I had a really relaxing weekend with the cutest dog and cats, exploring the neighbourhood and enjoying the hot tub. Spring term starts tomorrow and I’m taking some really interesting sounding courses so I can’t wait to get started now. I’m also hoping to get outdoors a lot more and explore more of Oregon with some cool trips, hopefully I’ll have the time to keep my blog updated more often too 🙂

Winter Break Travels – Part 2!

So I know this is 3 months late (Winter term was not kind to me) but carrying on from where my last post left off, we were finally ready to set off from Miami bright and early on Christmas Eve! The first stop on the tour was Key West, aka mine and my dads favourite place in the world. We stopped at the end of the 7 mile bridge to take some photos and watch the people fishing, then carried on the drive through the keys. We arrived too early to check into our accommodation so since we’d spent most of the drive listening to Jimmy Buffet we went for lunch and cocktails at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. We then spent all afternoon/evening at a few outdoor bars and there was a cool one that had $1 bills covering every wall, ceiling, patio area etc, it was mad (look up Willie T’s and you’ll see what I mean!). It’s a big tradition in Key West to go to Mallory Square to watch the sunset, so we joined hundreds of people doing the same and it was so pretty! There were also performances, artists, music etc. so it was a really cool way to end the day.

Christmas day I went snorkelling in the morning which was amazing, though when the person in the shop asked if I wanted to cancel or rearrange because the conditions were quite choppy I was a little worried! I decided to go anyway because it was the only full day we had there, and it’s the only living reef in the USA, and it was fine. The boat ride out was amazing and I was just sat out on the deck in the sun not really believing that this was how I was spending Christmas Day! The water was warm enough to not need a wetsuit either which was lovely, although it was a bit choppy (waves went over my snorkel a few times so getting a mouthful of saltwater wasn’t so great). I saw so many tropical fish and corals, even a manatee on the way back, but unfortunately (/fortunately?) no sharks. Since it was Christmas Day, the obvious choice for lunch was Starbucks for a festive panini to get my fill of turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberries. I facetime’d my dad who was in Scotland with my stepmum and grandma so that was really nice, then looked around a few shops, went to the beach, and got Key Lime pie from the original key lime bakery. There were so many brown pelicans, egrets and gulls around Key West that I’d studied in my birds lab so I was really excited about that too as they came so close, and there’s also randomly hundreds of chickens that wander the streets too! We had dinner at a sports bar and then started the most random bar crawl of my entire life. There’s a place that has 3 different levels and it’s like a different bar on each level – the first had a singer and was pretty chilled, the middle floor has pool tables and a balcony where you can look out over the streets, a bit New Orleans style, then the rooftop bar had a DJ with a big dance floor and is clothing optional! We stayed there for most of the night because it was amazing, had good music, good drinks, and there gradually became more naked people which just made it even funnier. One of the guys I was with kept requesting Christmas songs, and bribed the DJ with $20 to play Cliff Richard, which drunk me found absolutely hilarious and all I can say is I’m glad phones are banned up there so no videos can surface lol. We befriended some locals and about 1am they took us to what we described for the rest of the trip as ‘the dungeon’, I’ll leave it up to your imagination but lets just say it’s a hidden bar where anything goes, sex acts are allowed/encouraged in public, the TV’s show porn, and the toilets have no doors haha. I never expected my Christmas Day to go from snorkelling a coral reef in the morning to partying with naked people on a rooftop and X-rated bar but #FloridaLife. On our very eventful drunk walk home we saw the Southernmost Point statue thing finally had no line (people were waiting hours to get a photo with it through the day both days so we’d given up), so we got 3am photos with it on the way back.

The next day we drove up to the Everglades, and spent the entire drive day just laughing so much about everything that had happened the night before. We were staying at a swamp safari which was really cool and it was literally in the middle of nowhere. By the time we’d had dinner in their cafe and got our stuff sorted in our cabin, it had started to get dark but we decided to do the nature walk anyway. It felt like something out of the Blair Witch Project wandering around in the dark with our torches, hearing all the wildlife and knowing we were surrounded by alligators, they’d also told us there was a panther that had been spotted earlier! Our cabin was very ‘rustic’ – think bunk beds, no electricity, wooden hut with no glass in the windows just screens… it was amazing though and one of my favourite nights! From my bed I could see all the stars (yay for no light pollution in the middle of a swamp/national park!) and woke up to a really pretty sunrise too! Though going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and having to walk past a load of animals in the dark was kinda terrifying! In the morning we went on an airboat ride and saw bison, cows, deer, alligators, and loads of different birds, it was a lot of fun.

The next stop was Orlando, which I kinda grew up going to so I’ll always love it (even if we did almost get wiped out by a hurricane there in 2017), however I strongly advise never going in the holidays – it was worse than the height of summer! We had a walk around International Drive and went for dinner and cocktails at Hooters which was funny and the food was actually great, then 2 of us were planning to go to Volcano Bay waterpark the following day. We ended up deciding against that because the parks were all so packed and it took 2 hours to find somewhere to get breakfast because every single restaurant had lines out of the door, it was ridiculous. I met a lot of Brits which was pretty cool, but I guess half of the northern hemisphere thought Disney/Universal was a good place to spend Christmas and New Year so it was impossible to do anything. It worked out alright though because I got some shopping done then we chilled by the pool and went for a swim since it was 26c and really humid, but it would have been nice to get to one of the parks. That night we went to a sports bar for dinner and drinks. I love American sports bars so much – it’s always a really cool vibe and there was a lot of football and basketball games on which I obviously loved.

After Orlando we headed up to Destin in the north-eastern part of Florida. The entire day it rained so heavily and we passed a lot of places with hurricane damage, which was pretty interesting to see. Again we had a good laugh in the van, as much as the places we visited were fun I also really miss our road trips too. We had a chilled night and just went out for dinner, then the next morning we went to the beach. It was really cloudy and grey but I think it’d be a cool place to go back to, the white sand beaches were so perfect and Destin is a really cool laid back beach town.

It was then time to leave Florida and head to Louisiana to hit up New Orleans, but we had a long drive day ahead, travelling through Alabama and Mississippi on the way. Of course we had to get a picture of the Sweet Home Alabama sign and play the songs too! We tried to stop for lunch at a BBQ place in Alabama but it had a long wait so we went to a really sketchy BBQ place in Mississippi instead. It literally had boarded up windows and I was convinced if we went inside we wouldn’t come back out, but I lived to tell the tale and it ended up being really good food too! When we eventually got to New Orleans our hotel wasn’t ready (it was December 30th and everybody and their dog had apparently had the same idea as us), so we went for a drink downtown until check in, where my cup of rum punch contained about half a bottle of rum, bargain. That night we explored Bourbon Street and despite being obsessed with the place for years (thanks to The Vampire Diaries and The Originals), I wasn’t prepared for just how wild it would be! I’ve never seen anywhere so crazy but I absolutely loved it. It’s one of few places in the US where you’re allowed to drink on the street so everybody was partying in the bars, on the balconies, in the road, there were people playing cajun music, amazing smelling street food, all sorts. It was also the weekend of the Sugar Bowl football game which is a huge college football game for some of the best teams, and it was held in New Orleans. Georgia were playing Texas so there were so many people in town from both places, sporting their teams apparel. The atmosphere was just amazing and NOLA is definitely one of my fave places.

The morning after (which was New Years Eve), I’d booked to go on a boat trip around the Bayou, but me being me decided to grab a second breakfast first because the hotel pastries weren’t satisfying my hungover cravings. In true Sarah-style I managed to fall over on the way and smacked my head on the road, smashed my 2 month old iPhone (I was more upset about that than the resulting concussion), cut open my elbow and hand, ripped my favourite jacket, and got absolutely covered in dirt, blood and bruises down one side of my body. The streets there are so slippery and it had been raining as well, I saw quite a few people fall over and someone came off their bike too which looked pretty nasty, I’ve never been anywhere so slippery in my life. I went back to our hotel just wanting to cry and told them what had happened, and as much as I just wanted to get into bed and cry, I got changed and went back out for the boat trip anyway. Unfortunately I didn’t meet Klaus Mikaelson in the Bayou but did see some alligators and birds. I felt pretty rough by the time I got back but it was NYE so I rested for a little bit then went out with everyone to celebrate. We went to a jazz/burlesque bar, then to Jackson Square to watch the NYE show and see the fireworks. As we were walking closer to the square I heard country music and got really excited, only to realise that Florida Georgia Line (one of my fave country bands that are now becoming known in the UK which makes me very happy) were performing live in Jackson Square!! I was absolutely loving life singing/screaming my heart out to ‘Cruise’ and ‘Meant to Be’ and the atmosphere was amazing. We made our way to the Mississippi riverfront when it hit midnight to get the best view of the fireworks show, which was the best one I’ve ever seen and the best way to start 2019! I can’t add videos to this but I have them on my instagram page and Xmas/New Year story “sarahjayne.9”.

New Years Day was the sugar bowl game day so there was a big parade going on downtown and loads of people about with stuff going on. I went on a Voodoo & Cemetary tour and learnt all about Marie Laveau (I’m a huge American Horror Story and Originals/TVD fan in case you hadn’t already guessed) so I loved learning more about all this and the darker history of New Orleans. Most people on my tour had left this morning because it officially ended then, but 2 of us had booked an extra night (there was no way I was travelling hungover on NYD) so we met up to go for food. I finally tried chicken & andouille sausage gumbo and I’ve been obsessed ever since, though the canned stuff doesn’t quite live up to proper Louisiana fresh gumbo.

From here I spent 2 nights in Houston Texas as I really wanted to visit the Space Center. I only had one full day here which I spent at NASA so I didn’t really get to see any of the city but Houston seemed cool. The Space Center was amazing and I went on the tram tour to go behind the scenes in the old and current mission control centers. I also went to see a couple of shows and explored the exhibits, it’s definitely worth a visit. Then it was time to fly back to Portland, with a stop over in Las Vegas airport. I’ve never been to Vegas but the airport had casinos and you could see the desert, mountains and some of the strip so it was a nice little taster. I was so happy to land back in Oregon and although I’d had a lot of bad luck on the whole 4 week trip, everything started to go right once I got back to Oregon, I even landed early and was able to catch a different shuttle (there was 1 seat left!) that got me home 2 hours earlier which was lovely. It was nice to have a weekend to relax before the new term started, and I was definitely ready to be back into a routine and see my friends again.

As you can probably guess from the fact this post is coming at the end of March and the term started early January, it’s been totally crazy and I’ve not had a free minute all term, but I’m gonna do a general summary post of how winter term has gone. I’m excited for it to be spring term on Monday, I’m taking some really interesting classes and should have a lot more free time too which will be nice as the weather starts to get good again!

Winter Break Travels – Part 1

So I was planning to write a blog post about each of the places I visited over winter break as I was there, but as you can probably guess from the fact this post is coming in late January, that didn’t work out! Travelling for 26 days was crazy and then the start of term has been really hectic, so I thought I’d just do a post about the highlights of each place I went instead! It was probably the most crazy month of my life and I’ve never had so much bad luck / horrible things happen within such a short period, and being down $5k from my accommodation issues last term made things a lot harder, but there were also a lot of amazing times and places, and I’m so grateful to have experienced the things I got to! I realised the post was getting way too long so this is part 1, then I’ll do a separate post about my group tour (part 2 of Florida, New Orleans and Texas).

My first stop after a relaxing weekend with the apartment to myself was to head to Portland to spend the night with Emily’s family, as she was kind enough to drive me to the airport for 5am the next day. We spent the afternoon baking Christmas cookies and then went to a British pub for dinner which was so good! I had bangers & mash and she had fish & chips, and there were English signs up around the place, beers/ciders from around the UK, and just little touches that made it really cute. We had planned to go to Peacock Lane to see the famous Christmas lights, but we found out it didn’t open until the week after I was there! All the houses had their lights up but nothing was turned on, probably so that the traffic wasn’t crazy the entire month as people visited, but it was a bit disappointing. I guess now I’ll just have to come back to Oregon again in the holidays, what a shame haha. We did drive around and see some other Christmas decorations though, Americans really know how to go all out and Emily’s house looked so nice too!

I then spent 3 nights in New York, which I have mixed feelings about. It was amazing to see the place I’ve seen in movies all my life, and I liked doing the typical touristy things, but I’m just not a fan of NYC at all and don’t think I would ever go back. My first full day there I went to Times Square, the Rockefeller Center to see the famous Christmas tree and ice rink, then went to the Top of The Rock observation deck where you can see all across New York and have cool views of the Empire State Building (I chose to do TOTR instead of the Empire State so that it was in my pictures). It was absolutely freezing and not the clearest day, but the views were still really impressive! I then went to satisfy my Chick-fil-a cravings since there isn’t one anywhere near me in Oregon, and went to see Grand Central Station. It’s the coolest station I’ve ever seen and because it was Christmas it was even more impressive than usual! I then had a walk back through Central Park on my way back to the hostel, and got to see the horses & carriages and some of the cute features of the park.

New York definitely knows how to do Christmas trees, here’s a few of my faves…

The second day I braved the Subway, which anyone who knows me well knows is a huge accomplishment since they terrify me and whenever I go to London I walk 2 hours to get somewhere rather than taking the underground for 5 mins haha. It was really easy to navigate and not as scary as I thought, despite The Strain being one of my fave TV shows and vowing never to use it after watching that! I took a boat trip along the river and got to see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, New Jersey, and the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, and they played the Alicia Keys & Jay Z song which was cliche but amazing lol. I also went to see the World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial which was pretty emotional – I didn’t really expect to feel upset but seeing all the names written around the fountain kind of brought it home. I walked back through Central Park again but a different route, and got to see the ice rink with the skyline in the background as well as some other cool parts.

After New York I flew to Virginia to see some people I knew there, but that ended up being a bad experience and I left after less than 12 hours, and wasted hundreds of dollars in the process. But it wasn’t all bad because I headed up to Washington DC 2 days early, and that was one of my favourite cities!

While New York reminded me of all the things about London that I hate, DC reminded me of all the parts of London that I love. The whole city felt really safe, even walking alone at night, and it was just so beautiful, felt clean, and was easy to get around on foot too. The hostel I stayed in was great, and their hot & cold breakfast was the best I’ve ever had at any hostel or hotel! The first day it was raining really heavily so I just spent the afternoon/evening relaxing because I’d been awake since leaving New York a day and a half earlier and spent the whole morning on a coach, and it was definitely what I needed. The second day I had planned to visit 3 different Smithsonian museums, starting with the Natural History Museum. This didn’t really go to plan because the NHM was the most amazing place ever, so I stayed there from opening until closing!

The next day I went to see the White House, all the monuments and memorials, and the national Christmas tree. The architecture of all those places is so beautiful and I learnt a lot of history too. My favourite monument was one that I had never even heard of and kind of stumbled upon, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. There were so many inspiring and important quotes carved into the walls, and it was a really quiet and scenic place. It’s definitely somewhere I’d recommend visiting if you’re in the area, and is on the monument trail between the Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr memorials, which are also both amazing. The day after I went to the Smithsonian museum, the Air & Space museum, and the botanical gardens.

From DC I went down to Florida, and flew in a few days before my group tour started because it was triple the price to fly on the date I’d wanted! I had 2 nights in Fort Lauderdale, mainly because I still couldn’t afford to fly into Miami, and also because I went there in 2016 and it was really nice. The hotel wasn’t really as advertised, and they put a hold on my card that was double what my email had said so that caused some issues, but luckily I have great family who could help me out. My room was so lovely though and just having a nice big comfy bed and TV to myself was bliss after being in a hostel for a week. The weather was a bit all over the place because of the storms, but during the day it was 28c and sunny, so I spent the day at the beach. It was so surreal being somewhere warm a few days before Christmas, especially when they had palm trees decorated with Christmas lights and lamp posts as candy canes, and a huge sandman instead of a snowman haha.

After Fort Lauderdale I went down to Miami South Beach (SOBE) and spent 2 nights in a hostel before heading to the hotel to meet my group. The hostel was the worst place I’ve ever stayed (both the place itself and the guests/staff), and I didn’t feel safe the entire time I was there, but as a place I really loved SOBE. The weather was amazing, the beach, water and pier are beautiful, and there’s lots of cool things going on on the streets next to the beach too like music festivals, street performers, volleyball etc. I was so glad when the time came to leave the hostel and check into the hotel, until it turned out the tour company hadn’t actually reserved our rooms, and the 2 people who had arrived before me had the same problem. After spending 3 hours in the lobby being passed to/from people in their UK and US offices and being told I’d have to pay out $250 then get it back a week or 2 later which I couldn’t afford to do (long story, basically the English office messed up big time), one of the guys on my tour was nice enough to let me share his room because it had a spare bed in it. I’d planned to have a couple hours by the pool then go to the gym since I’d be sitting down all the next day, but by this time it was dark and I was pretty traumatised by the hostel and reservation issues that I just stayed in for the night, luckily there was a Seahawks game that night to keep me entertained. We were then up bright and early the next morning to meet our tour leader and leave Miami, and that was when the real fun began!

Fall term? Check!

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Fall term is over and I’m officially a third of the way through the academic year! It half feels like it’s gone so fast, but half feels like I’ve been here forever, it’s weird. I have the apartment to myself this weekend since my roommates have all gone home for winter break, and am just spending it packing, relaxing and catching up on sleep. I’m so glad I left myself a few days between exams finishing and my travels starting, because I feel like I’ve been running on adrenaline for the past 3 months so it’s nice to just relax and not have anything to do (though I still have some travel plans to finalise). Looking back on my first term it has been nothing like I expected, and although at times I’ve felt so overwhelmed with the amount of things to do, I think I prefer the American university system to the UK. There’s definitely been some tough moments but everyone is so supportive and I’ve had the best time here and seen some beautiful places too. I’m so thankful to have had this opportunity and so glad I made the decision to study abroad and can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings.

I had one of my final lab exams last week, then this week I had 2 finals on Monday and 2 on Wednesday. I’m still waiting on the results from one of my finals and 2 of my term papers, but I’m really happy with all my grades so far, and I’m pretty sure the others went well too. I thought I’d messed up spectacularly on both of my Monday exams (they were the hardest 2 and had less than 30 mins between them), so it was a huge relief getting the grades back. My ichthyology exam was really tough and I ran out of time on a 75 point essay question after writing 6 pages and was so exhausted coming out of that exam. Then my birds lab was straight after and because I was so tired, my brain couldn’t even remember all the common names of the 200+ species we’ve covered all term, never mind the family/order/suborder etc of them all as well as the distributions, morphology and skeletal stuff. Before the exam we were waiting outside and our class professor who has studied birds his whole life said he wouldn’t even have got 100% on the exam (it was written by the grad TA) – I’m not sure if that made me feel better or worse haha. I had done really well in the cumulative bird song and taxonomy quizzes earlier in the term luckily, so I managed to finish on an A overall which I’m so happy about because I want to take another birds course in Spring term.

Despite being by far my hardest 2 courses, Ichthyology and Systematics of Birds have also been some of my favourites and I’ve learnt so so much being in the Fisheries & Wildlife department (especially since it’s not my major and we don’t really have anything similar back home). I definitely want to study birds and fish more in the future and have a new found respect for both so I’m really hoping I can get involved in some research once I’m back in Sheffield. The ichthyology term paper is probably the only assignment in history that I can honestly say I absolutely loved writing – we had to write a scientific newspaper report about our made up “newly discovered” fish species with cool adaptations and link together all the concepts we’d covered during the term. We could get creative but it also had to be believable, and had to have peer-reviewed references to back up why certain things work and how they would have evolved, as well as where our fish fits in the phylogeny. My instructor for this course was one of the most enthusiastic and interesting people I’ve ever met, and I’d recommend Dr Sidlauskas to anybody interested in studying fishes!

I’ve also become a huge geek and I’ll be walking down the street and hear a bird song we’ve used in my birds class, and will be like “aha! California Scrub Jay!” and then get really excited when I see it. As well as loving the content and field trips I also met some really cool people in the birds lab and we had some fun study sessions together, so I think that lab has been the highlight of my Fall term here.

My other classes have also been really fun and I’m surprised how much I enjoyed my Vertebrate Biology Lab class. I was looking forward to the lecture course in Vert Bio but thought I’d hate the lab since I didn’t really enjoy labs that much last year and I was really unfamiliar with a lot of the species. I ended up making some really good friends in that class though and we had open labs a few times a week for extra practice which really helped, and the optional field trip was also fun – probably because we got to see the animals alive and in their natural habitat rather than dead in ethanol haha.

The instructor for the Vert Bio lecture course (Dr Chouinard) is probably my favourite teacher of all time, so I’m really sad that class is over. It was definitely not an easy class and there was a lot to remember, but he made everything about it so fun and took time to make sure everybody understood every concept before moving on. I’ve also never put my hand up to answer questions at uni back home before, but despite being a huge round lecture theatre it felt like such a non-judgemental atmosphere so I felt comfortable doing so, and since it was based on hypotheses this really challenged us to think critically which I wasn’t used to having to do. We also had a lot of motivational memes and related songs before the lectures started, like ‘eye of the tiger’ before sensory systems, and ‘come on baby, do the locomotion’ before locomotion haha, so that always put everyone in a good mood! I also never thought I would enjoy group work, but the way it worked in this course was really good as we got to hear other peoples thoughts and hypotheses, and challenge other groups ideas. The group work also contributed to a small part of our grade which I think helped motivate people to participate.

The other class I took this term was Biodiversity: Causes, Consequences and Conservation. Content-wise this was my favourite class as conservation biology has always interested me, and we got to follow some case studies, one of which was in real-time (the current reintroduction of wolves on Isle Royale), so I thought that was really cool. I can’t remember what this class type was called but it’s basically one that all majors can take, not just biology/zoology, so there were a lot of opportunities to hear views from people from all backgrounds. This made it interesting when discussing things like species’ intrinsic worth, hunting for conservation, the politics around climate change and environmental laws, etc. It also highlighted a lot of current issues that are getting attention such as palm oil and genetically engineering extinct species, so it felt like a very relevant course.

I’ve also been going to some extra seminars that are mainly for grad students, but open to undergrads too. I went to one earlier in the term but then didn’t have time to keep going, so it’s been nice the past 2 weeks being able to go to them again. There’s a guest lecturer each week who comes in to talk about their research, so it’s been really good being exposed to what postgrad, postdoc and beyond research is like. I also went to a “PhD defense” this week too – I’m not sure if we do the same thing in the UK but it was really fun. They started out by roasting the woman who’s PhD it was which I found surprising but hilarious, and then she spoke about what she’s been working on for the last 6 years. Her PhD is about invasive lionfish in the Bahamas, and since it’s something we’d covered in my ichthyology class (and I’m super interested in invasive species) I thought I’d attend and it was really interesting. The more exposure I get to grad school here, the more I want to come back to the US (or OSU more specifically) for further study. It’s really expensive and competitive so I don’t know if I’d ever be able to, but it’s given me something else to look into and aim for.

Aside from studying for finals I’ve not done much for the past week or 2, but I did go to another basketball game last weekend which was really fun. We were given a free t-shirt and they wanted everyone in the student section to wear them for the game, so everyone was kitted out in the same shirts and it looked really good. We played a team that were pretty good but we won again, and I don’t know what it was about this game but everyone was so much more hyped than the other basketball games so the atmosphere was great! My friend spotted that we’d made it into some of the teams instagram photos too so that’s my new claim to fame lol.

 

Before the game we also went to the store to get a holiday photo with Santa and Benny, our university’s beaver mascot. We were the only adults in the line for a photo, alongside lots of small children, but it’s fine haha!

 

After that I felt quite Christmassy, which has made me realise just how much I miss our British traditions. I don’t really know how I’m gonna survive December without Yorkshire puddings, Greggs festive bakes, and mince pies. I’m spending Christmas Day in Florida so I’m sure I’ll cope somehow, but I’m SO excited for a proper Sunday roast when I’m home next summer!

On Monday I’m heading up to Portland to spend the night at Emily’s, and she’s taking me to Peacock Lane which is a part of Portland that goes crazy with Christmas lights – after seeing the pics I can’t wait to see them in person! Tuesday morning I fly to New York which I’ve always wanted to visit in general, but it’s been my dream to visit at Christmas time since being a kid thanks to Home Alone 2, so I’m beyond excited for that! I’m then spending a long weekend in Virginia to see some of my friends there that I met at my summer job a couple of years back, and I’m looking forward to that so much! Then I’m spending 2 days in Washington DC which I’m also so excited for since I only got to visit the zoo there before, I’ve never actually been to the city. Then it’s down to Florida for Christmas week with my group tour, then we go onto New Orleans to celebrate the New Year! I’m having a brief stop in Houston after that to visit the Space Center, then it’s back to Oregon to relax for a weekend before Winter term and the chaos starts again haha.

As much as I’m ridiculously excited to spend the next few weeks travelling, I’m also really looking forward to coming back to Oregon already and I haven’t even left yet. It’s started to really feel like home here and I love it so much. My classes next term sound really interesting and although I have more credits next term, I’m hoping to also fit in lots of fun things and some more trips too.

Thanksgiving and Civil War

These 3 days deserve a post of their own because they were the BEST! I was fortunate enough to spend the Thanksgiving holiday not only at a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, but with the nicest family ever, and it’s definitely happy memories that will stick with me forever.

As soon as classes finished on Wednesday we drove up to Emily’s house in Portland. After getting stuck in the holiday traffic (but we had country music so it was fine) we finally arrived at her home, which was so beautiful! Her family are the loveliest people ever and all greeted us at the door, they made me feel so welcome and at home there. I really loved getting to know Emily’s parents and sisters (and her dog who is beyond cute), and on Thursday morning her cousin and her husband arrived from Montana. They’d just got married and have done a lot of travelling so it was great to hear some of their stories too, I just wish I’d had more time to chat to them because time seemed to go so fast.

Thursday lunch time we headed to another cousins home who was hosting Thanksgiving this year. I’m so thankful to her and her husband for letting me tag along on their family holiday, especially when so much effort had gone into it. I’m also completely in love with their house – it’s absolutely beautifully designed and decorated, and you’re able to see the Cascade mountains (and even Mount Hood on a clear day) from their living room. I’m not joking when I say there were 30 of us in one house, I thought I had a big family but this was a whole other level haha.

The food was SO good! We had turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potato, yams (sweet potato with marshmallow on top, I’ve been dying to have these for YEARS!), gravy (different to English gravy, but also different to the weird white gravy that they have with biscuits in this crazy country lol), a mix of sweet potato/cranberries/pecans that I’m not sure what it was called but was good, dinner (bread) rolls, salad, cranberry sauce (that comes jellied in a can over here – this is probably the only thing we have Americans beat on!), and probably more that I’ve forgotten. There was also a 7-up jello with cream topping that had banana and I think other fruit in it. It was bright green and I thought it was a dessert but some of them had it with their main meal, so I thought I’d give it a try and it was good! There were so many different desserts too and despite being full I managed to fit a bit of pumpkin pie (my first time trying it, and I’m glad I waited for a homemade one as it was amazing), a vegan cinnamon roll, peanut brittle, and some more 7-up jello. With it being Thanksgiving they also said grace before we ate and everyone held hands around the tables which I thought was lovely, I wish we did that at special events at home because this year has taught me there’s definitely so much to be thankful for.

Before and after dinner we watched a lot of (American) football which I obviously loved, chatted, ate appetisers, drank, there was a red wine tasting competition, and some napping going on. It was just such a cosy day and I’m so glad I got to spend it with them all because I honestly can’t think of a way my first Thanksgiving could have been any better. In the evening we went back to Emily’s house and watched a Christmas movie with her family, and attempted to do some more of the jigsaw puzzle we’d started earlier that morning. They’re such a wholesome family and definitely how I’d like my future family to be, so it was just a great few days in every way and I’m very thankful for the experience and can’t wait to visit them again.

Friday Emily’s family were having a second Thanksgiving at her house, and as much as I would’ve absolutely loved to stay, I’d made plans to go to the Civil War football game. Civil War is basically like Derby day at home but 10x crazier – it was the final football game of the season and we played our biggest rivals: the University of Oregon Ducks. I got the shuttle back to Corvallis and the whole journey there we passed so many cars that had orange OSU Beavers flags, stickers, even pom poms on their cars and everyone wearing orange and black (our university colours), it was so fun to see and got me even more excited for the game.

The rain had stopped by the time I got to Reser stadium, but started again by kickoff. I’m not sure how many people were there but the stadium holds just over 45,000 people and it was almost full, which surprised me since a lot of people were out of town for Thanksgiving. There were quite a lot of Ducks fans that had come up for the game too so the atmosphere was really fun. I think the thing that surprised me the most was that they don’t have separate seating for different teams – imagine Man Utd and Man City sitting together at home, it would be absolute chaos! American fans are clearly a lot more civilised than Brits haha. We lost 55-15 which was pretty embarrassing, especially since it was a home game this year, but it was still a lot of fun to watch. The sun came out for a bit but then the heaviest rain ever came after half time, and I’ve never been so drenched or cold in my life. People were still dancing and chanting though even though we were losing massively and soaking wet, you definitely can’t knock the beaver nation pride haha! Both bands performed at the half time show and the usual dance team and cheerleaders performed, as well as the girl who juggles fire. They also gave away a CAR!! Not just any car but a 2019 Toyota Rav 4, so gutted I didn’t win haha.

It’s currently the last week of classes here, then next week I have a few days of exams and Fall term is officially over! Although I’m glad exams will be over before Christmas break unlike back home, it’s also so stressful having to fit studying for finals around still having classes and labs, but hopefully they’ll go well. I’ll end on this picture from Thanksgiving because I love it and it sums up the last few days well!

How is it Week 9?!

It feels like forever since I last wrote a blog post and since I’m currently avoiding finishing my term papers I thought I’d update y’all (yes I’m American now) on what’s been going on the last month or so. I’ve had the most hectic few weeks and it’s been really stressful with another round of midterms as well as so many assignments, but I’ve definitely had a lot of fun too. The last few weeks I’ve started to feel so at home here, just little things like recognising people around campus, and having friends to study (stress) with, and not having to swear by google maps anymore.

A few weeks ago I went on a weekend field trip with one of my lab classes which was really fun, I finally got to see a stereotypical Pacific Northwest forest in all its mossy glory, it was so pretty! We went looking for amphibians and found so many, then went to a fish hatchery to learn about salmon, then to the coast to look at seabirds (and dogs, lots of dogs) and seals/sealions. We were supposed to stop at a beach but there was no parking, so we only got to go to the pier – so I didn’t class this as ticking off the Oregon coast on my list since there were no waves or sand haha.

 

The evening of the field trip was a home football game, aka my favourite thing about being here lol. I just LOVE gamedays so so much! The band was playing in front of the stadium to a huge crowd, and we managed to get some of the best ‘seats’ (everyone stands on them) in the stadium – we were 3 rows back right near the middle, then managed to get to the front row half way through! It was the military appreciation game since it was around Veterans Day weekend, so they had loads of nice tributes and got the biggest flag I have ever seen that filled the whole football pitch, and played the national anthem. It was so nice and they’d given away free tickets to veterans too, so the atmosphere in the stadium was amazing. We lost, of course, but it was definitely my favourite night of my whole study abroad experience so far. It was my first night time football game and there were fireworks, chanting, dancing, everyone had a foam hand to wave about, and I just can’t describe the atmosphere – if you’ve watched my facebook or instagram (sarahjayne.9) videos you’ll have an idea of what I mean. Ughhhh I just love game days and American football so much haha.

 

I also went to my first proper basketball game recently with my friend Diana, again the atmosphere was amazing but our university team are actually really good too so the game was so fun to watch. We got pretty good seats again too, and we won! We’re planning to go to the next home game early December, it’s just before final exams start so it should be a good way to relax and escape studying for a couple hours too.

 

Since we had a long weekend for Veterans Day, I went out for breakfast last Monday with my friend Olyvia and her best friend. I’ve been saying for the last 2 months whenever it was mentioned that ‘biscuits and gravy’ is the weirdest thing and looks like cat vomit, so she took me out to try it haha. My verdict is it’s way better than it looks, but I doubt I will ever order it again – definitely sticking to pancakes and bacon! Loads of people back home have asked me, so basically it’s like butter scones and a creamy sauce with bits of sausage in. Weird, right?

Last week on a field trip for my other lab class we went to another national wildlife refuge to look for birds, and we saw a CAYOTE! As well as a huge American Bullfrog just chilling on the path. I got a video of the cayote across the lake but I can’t upload videos here and the quality isn’t great, but I’m so happy I’m seeing more animals we don’t have back in the UK, especially when it’s something cool like a badass cayote. We randomly went on a ferry on the way back to uni too, apparently it was a shortcut haha, was not expecting to be on a boat that day – study abroad is full of little surprises!

This past weekend has been one of my best since being here. Friday night my friend Emily invited me to go to puppy yoga, which has to be the best thing ever to be invented. There were so many baby huskies and we got to hug all the little fluffy puppies!! We then went for pizza and then to a bar, which led to an impromptu night out til gone 2am which was so much fun! It was the first time I’d been on a night out in Corvallis and Emily’s friends were great so I had a lot of fun. It wasn’t much fun getting up 3 hours after going to bed for a hiking trip I’d booked onto though haha. The hike ended up being great, we went to the Oregon coast (finally ticked it off my list!) and did the Cascade Head trail, then drove up to Devil’s Punchbowl and for a walk on the beach. Despite being the middle of November and on the coast, it was 16c and sunny with bright blue skies, so we were all walking in the sea and wearing t-shirts, it was lovely! Oregon never fails to surprise me with just how beautiful it is. I got chatting to quite a few people on the trip and they were all so nice, and there was a girl who actually studied abroad at my first university in Wales! We went for hot chocolate afterwards with another girl who’s just moved here for grad school from Ohio, and had a really nice chat, it was such a good way to end the day.

 

Other than that I’ve just been studying a lot because there’s always a never ending amount of work to do, I honestly don’t know how I filled my time studying in the UK, I have never known anything like it lol. Luckily I’m still enjoying all my courses for the most part, and everything is really interesting so I can’t complain. Last night we had a poster presentation for my lab class and it’s the first time I’ve ever done a scientific poster so I was really nervous. It went really well thankfully, it was a group project and the 3 girls I worked with were the best, we worked together so well and had a good laugh. Some of the other groups had people who didn’t do anything so I’m very grateful I got put in the group I was! We did ours on echolocation in odontocetes (toothed whales & dolphins), so it was a pretty fun topic to research too.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I’m going up to Portland for a couple days to spend Thanksgiving with Emily’s family – I’m so excited to celebrate my first ever American thanksgiving and especially since her family have been so kind as to welcome me into their home! Friday afternoon there’s the final football game of the season and it’s the Civil War game against our biggest rivals, so I am BEYOND excited for it! I’m also heartbroken at the fact it’ll be the last game I’m in the country for though as football season doesn’t start again until the following September (cry). There’s only 1 week of lectures left now, then it’s finals week! I can’t believe how fast this term has gone, I half don’t want it to end but I’m also so excited for winter break to go travelling!

Here’s a visual representation of how I’ll be spending my Friday… #GoBeavs!

Half way through the term!

I can’t believe how quickly time is going, we’re officially half done with Fall term! I’ve had all except one of my midterm exam results back now and they went really well, I got an A or B in all of them so far which has made all the long days and nights studying worth it. I had my first quizzes in my birds class this week – a taxonomy one and a song one where we have to ID birds purely based on being played a recording, and I managed to get an A on both – yay! This week’s song quiz wasn’t too bad since there were only 15 species and we’ve had 2 weeks to learn them, but the next 2 have way more species and are cumulative so can include any of the ones we’ve been learning too which makes it really hard because there’s over 50 to learn and some of them are SO similar. The taxonomy stuff is hard too, it’s basically a load of Latin and species names and having to remember what fits into which family, order, superorder, their distribution, and how to spell them all (even one letter wrong gets the whole thing wrong) so it’s quite stressful and there’s over 100 species to remember for the taxonomy stuff. Luckily the field trips are really fun and I enjoy the learning in class part, it’s just the actual being tested on it all that’s way more intense than any class I’ve ever taken but I’m definitely learning a lot. I have another lab exam tomorrow for my other lab course which is more ID and natural history stuff, but this time on snakes and lizards.

Last weekend I went on a camping trip which was AMAZING, despite waking up the day we were setting off absolutely dying of a cold. The group of people I went with are just the best, and I learnt so many new wilderness skills like water purification techniques and how to build and start a fire. We did some hiking to a little waterfall, and had really nice chilled nights around the campfire telling stories and making smores, it was exactly what I needed after a stressful week of exams. We also learnt to use Dutch ovens which was cool as I’d never heard of them before but it was so easy, we made monkey bread which was so tasty. It was just really nice not having phone service and just hanging out chatting with friends, and we found a cute little spot down by the river at the campsite we stayed at where everything looked so pretty with the fall colours.

 

This week I went to my first ever basketball game which was really fun, it wasn’t a proper game but a practice one before the official season starts this week. Neither of us had been to a game before so it was quite exciting to be there and the atmosphere was so good, I’m excited to go to a proper competitive game next week! We got a free t-shirt as well as the best seats right behind the announcer and official people too with the stadium being quite empty so had such a good view. They also did some cool competitions and stuff with it being a practice game, one was a competition to win free books for next term if your name was picked out and the head coach made a shot from mid court within 5 shots. I didn’t get picked but it was still so good because the head coach made it on the first shot, from mid court, WITH HIS BACK TO THE HOOP THROWING BEHIND HIM!!! Absolute mad skills haha. They also had the TV screen showing random fans around the coliseum at half time and during time-outs, and a lot of the kids (and some older fans and students) were throwing some right shapes when they came on the screen, it was so funny!

Friday night there was a ‘Carnevil’ event at the Haunted MU on campus, which was really fun especially since I’d never been to a carnival before. There were all sorts of performers, different games to win tickets and prizes, a haunted maze with people jumping out, a silent disco, bowling, crafts, music etc. There was also so much free food and drink – butterbeer (my absolute fave), popcorn, candy floss, fresh lemonade, apples with caramel sauce, and more.

 

 

Yesterday I went on a canoe trip which was really fun but I definitely underestimated how much of a workout rowing for 3 hours would be haha. It was chucking it down with rain as we set off but on the drive there the sun came out and it ended up being really warm and sunny the whole time we were in the boats, then rained just as we were driving back so we couldn’t have got more lucky! There was a huge Great Blue Heron (my birds ID class is paying off!) and a really cute otter, as well as loads of cows and ducks and we ate our packed lunches in the canoe’s so it was a really nice chilled day.

Other than that I had a few assignments due this weekend so have been working on them during the week, and I spent all of Saturday studying to catch up on everything else and prepare for my next lab exam on Tuesday. I’ve also been practicing bird song recognition every single day and feel like I’m starting to hear them in my sleep at this point; though maybe it’s just an actual bird outside messing with me haha.

This week I finally got all my travel plans finalised for winter break too, so that’s exciting! I’ve had to change my original plan a fair bit because of spending so much money cancelling my dorm contract, but since some stuff I’d already paid for and arranged before coming out here I’ve got some really good plans. I get to finally be reunited with some of my Virginia friends after working there 2 years ago, and I’ll also be visiting New York, Washington DC, Florida, New Orleans, and Houston! Aside from Florida they’ll all be firsts for me so I’m really excited to explore and tick a few new places off my list. I can’t wait to celebrate Christmas and the New Year stateside too, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for so long!

5k poorer but 10x happier

For anybody who doesn’t know, I moved out of my dorm! Yay! It’s ended up costing $5,300 to cancel my contract as I’ve had to pay for rent until January (as well as now paying rent elsewhere too) as well as a $1,500 cancellation fee and still pay for my dining plan, but luckily I can still use my dining plan for the next 2 months so it’s closer to $4,500 that I’m down. That was my entire travel fund for the year and next summer (luckily I have some stuff I had already booked for December), so it really really sucks. I’m gonna have to try and get a job after Christmas to try and make some of it back, which I didn’t really want to do, and I’m limited to only being allowed to work on campus with my visa which is a shame as there’s some really cute places downtown I’d loved to have worked at.

I thought living in a shared room would be quite cool since I’ve stayed in hostels a lot while travelling, but I absolutely hated it. I had constant anxiety, didn’t sleep, and never felt safe – so despite having to sacrifice a lot of my plans for the next year due to money, I 100% think I’ve made the right decision. At the end of the day I’m here to get a degree and would have failed if I’d stayed living there. The girl I was sharing a room with was friendly but we definitely have very different priorities, boundaries and morals, and the general vibe in the dorm just wasn’t really me – I won’t really go much further into it because I could write for hours about everything that made me want to (or actually) cry, I’m just so happy to be out of there.

I was really annoyed over the weekend though because my roommate had said she planned to use both sides of the room once I’d moved out (she isn’t supposed to it has to stay available for if somebody needs to move in), and I told her I still had to come back to get my last few bits and clean my half on Saturday, and then the university check it during the week so to not touch my side until they’d done my check out process. Instead of this, she messaged me Friday night asking when she could decorate my side (I hadn’t even taken all my stuff out by this point), so I repeated that it takes up to 5 business days for them to process my cancellation and check the room, to which she replied straight away that she had already put stuff on my wall and bed. I don’t even know why she bothered asking me when she already had done it, or why she did anyway when I’d told her not to and hadn’t even moved out properly yet, but I had to take things off the wall to be able to clean and make sure I’d done everything the university said had to be off so it was just yet another example of the attitude I wanted to get away from. She also had loads of people round sat on my desk and bed yesterday so I’m hoping I don’t get charged for any damages since they won’t be checking it until this week. Ughhhh it’s just disrespectful, but with how the last month has been it is no surprise either.

BUT! I am now living in an off campus apartment complex that is AMAZING. I have my own bedroom with a double bed (and a lockable door that nobody else can leave unlocked with my stuff in like the last place!), my own bathroom that even has a bath, a balcony, nice roommates (Americans still call them roommates even if they’re in different rooms – weird I know – but they’re actually flatmates), get to live with an amazing doggo, have cable TV, have a washer & dryer in the apartment (I had to go up and down 5 floors before), and the complex is pure luxury. There’s a swimming pool, outdoor hot tub, onsite gym that’s open 24 hours, a sauna, computer suite with PC’s & Macs, squash courts, a golf simulator, tanning beds, free coffee machine, games room, big TV’s, and probably more that I’ve forgotten. It’s literally like a hotel resort and I love it so much!

I didn’t think I’d get to use the pool until April/May since everyone had told me to expect “6 months of rain and grey skies” after September, but there’s a bit of a heatwave at the moment and it was 23c and bright blue skies earlier so I was doing my reading poolside and loving it! I’ve got 4 exams coming up this week (3 midterms and 1 lab exam) and they’re 10 mins apart on Tuesday and 10 mins apart on Friday. I also have a field trip on Thursday, so it’s gonna be a really hectic week but the weather is supposed to be nice all week so I plan to use the pool as much as I can between studying/exams/classes!

My camp craft camping weekend leaves Friday afternoon too, so the timing couldn’t be any better as after a crazy busy week it’ll be so nice to get away and be around nature with cool people. Me and the 2 girls in my tent & food group have some amazing camp meals planned too which we’re preparing Wednesday afternoon – chicken shish kebabs, apple & bacon grilled cheese, ham & cheese hot croissants, sweet & savoury crepes, and tasty snacks & packed lunches. We were practising building shelters and tying different knots in class last week, and this week we’re learning to use fire, axes and knives haha I love this class so much, I wanna be the next Bear Grylls.

Anyway that’s just an update on my life at the moment, other than the stress and eventfulness of moving all I’ve really done is study most days/nights but I’ve got a good routine going now and have been able to fit in going to the gym and the odd event too which I feel better for. I’m still really enjoying all my classes and find them so interesting, and now that I’m happy where I’m living I feel like it’s all coming together.