October 25, 2006
The longest day of classes ever. Actually, I’ve had days that were longer back at MU. There really was only about 5 hours of classes, but since I did group work in between and went to FOCUS, I was only in my room for about one hour between 8:30am and 7:30pm.
This morning I got started with my Conservation Biology and Genetics class, where all five groups in the class presented their group work. It was interesting, because all five groups did the same project. We kinda saw where some of us didn’t do quite the same things as other groups, but overall the presentations presented essentially the same stuff. I think my group’s presentation went pretty well. We got a late start to class due to a fire alarm/drill at the beginning of class, so I had to cut out early to go meet with Ruby for my other group project.
Ruby and I spent some time today figuring out what needed to be said about all of our slides, and also figuring out who would say what, etc. This evening we finally gave the presentation; it went well and we stayed perfectly within our time limit (ten minutes). Finally, I can relax a little for the rest of the week… and leisurely work on the two writeups/reports for these projects as well as study for my upcoming finals. :-P
Tonight was “cowboys and Indians” theme night at unibar, and since I was done with work, I decided to head up and be social. There weren’t as many people there as I expected, but there was a fair number of cowboy and Indian attire. It was kind of funny to see cowboys and Indians there… I guess cowboys can be from anywhere, but Indians are clearly American – once again, the U.S. cultural influence was clear. :)
After getting bored at the bar, Melissa, Amanda and I (all Americans) came back to the dorms. On our walk back past the other dorm buildings, we came across a bunch of kangaroos and wallabies grazing in the grass along the sidewalk. The wallabies were only discernable as wallabies in the low light conditions by the fact that they were the size of the smaller kangaroos, but some had babies in their pouches. We stopped and observed approximately two dozen kangaroos and wallabies, and got a real treat watching some of the kangaroos: The two biggest (male) kangaroos were standing on their back legs and were gesturing at each other, obviously challenging each others’ dominance. The one male stood up really tall (seemed to be a bit taller than me even!) and brushed/flapped his arms along/in front of his chest. The other kangaroo, not wanting to fight, was flapping his arms too, but was leaning over to the side, with his head dropped pretty low to the ground – it seems like he was “surrendering” his dominance. We were all talking about how we wished they would start doing the fighting/kickboxing thing you always see kangaroos do on nature shows, but finally they hopped away from each other and we knew they weren’t going to fight. However, we were not disappointed – two younger (smaller) males a bit farther away got up next to each other, scratched at each others’ faces with their front paws, and one even jumped up and gave a firm kick into the other’s stomach! This fight lasted only about 10 or 15 seconds, though, and seemed to be more of a “learning to fight” brawl than an actual fight. Both were perfectly happy to munch on grass next to each other after this “practice fight”. We all wished we had brought our cameras to capture these moments on film, but none of us had. It was still really cool seeing all those wallabies and kangaroos within a 40-70 foot distance away from us!!
This morning I got started with my Conservation Biology and Genetics class, where all five groups in the class presented their group work. It was interesting, because all five groups did the same project. We kinda saw where some of us didn’t do quite the same things as other groups, but overall the presentations presented essentially the same stuff. I think my group’s presentation went pretty well. We got a late start to class due to a fire alarm/drill at the beginning of class, so I had to cut out early to go meet with Ruby for my other group project.
Ruby and I spent some time today figuring out what needed to be said about all of our slides, and also figuring out who would say what, etc. This evening we finally gave the presentation; it went well and we stayed perfectly within our time limit (ten minutes). Finally, I can relax a little for the rest of the week… and leisurely work on the two writeups/reports for these projects as well as study for my upcoming finals. :-P
Tonight was “cowboys and Indians” theme night at unibar, and since I was done with work, I decided to head up and be social. There weren’t as many people there as I expected, but there was a fair number of cowboy and Indian attire. It was kind of funny to see cowboys and Indians there… I guess cowboys can be from anywhere, but Indians are clearly American – once again, the U.S. cultural influence was clear. :)
After getting bored at the bar, Melissa, Amanda and I (all Americans) came back to the dorms. On our walk back past the other dorm buildings, we came across a bunch of kangaroos and wallabies grazing in the grass along the sidewalk. The wallabies were only discernable as wallabies in the low light conditions by the fact that they were the size of the smaller kangaroos, but some had babies in their pouches. We stopped and observed approximately two dozen kangaroos and wallabies, and got a real treat watching some of the kangaroos: The two biggest (male) kangaroos were standing on their back legs and were gesturing at each other, obviously challenging each others’ dominance. The one male stood up really tall (seemed to be a bit taller than me even!) and brushed/flapped his arms along/in front of his chest. The other kangaroo, not wanting to fight, was flapping his arms too, but was leaning over to the side, with his head dropped pretty low to the ground – it seems like he was “surrendering” his dominance. We were all talking about how we wished they would start doing the fighting/kickboxing thing you always see kangaroos do on nature shows, but finally they hopped away from each other and we knew they weren’t going to fight. However, we were not disappointed – two younger (smaller) males a bit farther away got up next to each other, scratched at each others’ faces with their front paws, and one even jumped up and gave a firm kick into the other’s stomach! This fight lasted only about 10 or 15 seconds, though, and seemed to be more of a “learning to fight” brawl than an actual fight. Both were perfectly happy to munch on grass next to each other after this “practice fight”. We all wished we had brought our cameras to capture these moments on film, but none of us had. It was still really cool seeing all those wallabies and kangaroos within a 40-70 foot distance away from us!!
posted by itsbenrael at 9:59 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Ben,
Enjoy the warm weather while you have it. It will most likely be in the 40's when you get back to pennsylvania. Its been quite chilly here, although its not bad at all, as i've been told. Its about -10 for the lows and 10 for the highs lately up here. Charity and i went on a walk the other day and i had icesicles growing on my whiskars. Goodluck with your exams and projects and have fun in New Zealand.
luke
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