December 2005 Archives
Kory and I adopted a greyhound! Her name is Brooke and she's the most beautiful and wonderful dog in the world! We adopted her from Rose's Rescue, from a wonderful woman named Christine. She was just spayed a couple weeks ago, and she also had a few teeth pulled. They had put her on an antibiotic that apparently she didn't tolerate well because she didn't hold down any food for a week! So she was taken off the antibiotic and is doing great now! She's still about 10 lbs. underweight, but she should hopefully put that back on in no time. So here are some things about Brooke:
- She's red fawn and weighs 72 lbs.
- She ran 53 races under the name Jnb Miss Brooks.
- She had one litter of pups after she raced.
- She's great with other animals (as long as it's not a squirrel running through our backyard!)
- She likes to ride in the car.
- She's extremely well behaved. We haven't crated her yet, and she hasn't touched a single thing while we were away.
- She hasn't had an accident in the house, even though it's 5° outside and she has no body fat!
- She's a big snuggle bug and will curl up right next to you on the couch.
- She's the most beautiful girl ever!
Later on tonight I'll post some more photos!
I don't think my brain can process any more information. Luckily I only have one final left and my writing intensive paper to finish, which is what I'm working on now. I can't believe I'm having so much trouble finishing this paper. I just can't seem to find any new information. Maybe fasting in penguins isn't a broad enough topic? It seems like it should be. One of the problems I'm having is that I don't have access to about 75% of the journal articles that could be helping me write this paper. There's only so many articles I can get from the journals through Kent's library, and if I want any others I have to either have a subscription to the journal or I have to pay to view the article for a day. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to pay $8 - $30 an article for this one paper. I think it's ridiculous that these journals are not open to the public. One thing we're always hearing about in school is how the public is not informed enough about science, and how scientists need to "come down from their ivory towers" and start teaching the public more. Limiting the public's access to these journals is just the opposite of that.
Ugh, Joe just pooped on my shirt. I think I'm going to be pulling another all-nighter.
Our upstairs is extremely cold. There is one little vent that barely anything even comes out of. Really, it's like 2 x 12 inches. And the upstairs is blocked off by a door so RolyPoly can't get up, so no heat from the downstairs can rise. It's horrible taking a shower up there. I swear the shampoo is frozen.
For the past few weeks I've been sleeping downstairs in the bunnies' room. I feel terrible because poor Joe is upstairs and he must be cold. We can't really bring his cage downstairs, so I'm not sure what to do. Right now I make little caves for him out of the blanket on the bed and he goes inside and sleeps in there at night. I think I'm going to try to get him used to being in the bunnies' room and that way he will feel comfortable sleeping down there with me. If I just brought him down there with me tonight he would be way too freaked out about being in a new place and he would just never go to sleep, so I will slowly have to get him familiar with being in there. The first few nights before I gave up on sleeping upstairs, Joe would crawl under the covers with me and just sleep pressed up against me. Poor thing.
It's also terrible because the computer is upstairs. Tuesday night when I was working on my wetlands project, I had on two shirts, a hoodie, my warmest sleepy pants, thick socks, a winter hat, and gloves. And a blanket. It's completely ridiculous that I have to wear gloves to type because it's so cold. The only thing I really have left to do for school is my writing intensive paper. I'm definitely not looking forward to sitting upstairs and working on that.
Frank said he has a little space heater for us, but that it probably won't heat the whole upstairs, maybe just the bathroom. We'll see. We can't get it until this weekend though.
This semester has probably been the hardest yet. It's incredibly insane how much work I have to finish tonight:
- Practice for my group's presentation on hydrothermal vents.
- Identify all my wetland plants, make, cut out and attach their labels, go to the library and hope they have soil survey maps, draw a complete vegetation map, compile plant and animal taxa lists, and write a report about my whole project.
- Memorize wetland animals for my lab practical.
I know three things doesn't sound like a lot, but the whole wetlands project alone should normally take at least a week, so I'll probably just end up getting a bad grade on it. Oh well. And I probably won't be home until 6:00. Ugh. Also, my writing intensive paper was originally due tomorrow, but my teacher gave us all an extension until next week. Who knows what I would have done if I had to finish that, too.
Kory and I finally had Frank come over and show us how to use the wood burning stove, and I love it. All I want to do is lay on the couch by the fire and fall asleep. I can't wait until this semester is over.
