Winter Ecology...days: 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

DAY 22 (Monday, January 25):

these last few days are going to be a bit monotonous, so prepare yourself. all day on monday we worked on our research papers. literally, all day, haha! the rough draft was due on the next day (tuesday) but i pushed our group to complete it and send it to him early-monday night. we were successful! yaaaaaay! that night, i chillaxed. it was bliss.

DAY 23 (Tuesday, January 26):

...we lazed around all day and slowly worked on completing our powerpoint presentation allllllllll day. the rest of the groups were rushing to complete their paper before the 5 pm deadline! our professor reviewed our papers to make sure they were ok and had all the right elements in them/facts/etc.. anywho, my research partner and i watched movies all day, too: "disney earth," "curious case of benjamin button"...and, we started watching "grumpy old men"...but, that movie's kind of weird, so we stopped.

DAY 24 (Wednesday/today!):

my day began at 9:30 am. a crisp, 0ºF day...slight breeze...snow falling...cloudy sky. we did beaver surveying again and observed the beauty of the fresh snowfall in the gorgeous itasca forest! we walked 2 miles on the trail, past pretty lakes and trees, we saw wolf tracks, A PORCUPINE!, slush...and then we trekked through knee deep snow for 0.5 miles until we reached a bog and climbed over a beaver dam...fell into a patch of snow on the other side of the beaver dam that was up to our armpits, swam out of that, and found the beaver lodge. we then used the gps to waypoint the lodge location, found that it was inactive, and walked back home. when we got back around 1 pm, we showered, i ate a really big omelet, drank orange juice out of the container (yup. i'm a rebel. don't worry, i don't do that at home.), and wrapped up our powerpoint presentation. then i watched the latest episode of "better off ted" and laughed really hard, ate some asparagus and pineapple for dinner (the omelet from lunch had filled me up lots!), and rehearsed our presentation with the group. now i'm typing this.

DAY 25 (tomorrow/Thursday):

i'm waking up at 7:30 to shower, then we're getting together at 9 am to rehearse our presentation one last time. then at 10, we're going to try to be the first to give our presentation...and then we get to meet Native Americans from White Earth Community College! professor said we're supposed to entertain them...but, i don't know what we're going to do. he said something about auguring a hole on the lake and looking at diatoms and zooplankton. that would be cool. anywho, THEN daddy is picking me up around 6 pm! I'M SUPER EXCITED! i'm leaving a day early...well...because i can. and the group is planning on having one last "fun" hoorah and i would rather spend time with dad. :)

DAY 26 (day after tomorrow <--yup, movie reference. hopefully the world won't try to end, though...):

we're driving home! but, on the way, we're picking up chris! and he's going to spend a couple of days with the family! it will be super duper fun! we're going to see "avatar" and eat lots of delicious food (i.e. mom's AMAZING broccoli casserole on saturday night, chris' perfect hot chocolate, marshmallow fluff <--my sugar addiction..., and HOPEFULLY sweet potatoes :P). chrispy, we're also going sledding! on the sleds my dad bought me that are meant for 4-yr. olds! yay! yup. i'm so excited to go home :) mom and dad and cooper'booger: i am SO excited to see you! SO EXCITED!!

So, that's it! This is probably my last blog post. If you would like a copy of the research paper I/my group wrote, email me: brennanc@stolaf.edu and I'll send you a copy! Thanks so much for reading this month! And for sending all the letters (everybody PLUS Mr. and Mrs. Corbett (I got your letter yesterday! Thank you so much!! <3) and JuniorMints (thanks Molly, Steve, Snickers, and Lucy!) :) I love you!