Classes and Reindeer

This past week has been pretty busy with getting classes started and such. Overall it hasn't been too exciting. I briefly met with my advisor Wednesday and he showed me where my desk was located and sent me articles to read regarding which research project I would like to work on. I will meet with him again on Monday with a decision! I had to rearrange my schedule a little bit too. Now I am taking ecosystem ecology, biometeorology, a NRM (natural resource management) seminar for one credit and a 2 credit research methods course which helps students get stared on their research projects.

The weather has been great...sunny and in the 70's! All of the leaves are changing color...all to yellow! There is mostly only aspen and birch for deciduous tress. My advisor told me it could start snowing as soon as in two weeks!! I am looking forward to slightly cooler temperatures! I didn't bring much for summer clothes!

This evening I went to a department BBQ for all students and faculty and friends. This gave me a chance to meet a few more graduate students and a feel for the department overall! Towards the end, a few of us were offered a tour of the reindeer farm right next to where the BBQ took place. We went right into the pens with the reindeer! Luckily I had my camera with me, so I took a couple pictures of them! When they walk around, they make a clicking noise which I guess is from their tendons in their legs so they can find each other in the snow. We all fed them lichen right our of our hands! These ones are raised to be slaughtered in the end but also look at their nutrition and do artificial insemination. The big one in the pictures is the one they take to schools and put on postcards around Christmas and the little ones surrounding it are one year old.

Basic Info

Just so everyone has it, here is my contact information!

E-mail: mbparent628@gmail.com   OR    meparent@alaska.edu

-Both are through google and I will check them both regularly. Discard my old umaine address.

Phone: 207-991-3022

Mailing address:

Mary Beth Parent

UAF

PO Box 752504

Fairbanks, AK 99775-2504

Street address:

Mary Beth Parent

UAF

740 B Columbia Circle

Fairbanks, AK 99775

Feel free to send anything or call anytime! Just keep in mind it can take about 4 weeks for packages to get here, but smaller items come a bit faster.

Classes Begin!!

I started classes on Thursday with Ecosystem Ecology and then Friday I had Biometeorology. They both sound very interesting after the first class, even though they do not have much to do with GIS. It is important background knowledge to have to help analyze any findings. Friday I met one of the graduate students, Theresia, who also has Dave as an advisor. We had lunch in a cafe on campus with one other girl. They were both super nice and Theresia showed me around a little bit. In my Friday class there are only 5 students total and I am the only girl. When I walked in, there was one guy who I thought looked just like Joel and come to find out, his name is Joel! 

I had found out there was a contra dance in downtown Fairbanks online so I decided to check it out Friday night. I took a taxi down which cost an outrageous 11 bucks to go two miles! Next time if I can't get a ride, I think I'll just leave early and walk!! The dance was a lot of fun, even though there was much less twirling than Bangor. I danced quite a few of the dances but sat out a bit more than I usually do. At the end of the dance, there was the last waltz and it didn't look like I was going to find a parter so I gathered my things and was headed out the door. A guy, Patrick, came running out behind me and asked if I wanted to go to a bonfire with him and some of the other kids at the dance! I went and had a great time and met a few new people!!

Today is saturday and I took the opportunity to sleep in! Then I went to lunch with my roommate and one of her friends. Then, my advisor's wife, Becky picked me up and we thought we would try to see if my boxes were at the post office. Guess what! They were there!!! I'm sooo excited to finally have some of my stuff here!! Then I went over to Becky's house where she was trying to get rid of a lot of old kitchen stuff. I made out pretty well! I got a mirror (I didn't have one in my room at all), a small side table, an iron, another fry pan, some games, silverware and a bunch of other stuff. The people around here are so nice!!

I don't have much else planned for the rest of the long weekend. I have a bit more unpacking to do and I will take the chance to relax before I get super busy! I don't have much for new pictures, but I  snapped a few while I was at the contra dance!

Getting settled

The past two days I have spent running around campus trying to get all the right forms to the right departments! Yesterday I did not get much accomplished because I had orientation from 1-5. This was informative as far as graduate student responsibilities go, but not much for general campus knowledge. There wasn't much of a chance to get to know other students since it was mostly speakers talking for four hours. 

Today I walked back and forth across campus numerous times trying to get appropriate forms filled out. I finally signed up for classes and got my student ID card and hopefully got all of my employment papers squared away. It has been hard not having an advisor around this week so I never know who to go to with questions. Thankfully, everyone in every department has been more than helpful. I've had secretaries offer to drive me downtown to get information and it seems like every other person has a relation back to Maine! The department chair's sister currently lives in Bangor so I was able to talk with him for a few minutes about that! After all the walking around today, I crashed early and made some phone calls while it was still a reasonable time on the east coast! I talked to Heidi, Corey, Memere & Pepere, Grandma & Grandpa, Lucas and my parents through Skype among a few others!! It was really great being able to talk to everyone!! I always welcome phone calls...just keep in mind I'm 4 hours behind!!

I went around campus today and took a few pictures of the main buildings...

This is the Museum of the North...a signature building of the school.

The outside of my building. I'm on the lower corner.

O'Neill building where my department is located.

The library!!!

The Wood Center...the student union building. The brown thing on the top stretches the length of the building for really high ceilings inside.

It is quite a nice campus! There are still flowers out and green grass everywhere! I'm sure this will all disappear in a month or so! Please feel free to leave any questions in the comments or send me an email!!

Classes start tomorrow so I will keep you posted with how those go!

Moving Day!

Today was another rainy day. Dad came down with a bad cold yesterday so he slept in while I went and checked into my apartment. I went back to the hotel to pick him up and we went to go pick up my boxes. We had to go to two different post offices to try to track them down, and come to find out they had not arrived yet!!! This was pretty disappointing, but we went back to walmart and picked up a few items that I needed from the boxes like blankets and a pillow. We also got food at walmart and brought everything back to my new place. We went back to Boston's for lunch, checked out Fred Meyer (much like a walmart) for a few last items. Dad left around 3... it was pretty hard for both of us to say bye! Since he has left I have unpacked my few belongings and talked to mom and Lucas on the phone. I took a couple of pictures of the place...I didn't get any good ones of my room, plus it was messy from moving...

The common area

More of the common area

Part of the kitchen

Tomorrow I have to go register for classes and attend orientation! Hopefully I will start meeting people!

August 30, 2009

So today, Sunday, we spent around Fairbanks and it rained all day. We started off by going to mass in a small church next to the Chena river - the Immaculate Conception at 9:15. After mass, we drove around Fairbanks some more and stopped at a big outdoor store where we both could have spent a large amount of money but refrained quite well. I did walk out with a sweet pair of Merrells though!

We went and had lunch at Boston's pizza and then went to WalMart and bought most of the supplies I will need for the next two years (hopefully!). We returned to the hotel and dad napped and I posted more pictures. 

For dinner we went to the Chena Pump House, the same place we went to last night. We met up with my advisor, Dave and his wife, Becky. They are both very very nice and it got me more excited to start the semester! Dave is gone the first week of classes to go to the Alaska range to hunt sheep. His wife, Becky, told me she is going to call tomorrow afternoon to check on me to make sure I moved in well and has invited me to their place at some point this week along with some new other grad students. She said that people around are very welcoming and inviting to new students so I am excited to see where things lead!

Here are a few stray pictures from the trip:

Salmon we saw in the stream...they were big!!

Dad and I on one of our hikes:

Its okay, I didn't jump! :)

Always have to get a picture with the sign!

A swan we saw on Horseshoe Lake...

Tomorrow is moving day!! Hopefully my boxes will be waiting a the post office! :)

Dad and I - Fairbanks, Denali and Anchorage

So as many of you know, I am starting grad school at the University of Alaska in a few days. I will use this blog to keep everyone update with what I am doing.

Dad came out with me for the first week to do some sightsee

ing around Alaska. We arrived early in the morning on Tuesday, August 25th. We found 

a hotel in Fairbanks and got a few hours of sleep. The following morning we explored Fairbanks and walked around campus for a few hours. We then took off for Denali National Park which is about two hours south of Fairbanks. We signed up for a hike in the park at the visitors center, found our hostel about 15 miles down the road and went to bed around 7 (11 in our heads).

The following morning we woke up to catch the bus for our hike. We missed the bus by minutes, but it turned to work out well!! We went out to Eileson by bus to mile 66. It took us 4 hours to get out there, but we stopped on the way at rest stops and whenever anyone saw a wild animal! On this trip we saw 2 grizzly bears, a few caribou, a wolf, a golden eagle, sheep at a distance, both bull and cow moose and a few magpie (birds). We did a short hike...a mile one way and 1,000 ft up. This gave us spectacular views of Denali, even though it was in the clouds and we only saw pieces of it at a time. There is a picture of the view below. We caught the bus back to the visitors center, had dinner at a salmon bake, went back to the hostel and went to bed.

Thursday we woke up at the hostel and went back into the park. We were headed to do a short hike before we drove to Anchorage. Personal vehicles can only go into the park 15 miles while busses can go in over 90. We were on our way to mile 15 for the hike, when we turned a corner and a grizzly bear was chomping on some grass on the side of the road! Dad slammed on the breaks and we sat and watched it for a few minutes. When we stopped, it was about 30 feet from the car but kept creeping closer to us as it ate. Then, it turned and crossed the road right in front of us! When it got to the other side, we rolled up our windows and sped off! It ended up getting 15-20 feet away from the car! A little close for comfort, but he really wasn't interested in us at all. This is the bear:

We then drove on, and saw a big white mountain in the distance. We pulled over and found it was Denali 75 miles away! There was not a single cloud on it like there had been the previous day. We then continued on to our hike along the Savage River. This was a beautiful loop about 3 miles long along the melted glacier water stream. Then we got into the car, had some PB&J's overlooking Denali and drove to Anchorage where we found a hotel. On our way, we drove south next to Denali and had some amazing clear views of the mountain. We were able to see the mountain almost all the way to Anchorage behind us! That was a long drive and didn't get there until pretty late. We went to a close-by restaurant called Gwennie's for dinner where the food was good and the service was not. Dad had ribs and proceeded to get a huge sauce mustache and dropped his glasses right in the sauce! Below are dad and I pointing to Denali off in the distance...

The following morning was drizzly. We decided to try to make the most of the day and headed to a town called Portage at the end of Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage. By the time we got there, it was down-pouring with super high winds. We checked out the visitors center and decided we had to go see a glacier even though we would get wet. We put on our boots, rain pants and jackets and set off to find one. It was about a half mile walk to Byron Glacier, but we found it! We walked up it a little ways and just admired it. Below is a picture of me on a glacier with one in the background...

 When we got back to the car, our raincoats had soaked through! On our way back to Anchorage, we stopped at a stream where it said we could see salmon. We were a bit skeptical, but it brought us to a shallow glacier stream where huge 2ft salmon were swimming upstream. Some were bright red and others not. Then as we were driving back along Turnagain Arm back towards Anchorage, we saw a bear running on the beach in the distance! This brought our bear count up to 4. We returned back to our hotel and dad took a nap and I posted some pictures on facebook. We then went into Anchorage to check out the downtown scene. We ate at a great restaurant called The Brewhouse where we had our first King Crab legs and fresh alaska salmon! We took a walk along the water and retired for the night.

Saturday (today) we left Ancorage and drove back up to Fairbanks. It was a very long drive, but very pretty with Denali and other mountains always in view. On our way, we saw cars stopped on the side of the road which tends to lead to wildlife close by. On the side of the road was another bear! This brings our current count up to 5!  We stopped in at the park again and we ate PB&J's along a stream in the park and went for a short hike to Horseshoe Lake. There, we saw a swan, a bunny and some squirrels! We finished our drive back North and arrived in Fairbanks around 6pm. We went to dinner at The Pump House which was very good. We had chowder and steak and watched the paddle boats go by on the river.

I am sure I missed many bits of what we have done sofar, but hopefully this gives a short summary of what we have been up to! I will be sure to keep posting my events here to keep everyone update with what I'm up to!