Busy bees

Jeremiah and I had a busy weekend. Our 11 month old cat, Hazel was spayed Saturday morning. After a very long and tiring week, we begrudgingly woke up at 5:30 in the morning, placed her in a small kennel and shuffled off to the spay and neuter clinic at Centre County Paws. We we're the first ones to arrive and stood in the cold with Hazel surprisingly quiet the whole ride there. Jeremiah and I were both very nervous about how the operation would go. Although we were worried, we knew that Hazel had to be spayed. Spaying her would decrease her chance of breast cancer, and give her a longer and happier life. I strongly encourage everyone to spay or neuter their pets. The spay and neuter clinic at Centre County Paws is offered sporadically every year. It is very cost effective. Our vet quoted us $247 to have our cat spayed. We were able to have Hazel spayed for $35 at the clinic and paid an additional $10 for a year long rabies shot and a FVCP shot.

One after another, cars began pulling up at the animal shelter. The clinic opened soon after. We went in and filled out all the necessary paperwork, said goodbye to Hazel and got a cab back home. We tried to sleep a few hours before heading off to our jobs.

Honestly, this was one of the worst weekends for a spay and neuter clinic. This past weekend was the infamous "State Patty's Day" in State College, PA. Other college students came up with the idea to turn the weekend before Spring break (and 2 weeks before Saint Patrick's Day) into an all out drinking binge that results in an exponential increase in crime with each passing year. With all of the drinking this weekend, it was extremely hard to get around using cabs.

I left work early on Saturday to go pick up Hazel. I got there no problem using the CATA bus. Hazel appeared a bit discombobulated when I first saw her. She was the first of 16 cats to be operated on. Staff said she was very friendly with them and didn't scratch any of them. Some cats left the clinic sounding quiet angry. The vet operating on Hazel should have been using dissolvable sutures (stitches) on her but instead, he made a mistake and used non-dissolvable sutures. Aside from that, everything went fine during her surgery and I was told she appeared very alert post surgery.

Our cat, Hazel

The cab I had reserved to take Hazel home in never showed. Thankfully, 2 of my friends drove us home instead! When Hazel realized she was back home, her entire mood changed. She quickly started pushing her head against the kennel gate as if to say "Let me out of here already!". Once I let her out, she started to purr loudly and rub against my leg. She was back to her old self. I washed her food and water bowls and refilled them, and laid them out underneath a small pink towel. Hazel began to gobble up the food with a big appetite. Although the vet staff told us she might vomit or be a little sluggish the next few days, we saw none of that in Hazel. We are keeping her and our dog, Aussie seperate for the time being so that her stitches don't get ripped out when they rough house. Hazel has been running, jumping and playing around in our bedroom. Her belly is a little swollen but she does not appear to be in any discomfort.

We have arranged for her stitches to be removed March 14th by a vet technician at our vet. Hazel is on her way to a speedy recovery!

On Sunday, we caught up on some much needed sleep. We also took Aussie out for a run and to play with his new red frisbie. We decided to do some cooking together as well. My grandmother makes an amazing ziti with Italian sausage. Since Jeremiah had never had ziti before, we decided to make it and see if it could top my grandmother's ziti. We looked up some ziti recipes online and then went to Walmart to get some ingredients.

We first boiled a box of rigatoni pasta and lightly cooked a pack of Italian mild sausage. Then we drained the pasta, spread it out on a baking pan and mixed in sliced chunks of sausage, an entire pound of mozzarella cheese, a jar of sauce and some additional grated cheese on top. We cooked the ziti and sausage in the oven at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

The ziti tasted amazing! Maybe just as good as the ziti my grandmother makes. We have been eating the ziti through out this past week, and I have yet to grow tired of it. In addition to making great food, I really enjoyed cooking with Jeremiah. We were both still to tired to go out on a date on Sunday (although our date on friday was a lot of fun), it was really nice to just stay in and do something fun together.

Valentine's Day

How was your Valentine's day?

Jeremiah and I had a very nice Valentine's Day. We decided to celebrate the holiday on the weekend before Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day was on a Monday and we had to work and go to class. Unfortunately, on the weekend we were celebrating Valentine's day, I came down with a bad cold. For Valentine's Day, I made Jeremiah a nice card using different kinds of colored paper, ribbons and various other materials. I also gave him a personalized gift from www.personalizationmall.com. I wanted to get him something more special and original this year for Valentine's Day. I had each of our names and our anniversary date carved into the piece of tree trunk. I was a little worried that it wouldn't arrive in time, or that there would be a mistake in the spelling our of names. However, the gift arrived a few days before Valentine's day - ironically, just as I was warning Jeremiah not to look at any packages that would arrive at our home. The photo below isn't exactly how my present looks but virtually the same. Once we get some screws, it'll be hanging up in our living room.

I also got him Assassins Creed Brotherhood, a video game for our Xbox 360 that he has wanted since Christmas. Jeremiah just finished the storyline of Assassins Creed brotherhood last night. The graphics are even better than the previous two games in the series. From what Jeremiah said, it appears that there will most likely be a fourth Assassins Creed game in the future.

Jeremiah surprised me with a beautiful card and rose for Valentine's Day! All in all, we had a very nice Valentine's Day this year. On the actual day of Valentine's Day, we spent the evening (after coming home from work) snuggling on the couch watching Top Gear. 

Spring break is just around the corner!

Spring break is coming up and since the college semester started, I've been keeping busy.

This semester, I am taking horticulture, philosophy, mathematics, agricultural business, and continuing to independent research in entomology. In addition to work and classes, I've also been taking a quilting class every week. In my quilting class, I've been working on a quilted throw pillow to match our couch and loveseat. I will post photos of it once it is finished!

I am really enjoying my classes. I was hesitant about how I would do in my agricultural business class since I hadn't taken economics before. However, my professor made concepts really easy to understand and so I understood the material very well. If I had time to squeeze in a second minor, I would consider double minoring in agricultural business management and entomology. Math being my worst subject and having failed college math courses in the past, I was very apprehensive about my lower level math class. My math professor is excellent and I have been studying very hard in my math class. All my hard work paid of and I received a 75% on my first math exam. I couldn't believe it! My philosophy class is probably my least favorite but I am doing well in that class. My professor is very nice but philosophy just isn't something that catches my attention much. Sometimes, the material in class can be very confusing.

My horticulture class is quite interesting. I do really well on the quizzes and exams and the professor is very intelligent and also likes to throw funny personal stories into his lectures. During one lecture, he told us about how when he was an undergraduate, he and his classmates rented out a small plot of land to do some planting in. They started to dig out all the rocks in the plot to get the soil ready for planting. As they dug, they thought they hit this huge rock. Upon further investigation, this "rock" actually was a full beatle car. My professor later learned that the plot of land was right where an old junk yard used to be.

Entomology research is going quite well this semester. I've been learning a lot of material on insect taxonomy, extensive insect and arachnid anatomy, insect preservation and insects of forensic importance. Just last week, I pinned my very first insect!

New Years Eve

Happy New Year!

I had a fantastic time ringing in the new year! Jeremiah and I decided to spend new years eve at First Night here in State College. We had mouth-watering and delicious burgers at Chili's for lunch before checking out all the ice sculptures along South Allen street. There were ice sculptures of dinosaurs, a bratwurst, reindeer and a sleigh, as well as some iconic Russian architecture.

Ice sculptures

We painted a couple pottery mugs at 2000 Degrees. I painted my mug a pale yellow and stamped different insect shapes around it - caterpillars, ants, lady bugs, butterflies, and even a dragonfly. Jeremiah painted his mug all black. Our mugs will be glazed and fired in the kiln so that it will be microwavable. We had a great time painting the pottery and are planning on going back to 2000 Degrees again on our year anniversary this Sunday.

After painting our mugs, we headed up to the Penn State Ice Pavilion to ice skate. Neither of us could ice skate so our "ice skating" mainly consisted of us clinging to the side of the rink and moving slowly along the perimeter. We didn't fall (surprisingly) but, I was called a "road block" by a bunch of young boys, and in between clutching random people in the rink for balance, accidentally stumbled into this father's photo as he was trying to take a picture of his young daughter. Jeremiah looked absolutely hilarious on ice skates. In the few minutes he spent inside the ice rink, he must have threatened to go back off the ice at least 4 times! We had a great time in the ice rink overall...mostly spent laughing hysterically.

Penn State Ice Pavilion

Before heading home for the evening, we went on a romantic carriage ride through downtown. We had to wait an hour and a half in line for it but, it was well worth it! The carriage was pulled by two strong dark colored horses with extravagant black and studded harness wear. Inside the white carriage was a warm blanket to warm our legs. We fought over the blanket a little before settling in and enjoying the ride. We strode around downtown and saw quaint strings of lights strewn along crowded streets.

I was falling asleep on Jeremiah's shoulder on the bus ride home. Here's to the end of a perfect day.

Cheers

Research

I am excited to say that I will be doing research again this semester! I will be exploring aspects of forensic entomology, helping prepare for forensic entomology workshops, and collecting and identifying arachnids (also known as taxonomy). My research will continue into the Summer and possibly further into my college career. My mentor/instructor is a fascinating retired professor and curator of the Frost Entomological Museum on campus.

A little bit about myself

My name is Aisling (pronounced "ash-ling") and I am a 20 year old girl working towards my B.S. in agroecology with a minor in entomology. I hope to one day become an entomologist - possibly a forensic entomologist. My parents are from Ireland but, I was mainly raised just outside New York City. I moved to Pittsburgh when I was in high school and after I graduated high school, I moved to State College, PA to attend college at Penn State.

I live off campus in an apartment with my boyfriend, Jeremiah and our 2 year old catahoula leopard dog named Aussie, our 8 month old calico cat named Hazel and our 2 tarantulas. One tarantula, Chrissy is a Chilean rose hair tarantula that I've had for about 10 years. The other tarantula is a young adult Pink Toe tarantula. We haven't named this tarantula yet. Name suggestions are appreciated!

Our doggy, Aussie

I am a big animal lover and hope to become a tarantula collector and possibly a breeder as a hobby. My boyfriend and I intend to adopt more animals when we have the time, space and income to do so. We also hope to one day run my own animal rescue. Our dog, Aussie was rescued from a bad situation in Kentucky and we wouldn't be a family without him! He is a wonderful dog and we want to help other dogs and cats who are in similar situations that our dog had once faced. We adopted our cat Hazel from a family out by the airport. Hazel's mother was a stray. I adopted Chrissy many years ago when I was still in junior high school as part of my science fair experiment. We recently adopted the new tarantula from Petco and so far the tarantula is fairly tame and a beautiful specimen to look at.

My boyfriend, Jeremiah

My boyfriend and I met at a tattoo shop about a year ago and we have been inseparable ever since. In a few years when I am finished with atleast my undergraduate degree, we plan to get married. We intend to have successful careers, have a nice home, and raise a family. We are constantly trying to think about the long term goals to motivate us in the moment.

I created this blog to help motivate myself through college. Using this blog, I can proudly display what I have achieved in my academic career and receive additional support to achieve my goals in life. Although my blog is primarily based on my experiences as a college student in entomology, I will also talk about non-science topics..cooking, cultural events, charities, movies, and so on. I hope you all enjoy my blog!

Cheers

Back in college!

Last week I re-enrolled back into college at Penn State - University park. Due to a lot stressful of things going on in my life, I had to withdraw from college last spring semester and took a semester off in the fall. Now that I am back on track, I am very excited about school! In the time spent away from school, I re focused myself and found the correct major. If you can't tell by the title of this blog, I want to become an entomologist. Unfortunately, there are only about a dozen or so colleges in the country that offer an undergraduate major in entomology. Penn State has a renowned entomology department. However, the undergraduate entomology program was disbanded a few years ago when only a small number of students actually majored in it. I've spent the last couple years trying to find the right major that would best suit me for a graduate program in entomology. I looked at biomedical engineering, forensic science, biology, and agricultural science majors before an agronomy professor suggested I look into a major in agroecology.

Agroecology is the study between different organisms and their environment. I had begun an agroecology class and really enjoyed it. Over fall semester, I began to look further into the major and realized it was a great fit. The agroecology major had the science I really loved (life science, genetics, sustainable agriculture, horticulture, agronomy, agroecology and of course entomology) without the really advanced math that I had struggled with so much in past semesters.

When I graduate with a B.S. in agroecology and a minor in entomology, I hope to attend graduate school at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas. Texas A&M has an incredible entomology program and is one of the top 10 best research universities.

I absolutely love to do research in entomology. Even though Penn State doesn't have an undergraduate entomology program, I have been doing research in their department since I was a freshman in college. In the past, I have conducted research on Helicoverpa zea caterpillars. I am most interested in arachnids. However, because spiders often aren't pests (they usually kill the real pests), there is few research opportunities available on them. I am also interested in forensic entomology. I haven't really figured out what type of entomology I want to go into but I am open to getting involved with a diverse range of research in entomology and relating topics.