I See Dead Creatures
May 15, 2008 at 1:25 pm
As I have a monumental amount of events to describe (or “catch-up” posts), and I really don’t have the energy or desire at the moment for such a large undertaking—darn allergies or cold or whatever is ailing me—, I’ve decided to mention those events when opportunities present themselves. In other words, I’ll refer to certain past events when it fits to do so and not just for the sake of recording them in this blog. Otherwise, I may as well log everything I’ve done since birth. It’s time to focus on the (near) present!
My most recent excursion was to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Chris took me there last Saturday. Waking up at 7 a.m., we made a one-day road trip to the badlands of Midland Provincial Park.
Chris thought this would make a good grad gift to me because
- I like museums, and
- I just completed taking a dinosaur course as a Science elective towards my undergraduate degree.
This Earth and Atmospheric Sciences course was sophomore-level and called “Mass Extinction and Dinosaurs”. I registered in it thinking it would be an easy elective, as there were no prerequisites, assignments, or projects, and the comments at RateMyProfessors.ca implied that the tests were simple enough as long as one is into science and has decent memorization skills. Unfortunately, I forgot that my skills have degraded throughout the years at university. Additionally, the course material was surprisingly dry. (Apparently, the identification of fossil species lies mainly in hip structures.) Worst of all, I couldn’t figure out how I was going to apply the information that the course taught. (I should have stuck to Psychology electives; those were not only useful for understanding daily life but had practical applications in Computing Science as a bonus.)
Fortunately, Chris found me a role in which my knowledge can be put to use: acting as his tour guide at the museum. Having not paid much attention in class—yet managed to pull off a B, ha-ha—, I don’t think that I did a good job of it, but we had fun anyway.
Upon arriving at our destination, we spotted my first wild prairie dog: the squirrel-like thing without the bushy tail.
Interestingly, I liked looking at the living animals at the museum the best. Although there were no captive prairie dogs, there were cockroaches, a scorpion, sturgeon, some sort of sea turtle, and (my personal favourite) an Axolotyl. Look at the photo at Wikipedia and the one that I took below and tell me that it isn’t adorable.
Nevertheless, the museum is all about the dead specimens, and we saw lots of ‘em. Chris got to see his favourite dinosaur, the stegosaurus. I got to see my favourite prehistoric reptile, the plesiosaur. (Although I prefer the long-necked group over the short-necked group, a specimen of the former was three times as large as that of the latter, and it wouldn’t have fit onto a single photo. I flip for flippers.)
A group of fossils that I particularly liked were the sail-backed pelycosaurs.
Once we’re done looking at the amazing exhibits, the sight of the Alberta badlands awaited us outdoors. All in all, it was a very visual day.
I just wished that I could have stopped sniffling—again, darn allergies or cold or whatever was ailing me.
Filed under Diary | Tagged Boyfriend, Dinosaurs, Museums, Road Trips | 0 comments
