Hola, hope all finds you well. I got into some trouble with housing and campus safety this week and one of my best friends got kicked out of school, so I am most definitely anticipating the end of this semester. Most of this semester ran pretty smoothly, so I’m afraid I’m making up for lost time now, but as long as I can make it through to the end, I should be set.

I’m pleasantly surprised to find that many of my classes are ending early. All of the content has been covered prior to the last week of classes (and we get Friday off!), so many of my finals are this week as opposed to during “finals week” next week. I’ve also decided that 9:15 classes and 3:30 classes are equally bad. Same goes for anything before or after these time blocks..either I can’t wake up or I can’t sit still. Hopefully I’ll take advantage of this finding and plan my classes better in the future. You’ll figure out what works and doesn’t work for you pretty early on.

Daytona Beach has been crazy lately. Between speed week, bike week, perpetual spring break, cheerleading competitions, and BCR, this semester has been a giant tourist attraction. It can get pretty annoying when it takes 4x as long to drive anywhere, roads are conveniently blocked off, and waiting in line at your favorite ice cream store takes an hour. The beaches have been pretty packed, but we’ve all figured out less-traveled roads to get there in hopes of keeping our sanity.

I was talking with a friend today, it’s just really weird to sit back and think about how this year is really over. It still feels sort of unnatural to say that I’m a college student, and here I am 1/4 of the way finished. “College”, for me, has always involved living in Wood Hall, and that’s going to change soon. I won’t be able to run next door or upstairs to visit my friends at 2 in the morning, in fact, a few of them won’t be here at all :-(. I’m pretty settled into my routine now, and it’s going to be uprooted very shortly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited for summer and taking it easy..but I’m having a good time here. It doesn’t help that everyone is going home for the summer and “home” is NJ, but my parents moved down here, so I’m stuck. I’m definitely heading up to visit my friends and catch some shows though. I’m going to see Finch in the city in May and check out Skate and Surf Fest and Warped Tour in Jersey. There’s a definite shortage of shows in FL and it’s killing me. Bowling for Soup did come to campus on Sat night (with MC Lars, Riddlin Kids, and American Hi-Fi)..was a really good time. It’s been months since I’ve crowd surfed, and it reminded me of old times. 🙂

Take care of yourselves, keep pushing through those awful last few weeks of the school year, and I’ll let you know how finals go. As always, any ?’s: pugh754@erau.edu

Melanie