Today my roommates and I went to the beach. Amy’s boyfriend, Jeff, was in town for the launch because he had tickets to watch it up close. We played water Frisbee. The sand is different than the beach sand in California. Also you can go really far into the water and the water would only reach your waist (for me it would be shoulders, I tend to be vertically challenged).

After the beach, we changed quickly and went to the soccer game. There was a BBQ (Free) which was paid for by one of the fraternities. Luis also joined us. The soccer team won their match.

I went to Sundaes on Saturday. I can’t reject ice cream. You know if something is wrong with me if I don’t want ice cream. I love ice cream. I drove all the way to campus to have ice cream. Vick didn’t pick up the phone and Anita wasn’t available so I didn’t see them. I enjoyed my ice cream and went back home.

I definitely wish I was living on campus. I went back to campus in the evening to go to the Greek BBQ. College students love free food, well at least I do. The girls here seem different than the typical sorority picture I have in my head. Overall, the girls here are approachable and friendly.

Later on in the night, Cheese and I went to SAE back to school party at El Azteca. I was the designated driver. My roommate signed us up for play beer pong. Woohoo!! It was my first time playing the game. We won the first game and lost the second one. We had people routing for us. I met a lot of people that night. The bad thing about meeting too many people in a night is that you don’t remember their names.

Ha! now I am definitely paying the consequence for leaving campus too late. I was supposed to be on campus at 8 am for Transfer Student Advisement, but yeah definitely woke up at 10 a.m. I met with the department chair, Dr. Rodrigues and he was very helpful. He actually gave me an overview about the program and explained to me the air transportation track and the occupational health track. He wanted to know where I was from and how I chose that major. He helped me sign of for my classes and got them approved by each of the colleges. I did get to pick my classes. The intro to safety science course was closed, but he said to check up with him on Monday to see if a space opens up. So far my classes are Chemistry, Meteorology, Psychology, Business Management, and Speech. They all seem to be random classes. Oh yeah my chemistry class is at 8 am. I don’t think that’s going to work. I was already late for the Transfer Advisement meeting.

I then attended the Women Only program. It was definitely exciting to see other girls on campus. A couple of the upper classmen spoke about their experiences at Embry-Riddle. Also some of the professors spoke about how they are willing to help us if we need anything.

I then attended the reception where I met my big sister, Danielle. She has been very helpful. She has introduced me to a lot of girls around campus. I am glad I have a big sister.

Later that evening, Cheese (my roommate) and I went to the LUAU. Vick, Luis, and Cheese all wanted to throw me in the water but good thing I had the phone on me. Cheese said he was going to throw me in and I said I’ll go in if he went in. As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back, but it was too late. Cheese jumped into the pool and I went in with my clothes on. There was a belly flop contest. Most of them were fakes, but there were some painful ones. Just thinking about it makes me cringe. We (Luis, Cheese, Anita, and I) ended the night by going to Wendy’s and going to our place to eat it. We watched half a season of the Chapelle show.

Today I went back to school. My roommate, Cheese, took too long to get ready so we missed the box lunches. I went to the orientation group meeting. We got an overview of what school was going to be about. We had to watch a video and got a “tour.” Our leader took us to the flight line, talked about Propellers, and took us to the Student Center.

I also went to the College of Aviation where I met some of the professors. Actually one of the meteorology professors thought I was a parent. It was a definitely awkward way to start a conversation, but he was nice and so were the rest of the faculty. I did talk to two Safety Science professors. There were so many professors I lost track of which ones were in Safety Science. I am definitely excited to start taking Safety Science courses.

I also went back to campus and met up with Vick and his friends. There are too many to list. We went to see Better Grades in Less Time with Gary Tuerak. He was trying to teach us how to speed read. It was a lot longer than expected. We left in the middle of the presentation. We just hung out in the dorms and I went back home a little too late but it was worth it.

We finally made it to Daytona Beach, FL on Wed morning (4 am). Thank God. I dropped him off at his place and I went to my apartment. I was so aggravated that I couldn’t sleep. I started unloading my car at 6:30 and I was hoping I was in the right apartment. Vick called me in the morning to tell me that I needed to be at school at 8 am to go through the check-in process.

I went to school and met Vick and Luis. I checked in, got my orientation packet, and got my id picture taken. You need a state id so they know who you are. Also I saw other people I recognized. I said hi to Guillermo, Amanda, and Anita.

I finally met my roommates later on that day. I live off campus in a 3 bedroom apartment with Amy and David (Cheese). I also met them through the ERAU discussion board. We found out we didn’t get onto campus in July so the quest for finding an apartment began. After many obstacles we finally got our hands on one on the 21st of August. Actually none of us saw the apartment until we got here. Amy is from the Twin Cities, MN and Cheese is from Lancaster, PA. They are both nice.

We all went back to school and I tried to finish doing the rest of my school errands. I dropped off my medical sheet and I tried to buy a parking pass. If you want a parking pass, you need insurance and your car registration. I unfortunately have lost mine after moving around so much. I thought I had it in the car but my old one was there. When I switched the registration card, I must have taken out the wrong one. I have requested a copy of my registration card and hopefully I get it soon. I got a temporary commuter pass.

I woke up in the morning and got ready to pick up Jason from the airport. Jason is a friend that I met through the first year student discussion board on Blackboard. He just got out of the military and was going to be starting Embry-Riddle as a freshman. My friend from St. Louis backed out last minute and I was talking to Jason about it and he volunteered. I don’t feel comfortable going on long drives by myself.

We loaded up my car and I said goodbye to a couple of friends. After staying in St. Louis longer than expected, we started our trip to Daytona Beach, FL. We drove for about 4 hours or so and stopped over at his uncle’s place in Marion, KY whom he hadn’t seen in a couple of years. We ate some dinner and we were chatting away and realized that it was very late to continue our driving. We spent the night at his uncle’s house and started at noon on Tuesday.

The rest of the trip was frustrating. Jason started dating a girl after he decided he was going to come help me out. His girlfriend kept calling and making all these obnoxious and very inappropriate comments. This girl definitely has an imagination. You get the picture. I don’t want to deal with that again.

Well it’s hard for me to believe, but my three months at Honeywell are now over. Overall I think it was a great experience for me. I gained a lot of technical knowledge that I think will help me in my remaining years at school and also when I enter the corporate world after graduation.

More importantly than the technical knowledge, in my opinion, is what I learned about how to operate in the corporate world of engineering. There are a lot of things that one has to get used to when working within a large corporation that you wouldn’t have to contend with if you worked for a smaller organization. But once you learn how to jump through (or go around) the hoops that are in place in these larger companies you can take advantage of the much larger resources that they have to offer.

My last days with the company were very busy. I was trying to make sure that all the work I had done over the summer was both well documented and backed up so that if things needed to be re-visited, the guys I worked with would have all my notes as a starting point, and wouldn’t have to start again from scratch.

Also, a new experience for me was going through all my hard copies of documents and destroying them. Since all of the work we do is considered either Honeywell Confidential or For Official Use Only (F.O.U.O.) we cannot just throw them away in the trash; they all have to be shredded and then put in special bins that go out to another large shredder the company operates.

Overall I think that my internship at Honeywell was a great experience for me and that I benefited from it greatly. I also felt that I made some contributions to the projects I helped out on and that I was not just there looking over other people’s shoulders.

I would definitely consider going back to Honeywell next summer and would recommend that others look into it as well. It was a great company to work for.

After saying goodbye to my friends in Seattle and eating some of my favorite Salvadorean food. I start my destination to Daytona Beach, FL. I leave Seattle late in the evening to St. Louis, MO. My friend, Matt picks me up at the airport around midnight. I pretty much stayed up all night talking to him and catching up. I hadnít seen him since late January.

Finally, there are so many other little things as an intern you do that affect they way you think about aviation and the world in general. The conference calls you sit in on, the meetings you are a part of and what you hear in the jumpseat. It all impacts you.

Going into this internship I had no idea what to expect. All I know was I was going to have a blast, and I did but the knowledge, not only about the airline, but about life in general could never be taught in a classroom.

Not only has the internship given me a leg up in getting to my ultimate dream of flying for a major airline, it has also prepared me for the mind set I should go into this industry with.

In my opinion, it should be a mandatory activity for every Aeronautical Science student in the Airline Pilot Area of Concentration to take part in an internship at an airline. It’s one thing to learn airline operations in a classroom setting, it is another thing to live it for four months.

The people I have met here at Continental are like family to me now, and I will be sad to leave. But I know I will be back here in a few years’ time.

It has been a fun few weeks. I have been working on some new projects with new people.

Last week I had to inventory three 6’x6’ crates of merchandise from NetJets. They are old Citation (jets) parts, which the company no longer operates. It was a long process, three days! I got thru it though.

I even went on a business trip to Abilene, Texas. It is about three hours west of Dallas. Aviall does business with an advertising agency, by the name of Zachry Associates. The ad agency does all of Aviall’s print ads, press, sales flyers, and market research. I got a tour of their facility and got to see some of the work they were doing for Aviall.

It was a great experience! I really felt like I was an employee of the company on important business. We drove there in the afternoon, stayed the night, and spent the next day at the ad agency. I loved it.

Next week will be my last week here, and I must say it is bittersweet. I’m happy to be heading home and then back to ERAU, but I’m sad that I have to say good-bye to everyone here.

It has been fun and I’m very appreciative of all that were involved in making my stay enjoyable, work wise and other.