I’m back!!! Yes, I loved writing the journals so much that I decided that one year was not enough. I needed to do it at least one more year. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these student journals, my name is Blake Guiles and I’m a sophomore here at Riddle with a major in Aeronautical Science (I want to be an airline pilot). I wrote these journals last year along with several other journal writers and I think that these journals are an excellent resource for future students. You get the rare opportunity to look into the lives of current students and see what college life is all about. I’m not sure if my previous journals will continue to be posted online, but if they are I suggest you go check those out to learn a lot about me. If you’re to lazy to go read those past journals I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. As you know, my name is Blake and I grew up in a little town called Debary which is only about a half hour away from Daytona Beach. I have a girlfriend (Rebecca) who goes to Stetson (a college close by) who I have been dating for a little over two and a half years. I am currently rated as a private pilot, I am certified to skydive, and I like to root for the Tampa Bay Lightning in hockey. I’m here at Embry-Riddle because I want to be a pilot and I think that this is the place to be if you want to fly. Ever since I was little I knew that I wanted to fly, and ever since I knew about Embry-Riddle I wanted to go here. Now I’m in my second year and I have my Private Pilot’s License, and it is surreal when I stop to think about it. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in high school day-dreaming about coming here to Riddle and now I am here and I am already a licensed pilot! I’ll go into more depth as time goes on, but that’s good for now.
One thing that I started last year was an online photo album where I posted pictures of anything and everything. I also had a YouTube account where I put some videos on. I think that some of my fellow journal writers are going to put pictures online this year, but I will definitely be posting them online. If you read last year’s journals, there is a change for the pictures website. I originally had them posted with yahoo photos, but now they are transferred over to my Flickr account. That website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasteofsoap/ . Also, while that website is there, my YouTube site is still the same: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=blakeguiles . Since I’m giving you all these addresses, I might as well give you my email which is wasteofsoap@yahoo.com . So throughout this year, make sure you check out some pictures and videos that I post, and feel free to shoot me an email with any questions/comments/concerns.
With all that said, let me tell you about my summer. I worked most of it, unfortunately; but I did go on many adventures. I guess I’ll start with the beginning of the summer. My girlfriend and I drove down to Key West for a couple days and it was amazing. I’ve lived in Florida my whole life, but have never been to the Keys. While we were down there we went parasailing and snorkeling, both of which were amazing. We didn’t see any sharks, which I was kind of glad about to be honest. Overall it was a nice way to begin the summer/end the school year. It was very relaxing and I recommend checking it out if you come to Daytona.
After the trip to the Keys I went up to Pennsylvania to see some friends. One of the cool things about going to a school like Embry-Riddle is that there are people from all over that come here. It’s not like, for example, the University of Central Florida; I know a lot of people that go there, but that is because I live in Central Florida. The students that attend Embry-Riddle are from all across the world, not just a local area. So I made some friends that live in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina and we all went to PA to visit each other. We had a blast and did a whole bunch of fun things. One of which was drove to Six Flags over in New Jersey. I have been to Disney and Universal Studios here in Florida, but I haven’t got the chance to go to other theme parks until now. We spent the whole day there and had so much fun. We went on a wooden rollercoaster called El Toro which was the best wooden rollercoaster I have ever seen in my life. It has the steepest drop at 76 degrees of any wooden coaster in the United States and is the second fastest and tallest wooden coaster in the entire world. But surprisingly, that wasn’t the highlight of the trip to Six Flags. No, it wasn’t until I went on Kingda Ka that I experienced the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. You start on level ground and get accelerated to 128 miles and hour in 3.5 seconds and then shoot straight up (90 degrees) to 456 feet (45 stories) and then plunge back to earth. It was insane! Me and my friend Cris rode it 7 times, 3 of which were back to back to back. We rode it 3 times in a span of something like 8 minutes and my body was definitely taking a beating. You can check out more info on the coaster here: http://www.sixflags.com/greatAdventure/rides/Kingdaka.aspx . All in all it was an amazing experience. We also did some fun things while in PA like ride my friends 4 wheeler. I will definitely post pictures and videos up on the websites so be sure to check those out.
In July, I went with my family up to Maine to visit my grandparents, which was really fun. I got to see one of my cousins, Jeremy, and I was excited about that because I don’t get to see him that much. We had a lot of fun and I can’t wait until next summer to go up again. Other than those things, I was more or less just hanging in Florida over summer. I got a couple chances to take friends and family flying which was definitely a highlight of my summer. I took some pictures and videos of that, so be sure to keep your eyes out for those.
Well I think that I will keep this journal short, and next time I’ll go into all my classes and my living arrangement. I strongly urge you to read the other student journals even if you aren’t interested in their major. Likewise, if you want to be an engineer, you should still check out my journals because I’m sure you will find some useful information here and there. All you prospective students especially need to read the freshmen journals because they will be giving you their views/opinions as freshmen while I have already been there and done that so my views will be different. This year I won’t pay as much attention to living in the dorms (live in an apartment now) or the meal plans (I don’t have them anymore) but I will be telling you about life in Daytona Beach, the upper level classes you will take, and I will offer a unique prospective on life at Riddle as a second year student. I hope everyone’s year is starting off nicely and I hope that you will check in from time to time to see how I’m doing here in Florida, going to the school of my dreams. Feel free to send me an email if you are so inclined and I will see you in about two weeks!!!
-Blake
email: wasteofsoap@yahoo.com
pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasteofsoap/
videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=blakeguiles
