It’s only been two weeks since spring break? For some reason it seems to me like it’s been a lot longer than that. On one side, we’re almost done for the semester (crazy huh?), but on the other, summer is just a few weeks away. I know all of you who are just waiting to get out of high school are actually looking forward to summer, but something about this place just gets to me. Call me crazy, but I’ll miss not seeing my friends for four months. I’ll miss my room. I’ll even miss doing laundry if it means not being here! I’m not sure if I even like the fact that, when we come back, we’ll be living in another dorm (airport view!). What’s even crazier is that I’m already a quarter of the way done with college. Guess who’s staying for grad school…?
Well enough with my rant—on to the good stuff!
The rain seemed to follow me back to Daytona from my house. The deluge hit campus like there was no tomorrow! A friend of mine said: “Dear friends with snow, I’m sorry for making fun of you and your weather. But this week you got your revenge when Poseidon vomited on my campus”. If you see some of the pictures I’ll post, you’d understand…the area between my dorm and the main campus flooded with (not even joking) at least 2 feet of water! Luckily, it only lasted for a few days.
Another nice thing we did was that we went WDW resort-hopping. Yes, I just made that up. Pretty much, we went to Downtown Disney (I can hear all of you thinking “again”? yes, again…) to park the car, took a bus to the Contemporary, and took the monorail around all the resorts. We stopped by the Polynesian to watch the Wishes! Nighttime Spectacular firework show at Magic Kingdom from across the lagoon. I think it’s becoming our new tradition…
Nothing comes close to how insanely busy last weekend was, though! Jim and I signed up to volunteer at New Smyrna Beach’s annual Balloon and Sky Fest. Remember how I had mentioned we would be working chase crew? Well, let me just say it was a lot more work than we had anticipated. We woke up bright and early (well…it was still dark out, so dark and early?) on Saturday and Sunday morning to make the 30-minute drive down US1. When we got there, we were each grouped with our assigned crew.
On Saturday, we worked with 175,000 cubic-inch Oggy the Dragon, who stood at an amazing 138 feet tall. Because of the winds, we couldn’t release the balloons, so they were only tethered for the crowd to witness. To top it all off, we had volunteer that went MIA—so three teenagers, 2 elderly people, and a former Navy man had to hold own the massive balloon. We got dirty, almost burnt to a crisp when we first started inflating the balloon, and we were sweaty and hot. But overall—it was a lot of fun! One of the volunteers turned out to be a former ERAU student (a FEMALE!).
The day after that, we worked with Sunny Boy, a sun-shaped balloon. This one stood taller at 140 feet, but held much less hot air, so it was a lot less work. After that, we took a stroll around the place, and ended up mining. Spruce Creek Mining Co. had set up a tent, where, for a few dollars, we bought a bag of dirt. After cleaning out the bag using a river-like system, we found a few big Emerald stones, rubies, peacock ore, and even some quartz! That must have been the highlight of my day…
Last big thing—The Big Show! Touch N Go productions held its annual big show on Saturday. This year, the university hosted Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake, two ska bands. It was less crowded than I had expected, but, having been drained of energy that day from balloon fest, we only stayed and listened for an hour or so. Still fun—I can never pass up a good show!
I suppose that’s all. Nothing too exciting coming up next few weeks. I have an analytical report to look forward to. Nothing too exciting except…OPEN HOUSE/SNEEK PREVIEW DAY!! Have you RSVPed yet? I look forward to seeing you all around! As always, message me with all your questions! This will be one of my last blogs (sad face), so I want to get as many of your questions answered before the end of the semester!
