School is the same, but I think that is probably a good thing. I love that time in the semester when you finally get comfortable with the professors’ teaching and testing styles. I also just got over a nasty cold and I am back to normal- or as close as I can get!

Well, as far as news goes, my volleyball team (the Doolittle Pigeons), is currently undefeated!! The competition is tough because there are about 30 other teams in the league. Crew is also going well. The other day we had enough girls to take out a full boat with NO guys and we had a blast! A dolphin swam near our boat and I got really excited. I just love it here in Florida. I am still walking around in shorts and tank tops, when back home in Minnesota my mom and boyfriend tell me that it’s like 20 degrees and snowing. This Halloween is actually going to be my first Halloween with no snow. It’s going to feel so weird. When I was little I had to wear warm clothes to go trick-or-treating, so if I wanted to be a ballerina I had to wear snow pants under my tutu! I’m really excited for Halloween this year because elementary students from Daytona Beach are going to be trick-or-treating in our dorms, and we are planning on decorating the entire hallway for it! Well, I’m going home on Monday, December 12th, right after my last exam. I can’t believe how fast the time is going by. It feels like I just got here and now I will be home in less than two months! I can’t wait to see my family and friends, and especially Dougie. I miss him so much. For any of you out there who are considering a long distance relationship, my best advice for you is to remember that if both people want to make it work, it will. It also takes a great deal of trust from both sides. A cell phone with good reception and a ton of minutes to talk is also a must. In fact, I think distance can actually make a relationship stronger. Sometimes we don’t realize how much we really care about someone until they’re not around every day. That’s just my 2 cents. I hope it helps someone.

Have a great day!
~Sara~

Hi everyone!

Well, school has become much more challenging in the past few weeks. I had two tests in the last couple of days- calculus and chemistry. Even though I have taken calculus in high school as well as a college chemistry class, neither of the classes I have now are easy. I don’t know how I could survive without having already taken those classes. I’m beginning to wish someone had told me that every math and science class I took in high school has a huge impact in college. I never bothered to memorize formulas because they were always given to me during tests. Now, I just had to memorize the unit circle so I could take my calculus test. I have also decided that chemistry is my hardest class. The test we just took after one month of class covered more information than most full-year high school chemistry classes. One of our “booger” homework problems took me and my roommate, Marjory, nearly 6 hours and 10 pages of work to complete. (A “booger” problem is what Dr. Cameron calls his toughest stoichiometry questions.)

I am also trying to adjust to a different lifestyle than the one I had at home. Before I came here, I got plenty of sleep. Now, I will be lucky to get to bed before midnight. It is partially because of studying, but also because I have other things going on that take up my time. I am now on the crew team, (which is so much fun but hard work!), and practice is 4-6pm every day plus Saturdays. I also joined the Society of Women Engineers, and I play and referee volleyball two nights a week. I like being paid to ref. volleyball, but if my schedule gets too full that will be the first thing to go. In college, time management is one of the most important skills to master- especially as an engineering physics major. The rest of the campus knows our small groups of EP’s as either “the smart kids,” or the students who are “completely nuts.” I get one of those two everytime I am asked what my major is. (More often though I hear “are you crazy?!”) I’m not trying to scare anyone away from this major, but it does require quite a bit more work and time than other degree programs.

I can still find plenty of things to do over the weekends; there’s always something fun going on around here! I go to the beach almost every Saturday with the guys in my hall, I went to Pleasure Island in Downtown Disney, Orlando last Friday, and a few weeks ago I went to my first frat party. (Except it was broken up by the cops only an hour after I got there.) The Sunday after the frat party I also got to go flying to the gulf coast with Jason and Matt. They are both pilots that live in my hall, and Marjory also came with. We went to a small town called Crystal River and had ice cream and then flew back after dark and saw Orlando lit up half way back.. It was so cool to see Embry-Riddle from the sky too! Well, I have work to do so I will update all of you in a few weeks as far as what’s going on. Please feel free to ask questions on the discussion board or email me!

~Sara~