Hey Journal Readers!
I apologize for the terribly late new entry, cuz these past couple weeks have been SO BUSY!! My gosh, it’s been crazy. Last I wrote about TFO’s fundraiser, working the Supercross! It was some crazy day.

The rain was pouring in buckets and we all looked pretty funny in our ponchos selling drinks, but it was some experience. The stadium was packed even though there was such a bad storm and the race was postponed and shortened to beat the rain but people STILL stayed to watch. We spent all night at the race selling stuff, making money and having funny people come up to us and buy stuff, it was fun!

That Tuesday, I went to my first night launch! It was gorgeous! We all drove down to Titusville to see the launch at 2AM. I’m gonna upload a whole bunch of pics today, everything from the Supercross to Launch and Spring Break in … Jersey! The launch was really great though, we actually only saw it go up for a couple seconds but the cloud it left behind was picture perfect and then the sound came like 30 seconds later, it was so cool!

Then came Spring Break!! I got to go home for that while the rest of the country was coming to Florida, but it’s okay, I hadn’t been home in a while. This break was pretty fun, since I was in India all winter break, I hadn’t really gotten to see my friends at all, so I ended up hanging out all day but having a lot of fun. My cousins came for the second weekend and my family went to New York for the Auto Show. In case you haven’t heard of the Javitz Center Auto Show, it’s like the biggest one, I think in the country. Lol yeah so my sis got into Johns Hopkins for her Masters (which is undoubtedly the best school for BioMed stuff =] ) and we were all in celebration mode all weekend! We went out to dinner, went to NY for the auto show, went to Rockefeller Center and went to the top and saw the New York skyline at night all lit up =] I love how I’ve been to NY a million times in my life, but every time is exciting and the scene at night is always, always so gorgeous. That was pretty much my Spring Break =]

I came back and I had a real slap in the face in the form of my Calc Exam. I started studying on the plane! I think I did well on it though, so I’m good =] I have a Phys exam on Tuesday ah!! Today’s Friday the 28th and there’s plans for another barbeque, but nothing too big.

I’ve been bombarded with work and spring break so I never got a chance to tell everyone about my weeks =] I hope you guys have been having a great break! My classes have been going pretty well so far. I’m working hard to make sure I get an A in physics but every other class should hopefully fall into place.

I’ve already registered for my classes next semester! It was a pretty exciting time, it’s cool. I was having MAJOR issues filling up the 12 credit requirement to be a full time student. I came in with a bunch of college credit so I didn’t need to take any humanities classes, but I still needed to take Calc1,2 and Phys1,2etc. So I couldn’t really progress too far into the AE specific courses you know? So I spent all day experiencing the riddle run around and spoke to more than a handful of counselors and heads of the engineering department, to get permission to take a specific engineering class. So now everything is worked out and next semester is CRAZY with three physics based classes ( including a three hour lab!) and a calc class. Wow, I’m going to be so busy next semester.

And don’t forget to all our accepted students; come to the sneak preview on April 12th! It’s on our DB campus and it’ll be a ton of fun with campus/dorm tours, fin aid and free food! So be sure to call us to RSVP for the event =] I work at admissions every now and then and have probably sent some of you emails about your Fin.Aid Counselor or our upcoming events, so make sure you sign up!!

Like I mentioned before I’m going to be posting a TON of pretty cool pictures I’ve taken these past couple weeks. So much has happened and I have sweet pics to prove it ;]

Take care everyone! Have a great break and remember to enjoy your senior year, it’ll be the most liberating year of highschool =]

Hey Journal Readers!

These past two weeks have been pretty busy!

It turns out I didn’t make the O-team this year :/ I guess I’ll try again next year. I’m now running for the Student Representative Board for the College of Engineering for next year! This is a whole elections process with campaigning and the like. Just to be allowed to run I had to get 50 people to sign a sheet nominating me for the position. I handed that in this past Friday and now have a candidates’ reception to attend to on Tuesday! After that, there’s a long process as to how to run and so many rules to follow, it’s def. not like a high school election.

TFO has been pretty good this semester. I’m the only non-exec board in the Speaker committee and it’s been going well so far. I’ve found different speakers to come and talk to us about things going on around campus. Last week we had SGT, the aerospace engineering honor society come talk to us about admission and their values and such, very informative. Touch n Go also came and gave us a presentation about their organization, which is basically the hub for events on campus. They’re the ones that are going to have events for Freshman orientation (ie a hypnotist) and they organize concerts too!

I’ve been sick on and off for the past two weeks =/ I had the flu one weekend (the long one) and thought I completely got over it, but it left me with a bad cough for a little while. Thankfully (I think) things have mostly been going wrong during the weekends which allows me ample time to sleep and get over whatever sickness I have that week. At least I get to go home in … 13 days! I’m looking forward to the trip. It’s going to be the first time since last summer that I’ve actually stayed in my house for more than 4 days! yay! The scary part is after I come back, within a month and a half, I have to take my finals! yikes! Riddle ends so early compared to what I’m used to. My last day of finals is April 29th! In high school, my last day of school was June 28th. I get an extra two months of summer!

My plans for this summer include taking a chem. class that should transfer to Riddle, hopefully getting to do some kind of research project with a prof. at Rutgers. Then I’m going to look into learning how to fly a plane possibly either this summer or next. Years ago I went to this space camp at a college back home and I want to be the counselor for it, I think it’d be so much fun! That’s all for the summer!

This past Friday I took a calc exam, which I’m so sure I aced! Saturday, I attended this really awesome leadership seminar! I definitely wasn’t expecting to have fun at a seminar about leadership, but it was great! We did all these different workshops. I went with TFO and we split our club up so that as a club we’d all get to go to all of the workshops. The first workshop I went to was called FISH! If you google FISH! Philosophy, you can find out more info about it. It was basically about how having the right attitude about work makes all the difference. The more you think something is boring, the more boring it’s going to become. I enjoyed the workshop, we actually got to do activities instead of just sit and listen to someone lecture. Then I went to a workshop called “All in Favor” this one was primarily about the decision making process and how to avoid spending two hours discussing something that only requires two minutes. We had a mock budget cut and had to cut budgets from student clubs at a college and had to do so in a pretty diverse team. I met a bunch of cool people too. Most of the people who attended the seminar were RA’s , TFO people, or…a few others. Anyways, the last seminar was about how to make a personal impact at Riddle, what your legacy will be. All three were an hour long and it was pretty enlightening if nothing else. After the three seminars, we had a really freaking great speaker talk to us.

His name was Kirk Wiesler and his presentation style and material were amazing. Usually, I can’t stay awake through a seminar or lecture like this (motivational) after a half hour, but the entire hour and a half that he spoke, it was interesting. He gave us great tips on how to keep the audience, keep a team going strong and motivated at all times. He also suggested books that we should read, not because they’re business books that are boring, but because they teach you through stories that matter. Here, I’ll post a list, incase anyone is interested.

QBQ – John Miller

The Big Moo – The Group of 33 and Seth Godin

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future – Daniel Pink

The Cookie Thief – Kirk Weisler (the speaker)

Those are the books he suggested, I’m probably going to get one to read for my trip back home =] I ordered the big moo for my plane ride, from amazon, about 30 seconds ago.

So bike week started and it’s pretty scary and NOISY! Oh my, all day you can hear the ‘vroom vroom’ of bikes. I go downstairs to get food and it’s crazy how loud it is even inside! I heard though that this year’s bike turn out has been substantially lower than the previous years, so I can’t imagine how noisy it was then! Anyways, I’ve posted some pictures on our way to Target of bikes and the area around here. Daytona had a water crises so we had to buy water and such because you couldn’t drink out of the fountains or sinks foe awhile! oh no.

I’ve got a lot of work to do, so I’m gonna get to it. I hope everyone has a spectacular week! And if you’re on break already, I hope it’ll be great. Bye everyone!

Spree

Hello Journal Readers!!

I hope all your applications to Riddle were successful and if not, make sure you ask why! These two weeks were full of races and exams L boo.

Anyways, I submitted my app for the Orientation Team the other day and have a info session to attend to on Tuesday. I’m not even sure how many slots are open for the position but hey, it’s worth a shot. The applications for running for the SGA also came out on Friday but I didn’t get a chance to grab one yet. Aside from all that, classes have been going on as usual.

I’ve gotten a good feel for all my professors now and they’re all pretty good. Physics, Professor Vuille, I’m a little unsure about; he calls a 60 as a “strong failure”. lol, I didn’t know if I should chuckle or cry when he laughed and said that. I heard he curves insanely though and overall, he’s a great professor, especially for a subject like physics. I’m piled to the top of head with work to do, papers to write, applications to fill out and too many things to do.

Back to the races? Why not. I wasn’t working the races at all, but about half of Riddle did. Race week was crazy! There were Thunderbirds flying right over our heads like it was an everyday occurrence. There were at least 10 different things in the sky above you at anytime including blimps, Riddle planes, planes with banners. I remember walking back from the Student Center one day this week and I looked up and I could’ve sworn the blimp missed the plane with the banner by only an inch. All week there were roars in the sky and racetrack. There were a million planes here this past weekend, all private jets too! I’ve posted pictures of Daytona Beach before and after, it’s unbelievable. It’s such a small airport, with only 6 terminals and only like 20 flights a day the parking lot was packed with private jets.

Speaking of my long weekend, I spent it sick =[ Luckily I got sick only on Friday after my classes, so no loss there. But I spent the rest of the night in bed shivering cuz I was freezing even though my head said I was on fire. I gave people quite a scare, but I watched a movie that night anyways. We watched Closer with Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman and two guys I forgot. The movie was pretty messed up haha until the very end there was a twist and turn. Anyways, I slept well that night and didn’t wake up until way after the sun rose. Ooh on Thursday, (you’ll read about this in Natalie’s page!), I with some other people helped her move! I guess she needed more space/privacy/quiet hours, so she got her own room in Doolittle. We’ll still visit her and stuff, but now there’s only the three of us living in our suite. When I got sick on Friday, a friend and I spent a little while cleaning my room because I assumed the filth got me sick. About once a month I go on a cleaning frenzy because I have crazy sensitive allergies to dust and dirt, but I’m a messy person. So I can’t maintain a clean room, but I can clean it when it makes me sick. Either way I’m feeling much better now and ready for the four day work week! yay!

I’m also excited to be going home in about a month, which should be nice as always. I have to write a paper tonight, it’s a research proposal for my Technical Writing class. I think I’m going to write my proposal on the effects of caffeine, namely coffee and energy drinks, on teenagers and how it affects their adult life. Something like that, I still have to refine my question today/tomorrow.

That’s all for today guys! I’ve got a boat load of homework to do, so I’m gonna get to it. I’m going to be posting pictures on Tuesday evening ish after I upload stuff and grab some from friends!

Have a good next two weeks! and Happy (belated) Valentines Day!!

Hello Journal Readers!!

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a month since I’ve been here for the new semester! Last week was the first week of exams and I’m happy to say I aced my first exam this semester in Technical Writing.

Why don’t I tell everyone the bad news in the beginning, so the end will be better. I didn’t get the position on the SRB ? I came really close though! I was only of only 6 finalists (and one of two freshman) who got the second interview, so I was still pretty happy that I at least got to go that far. The first interview was conducted in the student government office with different people from the different branches of the SRB and SGA. The second interview was in front of the whole SRB in the auditorium. It was a little nerve wracking being the only one standing and talking to them in the auditorium, but it’s okay, it was only my first try.

One good that def. came out of it was a recommendation for the O-Team! Hopefully everyone has made up their mind about if they want to come to Riddle or not and if you do, try your hardest not to miss the orientation events. It’s when you really get to meet your hall mates and know campus so much better. (I’ve mentioned a lot about orientation in my first entry). Anyways, there were guides called Orientation team leaders, basically students who would tell freshmen the ins and outs of campus. I wanted to be on the team just because it looks like a lot of fun and something interesting to do. The application for this due this Friday the 8th and I really need to get started on perfecting that.

I’ve been applying to so many scholarships since I got here; the biggest one was SWE recently. Their one application makes you eligible for all of theirs, which is very convenient. Riddle also grants scholarships, but that one isn’t due until March. I’m also in need of figuring out how to do a college resume. I stopped by career services and they helped me out a lot and gave me tips on how to change my high school one to be relevant to college too.

I had my first calc exam today and spent all weekend studying, so I’m crossing my fingers for an A! Oh I forgot to mention Super bowl Weekend! Friday I had a bunch of stuff to do with TFO. We painted the rock (someone painted over it already =[ ). It looked awesome when we were done. We had the two teams on one side with a diagonal stripe and a football painted and then the info for our event on the other side. This is the third time I’ve painted the rock this year, it’s fun. The pictures didn’t come out as great unfortunately because they were taken on phones. Friday I also did a bunch of promotion for our Super bowl event. For two hours we went to all the dorms and hung up door hangers. Usually you can give the door hangers at an RA meeting but the door hangers came in later than expected. Saturday was one of my friends birthday! We sure do celebrate a lot of birthdays around here. ERAU gives every first-year student a cake on their birthday and we of course, couldn’t resist but have a mini cake fight at midnight. Then came Sunday! TFO had a Madden tournament in the morning, which a bunch of people showed up for, and TFO people played too. Then the super bowl started! I unfortunately missed the event, which I know was a blast. I had a calc exam like I mentioned before. I heard a lot of people showed up for it though and I’m gonna see who took pictures so I can post them up.

This weekend is a three-day weekend! The only thing I have to study for is my Phys exam on the Tuesday we come back, but otherwise I’m free. I know there’s this women’s’ program on Saturday which I don’t know the details for, but thought of checking it out anyways. I also decided to start working out again since I hadn’t since last semester. I went today and it was pretty energizing, so I’m going to hope I make time at least every other day to go. Anyways, I get to go home in about a month! Most people come to Daytona for Spring Break, but I’m going to Jersey, haha. I get to spend a good 10 days there, which I’m excited about because I haven’t really been home since I left for college with Thanksgiving being so short and Christmas spent in India.

Anyways, I’m about to finish up some homework. Take care everybody! Check out pictures I posted!
Spree

Classes have started! … and wow is it stressful already. Here’re my classes for this semester for anyone who’s curious.

PS160 (Physics II) w/ Dr.Vuille – He’s a good professor, a bit fast at times but otherwise he throws in great anecdotes and tries to make class interesting

MA242 (Calc II) w/ Mr.Lombardo – He’s claimed to be one of the best math professors at Riddle, I was sure lucky to get him. His class is interesting but I have to make sure I’m keeping up with the work load otherwise it would be so easy to fall behind. He’s a quirky character and a really good teacher.

EGR115 (Computing for Engineers) w/Mr.Lehr – This class is a basic programming class on C and MatLab. I’ve done a few years of C++ so nothing has been too challenging so far. It’s remembering all those details that aren’t important when you’ve programmed for a few years that’s going to be challenging, but this professor is also recommended and so far I’m not complaining.

HON250 – (Neuroscience of Cognition) w/Dr.French – My last honors seminar class was definitely my favorite out of the two because this one isn’t in the same style. Here it’s more of a lecture-based class and even though the professor is interesting, I was still looking forward to more student-teacher interaction. We’re learning about the brain, parts of the brain, psychoanalysis, how stuff affects the brain and different things like that. The grading system is awesome. If we show up to class, we practically get the A, which is amazing because we have no tests!

COM221(Technical Writing) w/Dr.Porter – This course is going to be a writing intensive course. My professor is great though, she makes class interesting and actually is a normal person instead of one of those professors that seem completely distant from their students. I like this class, even though the material isn’t my favorite. We’re going to be writing things like manuals, instructions, and such.

My first week and a half here has been a bit of a challenge. I’ve gotten all my books (which I ordered from Amazon at a much better price than the bookstore) and can honestly say I have used them all. I had my first physics quiz today, which was nice because it was one of the example problems. I love when teachers throw in a little bit of niceness every now and then, it’s definitely an ego booster.

This weekend we celebrated my suitemate Kerry’s birthday! We went out  a bit and then went to Fuddruckers for dinner and it was greaaat. We painted the rock the night before for her birthday! (pics are posted for that) Food on campus has gotten really boring for me. There’s only so many times you can eat pizza before wondering how you’re expected to eat it every single day. It helps that the chefs here are really open to try new things. Like yesterday, I handed over a bowl of mushrooms, onions and green peppers from the salad bar to the chef and requested a veggie burger and he grilled me an awesome burger loaded with grilled veggies. I could use another one today, yummy. It’s nice to know that even though the eggs come from cartons and the patties from the deep freezer, that they still want you to have a nice meal, like mom makes, except not…you know?

I’m applying for a position on the SGA as a Student Representative and want the position in the College of Engineering. I really really realllly want it because (like I’ve mentioned before) want to be a part of the SGA, so I know that being a part of the SRB is a very good start. I just need to update my high school resume and add the few things I’ve done in college and submit it with the answers to a few questions they asked. They’re going to give me a day for an interview and yeah, that’s it. There’s three spots open so I really hope I get one. Wish me luck =]

Anyways, I hope everyone got back into the swing of your last few months of high school. I’m hoping all your apps are in but I know riddle accepts them till about March. E-mail me if you’ve got any questions or comments. Take care everyone =]

Spree!!

I’m right now in Newark airport, waiting for my flight to Charlotte. I’m catching a connecting flight to Orlando and should be back on campus around 6 o’clock. Phew.

Last time I wrote, I was packing my bags and headed to India for two weeks to celebrate various occasions with my extended family from practically all over the world. I left for India on  the 18th with my 82 year old grandma =] The rest of my family, because of college/work weren’t leaving until two days later. We flew for 9 hours, landed in Frankfurt and waited about a half hour for our flight and sat for another 8 hours to Bangalore. At the end of the 17 hours, I just wanted to walk around, maybe even run because my legs were so bored of sitting for so long. We flew economy with Lufthansa and since it was an international flight, the seats were actually decent, but there wasn’t enough leg room as always. Finally landing in Bangalore was such a relief but SUCH a mess at the same time. The airport was pretty tiny and there were only two international baggage claim carousels and so many flights had landed at the same time and wow was it crazy. It was only me and grandma and me with my big suitcase that I could barely lift and a few of grandmas smaller luggage was too much for me to handle, but I did, so I felt pretty accomplished. We stayed at my aunts house that night and the next. Bangalore was pretty rainy, which sucked =/ but my two younger cousins wanted to go for a walk with me really badly and I didn’t realize why until they ran outside and started jumping in all the puddles. It was real cute and reminded me of when my sis and I used to do that when we were much younger.

It’s great going back to Bangalore and seeing my younger cousins. It’s strange for me to have someone looking up to me. One of my cousins, she’s 11; she sat with me for a half hour and asked me to explain everything in my makeup bag. Kids grow up so fast these days. She had all these questions and it was such a different feeling for me to actually have someone that thinks of me as a kind of role model, because in my eyes, I’m hardly a role model yet. My parents and sis arrived the next day and off we were to Coimbatore (still in South India) for the reunion to begin!

We took a 20 minute flight to Coimbatore and almost missed it. I’m sure we aggravated more than a few passengers on board when the plane was delayed a half hour because of us. We were going to Coimbatore to celebrate my grandpa’s (mom’s side) eightieth birthday. Eighty is a big deal, especially in India. There are special rituals and such that go along with turning eighty and there’s always a big party too! I hadn’t seen some of my cousins on my Mom’s side in years, so it was great meeting everyone again, especially since we’re all close in age to each other. We stayed at a hotel in Coimbatore and in India room service is so cheap, it was amazing. When converted, you could get Iced coffee for a dollar (which was expensive according to Indian standards) and a whole decent gourmet meal for under 5 dollars. It was great! Sis and I ordered room service like crazy, just because if we did the same here, we would’ve spent at least two hundred bucks. Anyways, back to the main reason we were in Coimbatore was the party.

The first day, we got to dress up and be in the presence of a really long puja. Us kids got a little bored in the middle, so we went shopping. We definitely turned way too many heads when we walked on the streets with clothing way too grand for casual shopping. After the puja, the kids put on a show of sorts. A few of grandpa’s brothers spoke about life during the old days, the really old days. There was some singing and dancing and a lot of excitement. We went back to the room and got ready for day two! Day two was a shorter puja and more dancing. My sis and I wore sari’s today! I’ve only worn one, one other time, during my Grandma’s (dad’s side) 80th birthday. Mine was pink and sis’s was blue =] That day ended with a little more shopping and that’s it!

The next day all my mom’s brothers (she has three) families and us went to this place called TopSlip. It’s a hillside community with an elephant safari and other things. It was cool even though we went when most of the elephants were sleeping but we saw a million monkeys! They were practically following us because we had some food in a bag. It was really great watching them so close by. We left TopSlip and went back to the hotel to prepare for the next day!

The next day was Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I had an unusual one of sorts. There wasn’t a tree or holiday tv shows or lights everywhere, but there was a lot of family and a visit to a garment factory! So people in India don’t celebrate Christmas like they do here, so it wasn’t really a big deal. My aunt’s dad took us to this factory that manufactures clothes! I love shopping, so I thought it’d be fun. Dad wanted to show us how painstakingly hard it is just to make one t-shirt. We first went to this manufacturing plant called Jupiter. This factory was cleaner beyond anything I could’ve thought an Indian factory would be. The place was spotless! I felt like I was back home walking through that factory. They were an all inclusive factory so they did everything from making the cloth, printing the design and sewing a shirt up. They were mostly an underwear manufacturing plant, but it was cool to still see the overall process. Then we went to the plant called Prem Group Company (PGC). This visit was my favorite! They served us delicious coffee on bean bag chairs and it reminded me of being back home, which is always a good thing. This plant was the primary supplier to this Swiss brand called Switcher. They also did Calvin Klein and Ferrari among a few others. It was awesome! They showed us the start to finish of a t-shirt. There were assembly lines set up to put the shirts together after everything up to the cutting was done – that part is all automated. They said that there’s nowhere in the world that can automate the actual putting together of the shirt. They inspected each shirt made like it was gonna change the world if there was a mistake, which I thought was pretty good =] overall, the two factory visits were a real eye opener.

New Years was fast approaching and I was counting on my cousin to make sure sis and I had a good New Years. Unfortunately…we got sick =[ really badly sick. Two days before New Years, we went to a restaurant that didn’t suit my sis and I and we got possibly the worst stomach infection in history. I spent New Years hoping I wouldn’t throw up again while feeling sick to my stomach. It really sucked. The mixture of all this traveling coupled with uneasy food really got to us bad. My entire family got sick with colds and stomach viruses, it was terrible! I was leaving for home on the 2nd and, thankfully, by then I was feeling much much better. I was going back by myself which was going to be a bit lonely unfortunately =[ But in Bangalore, I got a free upgrade to Business class! It was awesome. A 9 hour flight in Business class is so much better than in economy. I only got it for half the way though because the flight was booked from Frankfurt to Newark. I had a few hours to spend in Frankfurt and I actually had access to the Business lounge so I called mom. My flight left Bangalore two hours late, so I missed my original connecting flight from Frankfurt to JFK, so when they rebooked my flight, I was landing in Newark! I enjoyed that plane ride a lot, with pretty decent food and everything. Once I finally landed in Newark, my journey wasn’t over yet. My parents didn’t want me staying at home alone so I was gonna go to my Uncles house in Pennsylvania and spend a few days there until dad came back that weekend. I was going to take a bus because everyone was at work, but my friend Kay was on his way to PA and was willing to go a bit out of his way to drop me off. I was so sick on the flight it wasn’t even funny. I had the worst cold imaginable (that’s now almost gone) and I just wanted to crash in bed. He dropped me off at my uncles, which I was incredibly grateful for being so sick and all.

I spent the next four days at my uncles. They’re opening a new tax service office and it was exciting being around a new business. Exciting stuff for sure. Dad came on Saturday to their house and we were going to leave that day, but knowing we would’ve have Indian food for a while, we stayed the extra day. We came back on Sunday and did four loads of laundry. My dad goes to Charlotte, NC for business every week, so he barely gets to be home too. After packing, we thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner, so we went to that restaurant Ming I’ve mentioned during Thanksgiving. It’s a family favorite, a mix of Indian and Chinese food. He felt bad that I would eat pasta and pizza for the next three months, so we celebrated the both of us actually being home for once. I only got to spend a few hours at home, even though I would’ve loved just two days to wake up in my own bed and make my own coffee and take a shower in my bathroom. The benefits of home =] I didn’t see my mom or sis before I left for the airport today because they’re coming on Wednesday from india.

oh my. Classes are starting!!!!!! They’re starting on Wednesday. This semester is pretty challenging for me. Here’s my classes:

Calc II – Lombardo

Physics II –

EGR 115 – Intro to Computing -Lehr

Technical  Writing – Porter

Honors Seminar – French.

I’m nervous for classes to start. 😡 My flight’s almost here!

I’ve posted a TON of pictures from India, check them out and see how we celebrate an 80th birthday in India =]

I couldn’t upload all of them onto my virb, so I asked my cousin for the link to hers! Enjoy!

+ Enjoy your last few months of Senior Year everyone!

These past two weeks have been busy, busy, busy. I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep this entry short because I’m sitting in about twelve suitcases worth of clothing and stuff (that I have to stuff into two) in my room back home in Jersey!

When I last left you guys, TFO was preparing for our semester event Tropical Holiday, which I think, was a success. The night was a bit chilly but I went into the inflatable boxing ring with one of my friends, who happened to be a guy and I got to punch him all I wanted, it was great.

The night before our event we had planned to paint the rock and the funniest thing happened. We went there close to eleven so it would hopefully not be painted over by morning time, but just after we painted the first side, the sprinklers turned on, it was hilarious. Once I get the pics from that day I’ll post them, we all got wet and the paint started to drip so we placed a plastic bag over the big sprinkler, but that obviously didn’t work. Then I ended up pretty soaked because one of my friends dumped a bag full of freezing water on me thinking it would be funny, lol.

That was that week, Saturday (8th) was my first final, Calc! I spent hours and HOURS studying for it. It was definitely worth the effort though cuz I got an A! WooHoooo.

Then I had a Physics final on Tuesday that I really needed to study for because according to ratemyprofessors.com, it was going to be hard.

Saturday Me, Roomie and Suitemates all took a break from studying for finals and had a chick night. We all wore matching t-shirts that said SMILE! and we watched chick flicks while eating some AMAZING chocolate we bought from this store called the World Market nearby. They have the best variety of Lindt and other foreign chocolate at great prices. It was a fun night.

I spent the rest of the weekend studying for physics. All the physics professors had review sessions for the final which was really helpful, and there were study sessions going on all over the place, it was just a matter of asking someone.

Anyways, during all this, my flight out of Florida changed! I was supposed to leave on that Saturday, but my last final was Tuesday and with this whole India trip, I would only get to spend two days at home, so Mom changed my flight and I left Tuesday, out of Orlando instead of Daytona Beach and now had a stopover in Charlotte, which sucked but it was much better than going home four days later. Charlotte was a cute airport, I did a little bit of shopping for my family and my flight was delayed almost two hours, which sucked so much, but it was still much better than going home on Saturday, so I sucked it up again.

I remember leaving Daytona in a T-shirt and jeans feeling hot and landing in Newark airport wondering why I was idiotic enough to think I wouldn’t need a jacket. The day after I came, there was a snowstorm! Brr, it was cold. Ooh I forgot to mention we did a Secret Santa thing for our floor, it was a lot of fun. I got a bunch of cute bath stuff and some really really yummy good chocolate, you can never go wrong with giving me chocolate.

After I came back home, it was a little weird. I got so used to waking up every morning and basically doing my own thing hanging out with the same people almost every day and not being in that atmosphere is almost a little strange. I remember going downstairs the next morning and I was like, wait, I have to cream cheese my bagel myself? lol, as strange as that sounds, Einstein’s (a dining facility at Riddle) has been putting cream cheese on my morning bagel for me for months! I adjusted quickly though, after all this is home.

It feels great, but I’m going to India tomorrow! I can’t wait. There’s going to be a big celebration and I’m going to get to see all my family and go shopping, woo hoo! I’ll be sure to take pictures and show everyone how we celebrate my Grandpa’s 80th birthday.

The next entry won’t be for a little while, so I hope everyone is busy submitting applications and such for Riddle, trust me it’s worth the effort. Enjoy your Christmas, New Years and any other holiday I’m missing! Take care everyone!

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving break because I did! I got to go back home and spend a good four-ish days with my family. My uncle, aunt, and cousin came from Pennsylvania and my grandma was there so we had a good time. I got there on Tuesday evening and my mom saw my dyed hair for the first time and was like, omg, what happened? No one said I gained weight, which is definitely a good thing because I ate all that ice cream just a few days before leaving. On Tuesday I didn’t do much, I was glad to be home so I wore my pajamas played a bit of guitar hero, hung out with sis, and finally got to relax for the first time in a while. Wednesday I went out for a few hours in the morning to meet some people, which was awesome and then went out to this Indian-Chinese restaurant called Ming. If you’re afraid of trying Indian food for the spice, this restaurant is perfect. The food is so delicious. Family from PA came this night and slept over for Thanksgiving. We don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey and cranberry sauce like most families do, mostly because we’re all vegetarians and it never really became one of our traditions to celebrate it. So we went to an Indian movie that night and sat in a crowded theater to watch a pretty funny movie. It made me feel better to know that we weren’t the only people who weren’t eating all day. After the movie we went to a nearby restaurant and ate some spicy food. After coming to Riddle I’ve been able to handle much less spice than I used to. I coughed when I was eating some home cooked food which prior to coming to Riddle wasn’t spicy. Then came Friday! Me, my sis, and one of my best friends went shopping all morning, it was awesome. We were planning to buy Digital cameras for sis and me, but then … somehow we didn’t. I can’t remember exactly why but we postponed it to December because we didn’t have enough time to figure out exactly what we wanted.

I came back from home Sunday morning and had to get work. I had exams in so many classes that week, but one was postponed to today, which was nice =] I studied all Sunday and Monday and studied major for my Calc exam, which I know I did well on, yay! Then came this past weekend. I hung out with my suitemates and roommate and a bunch of one of my suitemates navy friends. I played some video games, watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the first time and oh yeah, CLEANED. One of my friends from the hall helped Alex and I clean our room so we could walk from one end to the other without being stuck with a thumbtack. It looks amazing now; I can barely believe it’s my room. Housing is a stickler when it comes to fall checkout. Everything (including chairs) has to be off the floor over December, the bathroom should be spotless, and they just have so many ridiculous demands for us to have our room clean. It’s crazy.

Today in my Honors Seminar class we had a debate. There were eight of us participating in today’s debate and another set of eight on Wednesday’s debate. Our debate question was, should Embry Riddle develop new Humanities majors like art, literature and the like. I was on the con side, opposing the idea. We lost, but we definitely put up a good fight. The judges were three students from our class and the result of the debate doesn’t affect our grade, so I’m not worried. Both teams planned a lot for the debate so it was definitely a lot of fun and a new experience for me. I like giving presentations and talking to people about stuff. I think it’s the training I’ve gotten my past four years at my high school where I’d end up giving a presentation at least once in three weeks. The best part is, of course, getting to dress up! For once I didn’t just wear jeans and a sweatshirt and wore nice shoes instead of flip-flops. lol

TFO has our big event this Thursday! I’m so excited. Riddle has this rock in the middle of campus called the Spirit Rock. People from different clubs (and even randomly) spray paint the rock to advertise, etc. We’re going to paint the rock on Wednesday to promote our Tropical Holiday Party! It’s going to be great. Our event is like palm trees with holiday lights and Santa in a bathing type of thing. An inflatable boxing ring is our main attraction and there’s going to be a ton of food. We even got local businesses to donate things like a digital camera for our raffle. Riddle also donated an hour of flight sim time and a free of hour of flight lessons, which is AMAZING! The event is going to go from about 4-9, but clean up will run later. Friday is study day, so I’m going to do exactly that, study.

Saturday is my first final and its calc, so I really want to start studying as soon as I can. My suitemates, Alex, and I decided that we were going to dedicate Saturday night to ourselves. We’re going to make a Target run and buy a lot of chocolate and then lock the door and watch movies all night. No boys allowed. With the overflow of guys at Riddle, it’s definitely necessary to have at least one night a semester with just your girls, chocolate and chick flicks like A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, and Grease!

So there’s my two weeks in a nutshell. I’m sorry for not putting up pictures yet. I’ve been waiting on sis to send me some because I left the digi cam at home, oops. But I’ll take a TON of pictures on Thursday during the TFO event and post them, so you guys can see what a Riddle event looks like. I can’t wait!

Feel free to write to me about anything you want to ask. I’ve gotten a few emails and I do try to respond as soon as I can, so don’t hesitate. Make sure you get your application in soon!

Next Journal entry I’ll be back home packing to leave for India on the next day! Oh my, what an exciting two weeks it’s going to be.

It’s been two long weeks since my last entry and a lot has happened!

On the fifth I attended this lecture by Dr. Kevin Trenberth about global warming and how it’s inevitable. He’s a famous person in the subject of this and it was cool to hear his opinion about it. His presentation though was so fact based and had a million different graphs that I’m assuming most of us didn’t understand. It was still decent though. The next day, to fulfill a requirement of one of my classes I attended this presentation by PenAir and he was talking about the company and then about one of the recent disasters that happened. As sad as the disaster was, it was fascinating hearing about what they found, or didn’t find and how different clues would help them figure out how the accident happened. The plane had crash-landed incredibly fast into ice throwing the pilot and the only passenger hundreds of feet away and in a mangled way. The plane had practically blown up but different tests said the plane was functioning correctly. It was captivating even though the accident itself was terrifying.

I worked out every day that week, which was good because I didn’t have that much work to do. We had Friday off for homecoming, which was sweet. The career fair was also this week. It was huge! There were so many companies present and all of them obviously related to the Aerospace industry. I asked around to see if any offered internships for freshman but not many did, which was a bit disappointing. It was still useful to see all the different companies present and get a feel for how the expo works.

That weekend was homecoming so campus was active with different things going on like the parade and different activities going on like a chalk art contest and sign building competition. Since we don’t have a football team we have a homecoming for the basketball team and we creamed the other team.

Life continued as usual and my first class of my freshman year ended today (11/19). It was EGR 101 and we completed our last project and hopefully did a fantastic job on it. Yesterday my friend and I had our long-awaited eating contest. He thought he could beat me in eating ice cream, but my mom and I know no one can beat me in eating ice cream. We had the contest planned for a few weeks and we were going to see who would have that one more scoop. We ended up eating ice cream for an hour and a half before the buffet closed and we had to leave. I won though, because he came upstairs and threw up for an hour and I had practically forgotten that I had 47 scoops of ice cream. I don’t know what it is with ice cream and me but I really can eat a lot. I gave him a bottle of Pepto and he’s fine now =]

I’m going home tomorrow! I’m so excited. I’ll be back next Saturday, so it’s a bit of a short trip, but at least I get to go home for a little while.

Finals are fast approaching and it’s really strange for me to start studying for finals when it feels like the semester just started. I have a quiz early in the morning tomorrow and then am catching a flight out of DAB to Newark! This week is pretty packed, filled with visiting family, eating a lot of Indian food and meeting up with friends.

I know this entry is much shorter than my usual, but as eventful as these past three weeks have been, they’ve lead to a lot of homework. I have a few tests the week I get back from home so I’m making every effort to start studying, so I don’t have to go crazy that weekend.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! Don’t forget about black Friday! I know I won’t  ;]

Btw – I’ve added pictures (career fair  + volleyball) ! Check them out

Spree

Hi everyone!! Yesterday while walking to the gym I remembered that another journal entry was due on Monday and I was like… “I don’t think anything has happened that’s worth writing about” but then… My friend was like.. LOTS has happened and rambled a list of things to refresh my memory.

Last entry I mentioned I was going to see the rocket launch. I posted pictures of it that day, but never got to tell you how amazing it was! We were in Titusville, about an hour away from Daytona Beach. It is supposedly the best viewing spot aside from the KSC itself. We’re hoping to get bleacher seats for the next launch.

Halloween, of course, was fantastic. We had a little party on our floor and I dressed up as my opposite door neighbor and vice versa, ton of fun. My roommate and I supplied the chocolate because we just had so much to spare. A bunch of people watched scary movies after our party, but I’m too big of a chicken to watch scary movies, they give me nightmares, so I opted out of that and stuck to a bag of M&M’s.

The Saturday after Halloween, I got to give my open house speech to like 800 people. I got to meet the chancellor and many other people who work in undergraduate admissions, so it was definitely a lot of fun. I want to be a tour guide sometime lol. After I presented my spiel, I went on a tour with the largest tour group and spent the day answering questions from eager parents and children. Most of the people present during open house were either from Florida or New Jersey, which wasn’t all that surprising to me. It feels like Riddle attracts Jersey kids like no other. If you were at the open house, shoot me an email, I’d love to hear what you thought about your day at Riddle! I ended my work day only to find out that we had a review session in physics for the test that Monday, so I practically ran (still in my work clothes) to the session so I wouldn’t be late. I spent the rest of the weekend pretty much studying for exams, working on a project and eating when I could.

I’ve gotten active with TFO (Task Force One) lately. We scrounged up materials for our homecoming float, which has to be completed by today. We also participated in a charity even for Palance Powell. Palance is a dining services worker who got hit by a car when he was riding his bike. Embry-Riddle has made an effort to help his family out through various fundraisers. TFO baked cookies and cakes that were sold for donations. FYI, if you’re doing a bake sale, depending on your crowd, sometimes it’s better to let them take as many cookies as they want and mention that it’s a “by donation” basis. Some people donated $20 for a cookie or two, much more than we would’ve gotten just selling the cookie by itself. We were present during the women’s volleyball game and I’ve posted a bunch of pictures up of our team so check them out on my pix site.

This weekend is really busy. I have to write a paper, write this journal entry, work out, write a mini paper, and do my math and physics homework. Phew, that was a mouthful. I’ve been working out a lot lately! I can see calf muscle and I’m hoping to get abs very soon. Working out is really relaxing for me, it’s definitely a good way to get frustration out and is a major stress reliever even if it’s just for an hour and a half every other day.

The semester is almost over, as crazy as that seems. We’re being assigned our final projects, our final exams and it’s all happening so quickly! Mom warned me about this and that’s why I’ve been trying to make sure I have time for everything I need to do and actually get it done. Life is hard especially when your friend can watch movies all day because somehow they got a free weekend and you’re bombarded with work knowing your friend is having way more fun than you. haha, that takes a lot of self control right there.

Have a good week everyone!

Spree