Well, the weeks of no homework and continual Starbucks runs have come to an abrupt end. No more sleeping in all the time, going to bed whenever, and watching movies at any point. Probably a good thing to be back on a schedule, though. I need to be disciplined enough, especially for the first round of tests. Every day, I try to read my Bible and pray, eat right, and exercise. Also included is SPRL work as well as homework and studying, not to mention club meetings and such. School is back in full swing and I’m slowly relaxing into the demanding timeline.

A big topic of conversation on campus, especially for the freshman, has been housing for next year. The whole process starts really early, so it’s just bizarre to be trying to figure out what you want to promise to do for the next year already. All kinds of things can change before then! For now, I’m looking at rooming with three girls from Christian Fellowship Club. They’re in Meteorology and ATC majors, so I never get to see them except for a few hours on Saturdays. Hopefully, all my suitemates from this year and I will get great rooms in Apollo so we can still be close buddies too. When we find out our lottery numbers on March 11th, I’ll be sure to let you all know the results. All we need is one of us four to get a lower number, even just low enough to secure the last Apollo room. If that doesn’t work… well, we don’t have a back-up plan yet, but there’s plenty of time! 🙂

As for my suitemates and I this semester, we have great plans for decorating our part of the floor. The theme is going to be Hollywood. Now if we only have enough time to put up the supplies and decorations we bought!! I’ll put up pictures if we ever get around to it!

Two weekends ago, Alex’s dad came down for a few days. The first night he took Spree, Alex, my roommate, and I out to a really good Thai restaurant. Saturday night we went to Cancun Lagoon (it’s a very tasty Mexican restaurant right by school). Spree and I thought it was a seafood restaurant, but we were a little off! As we finished the meal, fireworks went off at the racetrack. The Rolex 24 race was loud and exciting in the distance.

Last Tuesday, I really enjoyed the Honors Distinguished Speaker Series guy, Edward Tenner. He had some great points and examples about how our determination to make everything safe can have unintended consequences. I’m tempted to go out and buy his book. As an engineer, I have to learn to do my best to foresee the outcome of my choices and designs.

Last Friday we had our first Computing for Engineers test. From now on I’ll call it programming or MATLAB class. Anyway, it was pretty nice. I’m not gonna be overconfident or anything, so I’m desperately hoping it’s a high A. I’ve always enjoyed going to that class. Computers just make sense to me. Maybe I should’ve been a computer engineer instead… 🙂

That same night, I had my first outing with the Society of Women Engineers, SWE. We went ice-skating of all things. I have to admit that it’s just awesome to be able to claim such a thing in Florida!! Weird. At the rink there was a disgusting amount of junior high kids all screaming and flirting like mad. It felt nice to glide along the cool surface. After, I decided to stay for the ice hockey game against FIT. It was amazing! We won 12-0. I got some great video of a goal or two, the crowd, and the band. One is the entire last six minutes of the game. I have to say I wasn’t so fond of the cheers (rather JEERS) going out, so I was pretty quiet until we made goals. It was an exciting night!

This weekend I have two tests to study for, one in calculus, the other in physics, as well as two papers to write for Honors. One is a big ten-pager about a scientist in our Atomic Bomb book and the other one-pager is on our feelings about the making of religious states (The book talks often of the Jewish people.) I managed to finish my formal lab report from last Tuesday and the smaller math and physics assignments. It was a busy week with a busy weekend finishing it off!

But, the good news is I have lots of fun stuff too. CFC is meeting then going out for dinner and bowling. On Sunday, I’m helping Campus Outreach and TFO with the Super Bowl party on campus.

On the spring break front, my mom had some great news for me! We were able to get a Wyndham hotel for all six or seven nights and it’s right in Alexandria. It’s so perfect because its location is a half block from the metro station. Mom and I aren’t  too   terribly confident about driving around D.C. and finding parking, so it’s a beautiful situation. I bet the hotel is ridiculously nice, too. What a fun break that will be! Now, we get to daydream about all the places we can visit!

Lately  I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about Sundays because Riverbend changed its “second service” classes to other times during the week. The college ministry meets Sunday nights but my ride can’t make it to that. Last Sunday, I had a great time visiting Sovereign Grace (I had promised a friend of mine last semester I’d go at some point. Ironically, he’s the one with a NASA internship in Virginia now…) before going to visit Campus Outreach at Christ Community for a college luncheon. If you’re confused, don’t worry, I am too! 🙂 I will certainly be in prayer about finding the right fellowship and also having solid Biblical teaching at least once a week. I have to admit it was very fun going to church with CFC friends. I’ve been able to hang with them a lot more this semester already.

SPRL has been going along just fine. My latest project involves recording the dates and times when a radar signal interferes with our MI data. I had a great time fixing up the program to allow me to start and stop the cycling through the graphs. Another SPRL guy has no idea why it works, but we’re not complaining! One day, Dr. Azeem brought in his attire for visiting the South Pole and left it for us to play with. Naturally, we college students couldn’t resist. I have some pretty funny pictures I put up of myself and Mike and Chris from that day. Enjoy!

Well, like I said, I’ve got a busy weekend ahead of me! I bet by the next journal entry things will be pretty normal again (Wishful thinking?). At least I’ll have a better hang of things and will have completed several tests and papers. I’m also going with the Honors Student Association to Gulfstream in Savannah, GA on Tuesday. Alex is coming, too, and we both have a physics test to study for, so it’ll be a nice getaway and informative trip too. I really enjoyed going to Piper last semester and I’m sure this will be no different.

Until next time,

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Natalie Ann

http://www.virb.com/erauladyeagle

spencern@erau.edu

Well, well, well… Here we are a couple weeks into the semester, and I can already tell that it is going to be a fun, yet very hard year. I’m taking some pretty exciting classes and I think that I like all my professors, so it should be a good year. Other than school, I have been very busy with a lot of other fun stuff. I’ll tell you all about that later, but now I’ll talk about my classes that I have! Be prepared for some reading, this is a long one!

MWF 10:30am-11:30am – Air Traffic Management III – This is my 3rd ATC class and this time it gets a lot more fun. The first two classes were lecture only, meaning that you went to class, took notes, and had a test. This class has a lab so you learn something and then you actually apply it. Our first couple of classes consisted of taking notes and we’ll have two tests coming up soon, but after that we get to go into the ATC lab and actually apply what we’ve been learning. In a couple of weeks we’ll start practicing in the labs and one person will be in the lab acting as the air traffic controller while the other person will be in the classroom acting as the pilots that are being told what to do. By mid-February, we’ll be done with the lecture aspect, and then we’ll only be in the labs. Some of my friends and I have already gone in to mess around in the labs because we have to get practice lab hours. It’s pretty fun to see all these planes landing and taking off and trying to vector them around. I look forward to the labs coming up!

TTH 8:15am-9:30am – Aviation Legislation – Well here we go again. Every semester I tell myself that I will never schedule a class at 8:15 in the morning again, and every semester I find myself waking up at 7:00 yelling at my alarm clock. I guess the only good thing is that I am used to getting up that early because I’ve always had a class at 8:15. Oh well, this year will be the last time I’ll get up that early (or so I say). So… Aviation Legislation. Yep. I didn’t really know what to expect for this class. After going to a couple of classes, I figured out what we’ll be learning. Basically, we are traveling back in time to the early 1900s to see what the aviation community was like back in the day, which was a Wednesday by the way (if you don’t know Dane Cook, disregard that last comment.) Anyway, back then they didn’t have any regulations and there was a bunch of crazy, borderline suicidal pilots doing whatever they wanted. So, the government came along and started regulating things to make it safer. The class consists of a couple tests, a term paper (Yuck!), and a lot of video watching. When you first think of watching movies, you think of a high school class substitute that doesn’t know what they are talking about so they pop in some boring movie and you have to take notes or something. Well, it is a little different in this class. The movies are actually pretty cool and they are based in the early 1900s, so you can actually see a visual of what it was like back then. I think this class will be alright, because even though there is a paper and the class is early, there is a lot of interesting stuff to learn and the movie approach is a lot better than slaving over a text book.

TTH 9:45am-11:00am – Aerodynamics – In high school I took a lot of math classes, so when I got to Riddle, I didn’t need to take any! I was really happy that that worked out; however, I did need to take physics classes. As I was in physics class last year, I found that a lot of the stuff had a base in math, so if you didn’t take any math you’d be lost. But since I had a good foundation of math, physics went pretty easy. I thought that when I got done with physics, I would be done with all that stuff. Well, I thought wrong. Aerodynamics is basically like my physics class then turning it up a notch. I really like the professor and I think that the class won’t be too bad as long as I study and pay attention in class. The professor seems really cool and he offers extra credit, so that should help. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes.

TTH 11:15am-12:30pm – Commercial Pilot Ops. – Well, here at Riddle I took Basic Aeronautics (freshman year), Intermediate Aeronautics (last semester), and now I’m in Advanced Aeronautics. Each of these classes corresponds with your flight training. For my Private Pilot I was in Basic, then for my Instrument Rating, I took Intermediate, and since I’ll be done with Instrument Rating soon, I’ll move on to my Commercial Certificate. This class will help me with all the commercial stuff I need to know. Basically a commercial rated pilot is a Private Pilot that knows a lot more. You need to know everything a Private Pilot knows, but then you also have to expand more on it. My professor seems like she really knows her stuff, which is good in this kind of class. There are so many technical aspects; you want to make sure that whoever is teaching, knows their stuff.

TTH 3:45pm-5:00pm – Aircraft Engines – Well, I can now say I know more about a jet engine than I do about the engine in my car. Well, not quite, but the point is that I definitely don’t know too much about cars and I’m learning a lot about jet engines. The subject is most certainly interesting, but it also seems kind of hard. There are so many formulas and equations to compute a thousand different things, it is somewhat overwhelming. My professor is real soft-spoken so he has a microphone that hooks up to speakers so we can hear him. He definitely knows his stuff though. In the class, there are actual engines that you can look at and get some hands-on experience. I’ll take some pictures of our classroom and my other classrooms and post them online.

TTHS 7:45pm-12:00am – Flight – Yes, you read the time right. My flight block (when I can be scheduled for flight activities) is from 7:45 at night to midnight! The instrument course (the one I’m in) focuses only on inside the airplane, so you don’t need to see outside. Therefore, all the instrument students fly at night, so the private pilot students can fly during the day. Last semester I lucked out and got the flight block that started at 5:30pm, but now I can be scheduled as late as 9:00pm or 10:00pm. It all works out though because there are other things I do from the time I leave my engines class at 5:00pm until I start an activity at 8:00 or 9:00pm. I am approaching the end of my course, so now comes the time where I do a lot of studying in order to prepare for my check rides at the end. If you don’t know how the check rides work, I’ll give you a quick run-down. (I’ve explained this for your private, but now I’ll do the instrument portion!) There are three sections that must be completed: Written test, oral test, and practical test. The written test consists of 100 questions out of a 1000ish question database. You can go buy a book called “Gleim” and that book will give you the exact question and the exact choice of answers that the actual test will have. So you already know what the questions will be and you already know the answer. You just have to study all 1000ish questions and then when you take the test, there is a random selection of 100 questions that you need to answer. If you get a 70% or better, you pass. The oral test consists of sitting down with an examiner for around two hours usually and they basically ask you about different aspects of instrument flying. You have to demonstrate that you know what you are talking about, and then they decide if you pass or fail. Your practical test is broken up into two parts: the flight and the simulator. The flight is relatively short and you just have to shoot an approach into Daytona and do a couple of other small things. The simulator is more in-depth and that consists of doing basically everything that you have learned while doing the course. So as of now I have all the knowledge to pass the written, I just need to study more so I can be confident. I will have a practice oral exam with my instructor soon, and that will prepare me for the real one. Also, I have a couple more flights and sims just to make sure I’m still proficient with all the procedures. I’ll keep you updated on my status in the coming journals!

Wow, that is a lot of reading! If you read all that, take a break and go grab a drink and stretch your legs.

You back? Good! Well there has been a lot going on other than classes and flying. I just recently celebrated my 20th birthday, which was a blast! I got to have dinner with my dad, step-mom, and step-brothers, and then with my mom and my sister before my sister left for New York, which was fun. I got some cool DVDs and a couple PS3 games and I got a new watch from my dad. I haven’t worn a watch in like 10 years, but I love my new watch. After dinner, we went back to my apartment and met up with 5 or 6 friends and actually played Rockband. If you’ve never played Rockband before, it is pretty fun … and addictive. We played for a couple hours just passing off the instruments to each other and I actually got my mom to play! And she was good! Not to say I was surprised, but I was! All in all we had a blast and that was a good way to spend my birthday.

We had another activities fair last week, and there are some things I’m excited about. First off, the skydive club is something I want to do more with this year. I only jumped twice last semester, and I hope that I can get out more this year. Also, I found out that there is a rock climbing club! I haven’t been rock climbing in a while but I thought that it would be fun to join that and go more often. One thing I’m really excited about is some Ultimate Frisbee. I have a couple friends who play all the time and they finally convinced me to go out and play. I had a blast! I mean I sucked, but I had a lot of fun. I already knew the basic rules before I got there, but apparently I can’t throw a Frisbee for anything. I could toss it back and forth with someone, but once there is somebody 2 inches from my face screaming “STALL 1!!! STALL 2!!! STALL 3!!!” I can’t seem to connect with someone’s hand, only the ground. I’m pretty good at running fast and I catch most of the ones thrown at me, I just can’t throw. Oh well, I’ll keep practicing and see how it goes.

One thing that I definitely want to do is join AOA, which is an Aeronautical Honor Society. Only Aeronautical Science students and 3% of the student body are accepted. I have a friend that was in my Business Communications class that joined last semester, and he said he really likes it. I figured I’d apply and see if I’m accepted. Hopefully I will be and by the next journal I will tell you all about it!

Well, I still have some things to say, but I think I’ll save them for next journal. I’ll tell you about my roommate’s recent adventure of aerobatic flying and how my friends and I went to the Rolex 24 last weekend! All this and more next journal!!! Until next time . . . go Pats and/or Giants, depending on who you are going for! I personally am going for the commercials! Later!

-Blake

email: wasteofsoap@yahoo.com

pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasteofsoap/

videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=blakeguiles

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!!

Well, it’s been an amazingly long two weeks of the sparkling new spring semester. I’m finally getting settled in, but have been doing so many things, I’m glad my classes haven’t been too demanding. Not one of my classes leaves my jaw hanging wide open when I don’t understand a word the teacher is saying. (That was Chemistry last semester by the way.) Physics and Calc 2 are going at a great rate, enough to keep me busy, but not enough to overwhelm. I have a programming class that I love! I’m so thankful that I took a year of that in high school; not only did that knowledge help me get a job in SPRL, but it also allows me to just learn the new language in my class instead of hearing things like float and loop for the first time. Honors will be more difficult that last semester because our teacher is covering the subject of physics history and things like the atomic bomb. I don’t have much experience calculating decay or half-life, so I’m always hastily taking notes. We’re having a “mega-quiz” this Friday. Finally, I can’t wait to get started on the physics labs. Our first one was just a painful (especially because I hadn’t eaten) 3-hour introduction.

SPRL is going well. I’ve had a hard time getting enough hours in because I’m doing so many other things and even want to join the Society of Women Engineers this semester. My fellow freshman worker and I were suddenly promoted thanks to seniors and other lead people leaving this summer. I will be in charge of the two VERY northern Canada sites. We’re having training meetings every Monday of the semester to make sure we all will be able to run SPRL on our own next year.

I also have several fun things planned this semester and several built-in. For example, Alex (my suitemate who I always mention) is in three of my classes (honors, calc 2, programming) whereas we had none together last semester. Spree (my other suitemate who writes a journal as well) is in two (calc 2, programming) with us. And another good friend from Christian Fellowship Club is in Calc 2 and is my lab partner. She’s meteorology, so I never thought we would be in class together- what a pleasant surprise! It seems that I know at least 60% of the people in each class. What fun! I don’t have to feel alone walking between classes all the time. Plus, many of my friends and I stop for lunch in-between or go check the mail. Good times!

Christian Fellowship Club is in full swing again, too. We had a great lesson and discussion on evangelism for our first meeting and went out to pizza and buffalo wings. They had a $32 pizza with 64 slices. It was AMAZING! They had to put it on another table so it would fit. One of my pilot friends is also very talented on guitar and will be leading worship for CFC. Another girl and myself will also be helping out. We had our first practice on Thursday. Hopefully we’ll eventually get some more guitars and a piano player. We lost our two musicians from last semester to great NASA internships. I spent 2 hours earlier on Thursday with two CFC guys looking for Kelly Services so we could be hired to work at the Daytona 500. We drove by it several times, and were so lost, we called everyone we could think of. But, after finally finding the place, all three of us were hired. I get to work two 7 pm – 8 am shifts in a row watching the gate in February. Phew! Should be exciting, but very long! At least we also have Monday off that same weekend thanks to President’s Day. The final event I’ll mention for CFC is that I’m going to the Winter Jam concert at UCF with several people tonight (I’m writing this on the 19th). BarlowGirl, Skillet, MercyMe, NewSong, and Mandisa. I’ve seen the first three in a big concert festival back home, so this should be fun!

Last night was my roommate’s birthday celebration. I had fun gifts on her bed in the morning when she came back from Navy PT. Then, eight of us from the floor “kidnapped” her and took her to Downtown Disney to wander around. We also went to Fuddrucker’s for a late-night dinner. If you look at the pictures on my virb.com site, you’ll be able to see some of the fun stuff we did. Many people on Wood 5 chipped in to get her our group present- Super Mario Galaxy and another remote for her Wii. We’ve all been enjoying bowling and making our own Wii characters, so hopefully we don’t try to take over all the games now! 😉

Another thing that’s been keeping me busy/entertained has been playing cards with people on the floor as well as my Christmas gift from my parents- Blockbuster Online subscription for the whole semester. Alex and I have been fervently watching BBC’s new Robin Hood TV show. They’ve only done two seasons, so we watched the first with the DVDs and found a great youtube site for watching season two. Hooray Robin!

In closing, I’ll just briefly mention that I’ve had a ton of fun these past two weeks. We’ve gone to all kinds of stores like World Market, Publix, Barnes & Noble, Target, Michael’s… and even eaten at Outback Steakhouse. I’ve also gotten to do my best to help some floormates going through hard times as well as learning to say “No” when I need some “me” time. God has been so good to sustain me and I know I’ll have a great spring semester!

Until next time…

I can’t believe it’s almost February! (and that means Spamalot in Jacksonville with Alex & Daytona 500)

*Natalie Ann*

Pretty please e-mail me with any questions you have about anything (involving my experience or the school or engineering or whatever!). I’ve never gotten a single one!

spencern@erau.edu

www.virb.com/erauladyeagle

Hey Everyone,

Well, school has started back up – obviously – and it is already heading toward being a more hectic schedule then last semester. So far, my classes are going extremely well, I like them all and they seem to be fairly easy. I have been SO busy it is ridiculous, between school, homework, work, and all of my extra-curricular activities; it keeps me on the go a lot (and trust me I’m not complaining). I thrive on the busy life, it’s just that sometimes the busy life and your personal life add up to be too much.

There really has not been a lot going on around campus, it’s a lot of getting back into the swing of things and trying to keep up with all aspects of life. I’m still involved with the AcaFella’ s and I’m still doing ERRSA (Embry Riddle Resident Student Association) which are like my main activities, but on top of that, I’m still trying to balance Air Traffic Control Organization, and we are trying to keep the choir together, so it’s still crazy in my life. I have really just been getting re-acquainted at school and just trying to have fun.

It’s amazing that a break can bring friends so much closer, but this managed to happen over break, and I feel so much closer to many of my friends here then I ever have, so thank you Jo, Erik, Brent, and Davey, you guys are the best!

Here are my list of Classes:

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Aviation Safety 210 (SF210) – Bill Martin
Communication 219- (COM219) – Sarah Fogle
Math 111 – (MA111)- Debbie Edwards
Tuesday and Thursday
Human Factors 201- (HF201) Eric Vaden
Aeronautical Science 120 (AS120) – Pete Rounseville

As I said, I love my classes so far and all of the Professors are awesome, which makes life easier. I’m hoping this will be a great semester and I am hoping that you all travel through it with me before you get you chance to shine here at ERAU! “… and did it MY WAY” –Frank Sinatra
Until Next Time, Joey Jaworski

Aim: HYPORBOY226

Email: Jaworksj@erau.edu

Pictures: www.virb.com/joejaworskiatc

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I sure did! I had a wonderful time back at home in Dallas, Texas, however, it’s now time to start my last semester of college. I can’t believe it’s finally here. It seems like yesterday I was driving to Daytona Beach about to experience my first year at college, and now I’m almost done. I never believed my father when he said one day you’ll wake up and be 50 and your life will be half over. But now I know what he means. Every year I get older, they seem to go by faster and faster. So my advice to you all is to cherish every moment of your life. Have fun, work hard, and enjoy everything around you. You’re only in college once, make the most of it!

This semester is going to be an interesting one. It will be very different from my last few semesters. I’m still going to be teaching and performing my Team Safety Leader duties, however, all of my classes are not related to aviation. I’m going to be taking Weather for Aircrews, US History, and Technology and Modern Civilization. Doesn’t sound fun, however, it should be interesting. It will be good for me to have a couple of different types of classes. I am also going to be taking the CRJ course later this semester.

Weather for Aircrews is going to be a very interesting course. We are going to learn how to read weather charts from all over the world, how to analyze and forecast weather, and about the different weather trends that occur in each country. This will be a skill that will be extremely useful in helping me interpret weather information before every flight. I can also pass this useful information over to my students after I learn everything. This should be an extremely rewarding class.

US history will definitely be my most challenging class this semester. I haven’t taken a history class since high school, so I’m going to have to do a lot of outside work and studying to ensure I do well. But it will be good for me to get back into history.

Technology and Modern Civilization is actually going to be a pretty fun class. It is my last humanities class and deals with how the development of technology has changed the social aspect of living. It will be extremely educational and fun at the same time. I love to write .

Finally, the CRJ course is going to be the best of them all. It will be very similar to the training I received at Continental on how to fly the 737-700. You can read about that experience in the journals I wrote while I was at Continental last summer. The only difference is that I will be learning how to fly the CRJ-200. I can’t wait. I’ll give everyone more detail on this class once it begins in March.

I look forward to sharing my last semester at Riddle with you all. Have a great week!

Well Everyone, I JUST, literally JUST got back to school and I thought I should write to you all to tell you about my break!!!! Even though there is not much to say, I’ll still tell you everything I did.
I got home on Monday the 17th as you all know from my last entry and I basically just crashed that night, I was soooooo tired. So the following day was a bunch of running around doing laundry and getting my room back to some sort of order. I waited patiently all day for my mom to get out of work, and I was so happy to see her when she came to pick me up!!! When I left for school, it was the hardest to leave her, so I knew it would be the most exciting to see her when I came home. We just hung out for the night and I was still tired, but I don’t think I went to bed too early that night. Well, one of the following days, I went to school with my friend Laura and I met all her friends and basically sat on a college campus all day (like I
haven’t done that before) but it was fun and it turned out to be a better day then I thought. So, due to the fact that there was like 3 days til Christmas at this point, I decided I should do my Christmas shopping, so I
got it all done in 2 days and I was so happy that it was over with!!!

I woke up on Christmas Morning at my dad’s house, and then I went to my mom’s by noon and spent the entire day there. It was so nice just to relax for the day and eat a good home-cooked meal, I had been dying for one!!!! Mostly, after Christmas I spent the entirety of my break catching up with friends, I did so much with my group from work, we have this A.C. Moore bonding night every Friday so we went Ice Skating, we had game nights, and then we went to the movies once, it was a lot of fun hanging out with them. OMG I saw the movie Sweeny Todd and it was so good, I don’t think many people would like it to be honest though, because it was a musical for one and it was really gory too. I know those two don’t normally go together but it did in this movie…. okay sorry for that sidetrack….. anyway, I got to go to Canada over break as well and that was so much fun… you see in Buffalo the fascination with Canada is that the legal drinking age is 19. So since I wasn’t there for my birthday in August, I celebrated it in December,
of course we did it responsibly!!!

I got to catch up with people that I haven’t seen since high school, and with frineds that I just missed like crazy –  which is what made my break so awesome, because without these freinds I don’t know who I would be because they have been there through everything with me and I love them, if you check out my blog site, www.virb.com/joejaworskiatc, I’ll put pics of them on there!!!

Something else that meant a lot to me over break was being able to sing with my choir again, I got a solo for the Christmas Eve mass which is the biggest mass we have and it was just so amazing to get up there and sing with them again. I went to see this display of lights with some people from choir and we went out to eat a few times, it was all a lot of fun.

Then, like the last 3 days before I left were like the most fun EVER…. I spent Friday Night, and Saturday Night with my AC Moore ppl and then the night before I left, EVERYONE came over for one last Hoorah before I left! We had so much fun!! Then, the day I left, I met another new friend that my friend Michelle knows from school, his name is Chas and Michelle said that we had a lot in common, which was so true once I met him, LOL. It was a good topping on top of a great break!!!!  Of course it was sad to leave, but I
knew with school starting I would forget about it soon…. I miss home sitting here right now, but I am also looking foward to a great semester!!!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and I will talk to you all soon.  “Im flying high, defying gravity, and you can’t pull me down” – Wicked

Until Next Time,

Joe
AIM- HYPORBOY226
Email: Jaworksj@erau.edu
Pics: www.virb.com/joejaworskiatc

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!

Well hello to everyone out there in internet land. Here it is 2008 and frankly, I’m not sure that it has hit me yet. I’ve finished my third semester here at Embry-Riddle which means I only have five semesters left. Time is flying by and I am having an awesome time. I had a pretty good break, but I’m ready to get back to the grind because I have some exciting classes. I’ll go into that later, but I guess I’ll tell ya about my break.

School’s out – Christmas Eve: After I finished up all my classes, I did a couple more flight activities and then ended up heading home for the break. I moved back into my old room and it felt like high school all over again. I starting working for my Dad and helping him out with different things to put some money in my bank account. This past semester I didn’t work too much, so my bank account has been slowly declining. Now I have some money in the bank though, so that makes me happy. On December 16th I drove down to West Palm Beach for my Mom’s graduation. She has been going back to school for the past couple of years and she just finished up working on her Masters. She has been doing night classes in Orlando, but the main campus is in West Palm. I drove down with my cousin and a friend, and we met up with my Mom. My Mom thought my sister couldn’t come because she still had to be in school in New York, but we arranged for her to fly down on that day to surprise her. We showed up right before she went backstage and my sister jumped out and my Mom was so shocked! She had no idea she was there. Overall it played out perfectly and I’m so glad she didn’t find out until we surprised her.

Christmas: After I finished up my shopping at 6 o’clock on Christmas Eve, there was a huge weight taken off my shoulders. And I needed that. On Christmas morning I did what I’ve been doing for years. I woke up with my Mom and sister and we opened presents. I ended up getting a lot of new clothes, some DVDs, and a PS3!!! When the PS3 first came out I wasn’t sure if I wanted one or not. Well, after playing it for a year in Walmart and Circuit City, I finally asked Santa to get me one. I’m not sure if that was a good decision because I have some pretty tough classes this semester, and a PS3 will definitely be a big distraction. Oh well, I’ll still be fine. After we opened presents, we drove to Orlando to visit with family. I got to see all my aunts, uncles, and cousins on my Mom’s side of the family. We had lunch and then I went with my sister to go see my Dad. We had dinner there and that was Christmas.

After Christmas – New Years Eve: After Christmas I just relaxed around the house and enjoyed playing some PS3 with friends. On the 28th my Dad, sister, and I flew up to Maine to visit some friends. My Dad went to high school in Maine and he kept in touch with friends, so now we visit them every year at Christmas time. It ended up snowing for a couple days, so there was snow everywhere. They have an ice rink in their back yard so we went ice skating and I tried to play hockey. I think I’m much better at watching it, rather than trying to skate and shoot the puck. I had fun, well mostly, until my friend Marissa checked me. I obviously fell and was waiting for a roughing penalty, but then I realized there wasn’t a referee and I was taunting her. So I guess I deserved it. Oh well, I’ll be training and next year I’ll be much better. On New Year’s Eve, my Dad and sister flew home but I stayed in Maine because I was going to visit my friend in New Hampshire. So I watched the ball drop with Marissa and some of her friends. We had a blast. Well, that was 2007. Now . . . 2008.

2008: On New Year’s Day I met up with my friend Alex, who I’ve talked about before. He was born in New Hampshire, moved to Florida for middle and high school, and now goes to college in Colorado. He picked me up in Maine and we drove to New Hampshire. I was up there until the 5th, and we did some snowboarding and tubing. We went in his back yard and made a small jump that we would hit while we weren’t on the slopes. We ended the trip with no broken bones or hospital visits, so it was a success. Two years ago, we weren’t so lucky. Alex ended up going down this wicked narrow trail and caught an edge on a tree trunk and broke his arm in three places. So that didn’t end too well. However, this past trip ended quite well. After I got back to the wonderful, hot state of Florida, I went on a business trip with my Dad and sister. He had to drive up to Atlanta for a trade show, so my sister and I went up with him. We helped him set up and run the show for a couple days. We ended up staying with my Aunt Wendy, who lives in Atlanta, so I got to see my cousins. I actually went to a hockey game with my oldest cousin and we saw the Atlanta Thrashers vs. the Florida Panthers. We had awesome seats, and we actually had a waiter come serve us! It was a blast, but unfortunately the next hockey game I’ll see, I’ll be in crappy seats. Oh well, I can still see the players, they’ll just look like ants. Overall, the whole Atlanta trip was fun, and it was exciting to see what my Dad does at trade shows. I look forward to the next show I get to see!

A Look Ahead: Well, this semester is going to be a tough one. I’ll tell you the classes I have, and next journal I’ll tell you about the first impressions and what-not. I am taking Air Traffic Management III, Aviation Legislation, Aerodynamics, Aircraft Engines, and Commercial Pilot Operations. These classes sound fun, but they are going to be very demanding. I guess we’ll see how it goes. Well, that was my break and I look forward to telling you about this year! As always, send any e-mails with questions if you have them. Also, be sure to check the pictures and videos, because I will be posting a lot up within the next few weeks! Stay tuned for next journal, and until then . . . go build a snowman!!!!! (Assuming you live in a snowy climate.)

Happy New Year! On Monday I am heading back to Florida and warm weather! There wasn’t much snow while I was home here in Illinois but it was below zero several times.

Classes start on Wednesday and I am ready to get started! This semester I am taking: Advanced Computer Based Systems, Marketing, Microeconomics, Business Statistics, Honors class, and my AFROTC class.

I am hoping my Computer class this semester will be more in-depth than last semester’s. My Honors class is about neuroscience and I think it is going to be a lot of fun.

I know 2008 will be great for all of us!
Well, I don’t have much to talk about but if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me.

Until next time, Kaleigh

e-mail: sidesk@erau.edu