I’m back!!! Yes, I loved writing the journals so much that I decided that one year was not enough. I needed to do it at least one more year. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these student journals, my name is Blake Guiles and I’m a sophomore here at Riddle with a major in Aeronautical Science (I want to be an airline pilot). I wrote these journals last year along with several other journal writers and I think that these journals are an excellent resource for future students. You get the rare opportunity to look into the lives of current students and see what college life is all about. I’m not sure if my previous journals will continue to be posted online, but if they are I suggest you go check those out to learn a lot about me. If you’re to lazy to go read those past journals I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. As you know, my name is Blake and I grew up in a little town called Debary which is only about a half hour away from Daytona Beach. I have a girlfriend (Rebecca) who goes to Stetson (a college close by) who I have been dating for a little over two and a half years. I am currently rated as a private pilot, I am certified to skydive, and I like to root for the Tampa Bay Lightning in hockey. I’m here at Embry-Riddle because I want to be a pilot and I think that this is the place to be if you want to fly. Ever since I was little I knew that I wanted to fly, and ever since I knew about Embry-Riddle I wanted to go here. Now I’m in my second year and I have my Private Pilot’s License, and it is surreal when I stop to think about it. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in high school day-dreaming about coming here to Riddle and now I am here and I am already a licensed pilot! I’ll go into more depth as time goes on, but that’s good for now.

One thing that I started last year was an online photo album where I posted pictures of anything and everything. I also had a YouTube account where I put some videos on. I think that some of my fellow journal writers are going to put pictures online this year, but I will definitely be posting them online. If you read last year’s journals, there is a change for the pictures website. I originally had them posted with yahoo photos, but now they are transferred over to my Flickr account. That website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasteofsoap/ . Also, while that website is there, my YouTube site is still the same: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=blakeguiles . Since I’m giving you all these addresses, I might as well give you my email which is wasteofsoap@yahoo.com . So throughout this year, make sure you check out some pictures and videos that I post, and feel free to shoot me an email with any questions/comments/concerns.

With all that said, let me tell you about my summer. I worked most of it, unfortunately; but I did go on many adventures. I guess I’ll start with the beginning of the summer. My girlfriend and I drove down to Key West for a couple days and it was amazing. I’ve lived in Florida my whole life, but have never been to the Keys. While we were down there we went parasailing and snorkeling, both of which were amazing. We didn’t see any sharks, which I was kind of glad about to be honest. Overall it was a nice way to begin the summer/end the school year. It was very relaxing and I recommend checking it out if you come to Daytona.

After the trip to the Keys I went up to Pennsylvania to see some friends. One of the cool things about going to a school like Embry-Riddle is that there are people from all over that come here. It’s not like, for example, the University of Central Florida; I know a lot of people that go there, but that is because I live in Central Florida. The students that attend Embry-Riddle are from all across the world, not just a local area. So I made some friends that live in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina and we all went to PA to visit each other. We had a blast and did a whole bunch of fun things. One of which was drove to Six Flags over in New Jersey. I have been to Disney and Universal Studios here in Florida, but I haven’t got the chance to go to other theme parks until now. We spent the whole day there and had so much fun. We went on a wooden rollercoaster called El Toro which was the best wooden rollercoaster I have ever seen in my life. It has the steepest drop at 76 degrees of any wooden coaster in the United States and is the second fastest and tallest wooden coaster in the entire world. But surprisingly, that wasn’t the highlight of the trip to Six Flags. No, it wasn’t until I went on Kingda Ka that I experienced the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. You start on level ground and get accelerated to 128 miles and hour in 3.5 seconds and then shoot straight up (90 degrees) to 456 feet (45 stories) and then plunge back to earth. It was insane! Me and my friend Cris rode it 7 times, 3 of which were back to back to back. We rode it 3 times in a span of something like 8 minutes and my body was definitely taking a beating. You can check out more info on the coaster here: http://www.sixflags.com/greatAdventure/rides/Kingdaka.aspx . All in all it was an amazing experience. We also did some fun things while in PA like ride my friends 4 wheeler. I will definitely post pictures and videos up on the websites so be sure to check those out.

In July, I went with my family up to Maine to visit my grandparents, which was really fun. I got to see one of my cousins, Jeremy, and I was excited about that because I don’t get to see him that much. We had a lot of fun and I can’t wait until next summer to go up again. Other than those things, I was more or less just hanging in Florida over summer. I got a couple chances to take friends and family flying which was definitely a highlight of my summer. I took some pictures and videos of that, so be sure to keep your eyes out for those.

Well I think that I will keep this journal short, and next time I’ll go into all my classes and my living arrangement. I strongly urge you to read the other student journals even if you aren’t interested in their major. Likewise, if you want to be an engineer, you should still check out my journals because I’m sure you will find some useful information here and there. All you prospective students especially need to read the freshmen journals because they will be giving you their views/opinions as freshmen while I have already been there and done that so my views will be different. This year I won’t pay as much attention to living in the dorms (live in an apartment now) or the meal plans (I don’t have them anymore) but I will be telling you about life in Daytona Beach, the upper level classes you will take, and I will offer a unique prospective on life at Riddle as a second year student. I hope everyone’s year is starting off nicely and I hope that you will check in from time to time to see how I’m doing here in Florida, going to the school of my dreams. Feel free to send me an email if you are so inclined and I will see you in about two weeks!!!

-Blake
email: wasteofsoap@yahoo.com
pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wasteofsoap/
videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=blakeguiles

If there’s one word to sum up these past two and a half weeks, it would undoubtedly be WOW. Just 15 days ago, I was furiously packing up all my clothes and stuff into the biggest suitcases I could find hoping to not forget important things like my multi-colored lamp or enough shampoo to last me three months. I was undoubtedly in panic mode and had only a few short hours to get everything done in time for my early morning flight the next day. Looking back, it seemed as though that day, August 20th, unexpectedly crept up to me. I had just graduated, just thrown a party to celebrate it and all if a sudden I was leaving New Jersey, and all the familiar things surrounding me to venture into uncharted territory at Embry Riddle. Okay, so it wasn’t uncharted, but it was still new to me, which definitely counts for something.

Let me backtrack and introduce my self. I’m Srinisha Shankar but you can call me  Spree. I’m 18 years old and am a freshman majoring in Aerospace Engineering at Riddle. I’m the first from my family to leave New Jersey, since my older sister (who just turned 21), decided to stay at a state college. I live with my Mama, Papa and Sis and every six months Grandma comes from India to stay with us for 6 months. I came from a school in New Jersey that was focused on Math and engineering so being in a school with an outstanding majority of guys is no news to me. It was a tiny little magnet school called the Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies and our graduating class consisted of 32 kids. It was awesome coming from a small school so Riddle’s size is a completely new experience for me. I’ll save the extra background info for later, now let’s fast forward to Monday, August 20.

We arrived at the really tiny Daytona Beach International Airport and I immediately felt at home. The sun was shining brightly through the windows, I wore my sunglass inside, and not one person gave me a dirty look. I could so get used to this, I thought. Making things better was a phone call I made to sis back home, “It’s thunder storming here and it’s so cold”, she said and I smiled, knowing I’d almost never have to deal with that terrible Jersey weather again.

Once in Daytona, Mom, Grandma and I checked into our hotel and spent the rest of the day shopping in the nearby Volusia Mall and exploring the university by car. The next day was the first unofficial day of the orientation ceremonies. Tuesday night was the honors banquet and it was held and it was held a local Yacht Club. Here all the Honors Students and their families were invited to have dinner with the Honors staff and get presents. This year our present was the ASUS GPS pocket PC. It’s so much fun especially because there’s this one game on there, called Bubble Breaker and it’s the perfect thing to keep your fingers occupied with when you’re waiting for a teacher or just really bored. That night I got to meet my roomie for the first time and we hit it off quite well. You’re always skeptical about what your roommate’s going to be like and I was so glad that mine was normal instead of some girl who was afraid of people.

Anyways, Tuesday was only the beginning of all the activities Riddle had planned for the incoming class. If I could give you the most important piece of advice to follow during Orientation week, it would definitely be to get there early. A half hour early is probably perfect if you don’t want to park a mile away and walk. We luckily did get there just as the doors were opening and almost sprinted to the people holding the “S” posters. Here we received the all-important orientation packet outlining all the activities we’d be participating in these next few days and for the weekend.  Today was possibly my favorite day because the morning started with Housing Check In! I, because I’m an honors student, received the privilege of living in Wood 5! I was so happy when I found out my residence hall was Wood over the summer and even more ecstatic when I found out I was in the top floor.

Grandma, Mom and I then hurried upstairs with suitcases in hand to see the room I was going to be spending the majority of my year in. Opening the door, I let out a sigh, relieved that the space wasn’t cramped but instead pretty spacious and the bathroom was actually clean. It certainly wasn’t home quite yet, but I knew I could get used to it. Having someone share my room was a bit of a new concept to me, but today, about two weeks later, I almost can’t imagine not having someone to talk to in the middle of the night, or have an automatic buddy, for when you don’t feel like walking by yourself. Having a roommate definitely has its perks. After mom made my bed and we did some more last minute shopping, we attended the over crowded convocation ceremony. It was certainly our fault that we came only 15 minutes before the ceremony started and had to park across the street in order to attend. Convocation is a tradition I’m assuming for every university to welcome all the incoming students, it was mildly fun. Then, at 8 I got to meet the rest of Wood 5 for the first time. We are one heck of a group here, and undoubtedly the self-proclaimed tightest hall and best buddies on campus. There are 8 girls (two others of whom are also Journal Writers) and the rest are guys. The majority of us are Honors AE students, so we have a lot of classes in common. Orientation week was starting to look real good, but wasn’t anywhere close to being done.

Some people slept in their dorm that night, but I decided to still stay with Mom and Grandma at the hotel. Thursday was a fairly busy day for Mom and Grandma but I had plenty of time to set my room up and hang out with people from my floor. It was the first time I had lunched with them and now it’s a daily ritual to go to lunch in a group of no less than 10. Like I said, we’ve come to be one big family here at Wood 5 and it’s pretty awesome. Thursday there was only one meeting for me and it was about how to get around campus and who to contact for different things. Mom and Grandma left on Thursday and it didn’t hit me that they’d be leaving until that night when I actually slept in my new own bed. Kind of scary and kind of really really exciting to know that you can finally have that independence you’ve been craving for.

Friday I woke up late and again our entire hall went to lunch together and then I attended this “For Women Only” Program. Incase you haven’t heard already, the guy to girl ratio at Riddle is about 1 to 8, so the girl community here is pretty tight, since you know the chances of seeing another girl soon is pretty slim. That night, there was a luau on the lawn and it was basically just to get to know your hall better. We made our mascot and competed in different cheesy games like the banana and spatula race or the one we started ourselves, the wheelbarrow! It was a ton of fun, but most of us retired early to our dorms so we could watch a movie and play cards in our hallway, both just as fun as playing limbo like we did during the Luau.

This weekend was filled with different activities we could participate in like the “Sundaes on Saturday” sponsored by the Embry-Riddle Resident Student Association (ERRSA) , barbeques sponsored by the Fraternities and Sororities and the hilarious comedic duo Alex McHale and Vic Henley. The best activity was undoubtedly the Hypnotist Tom Deluca. He was so insanely good it left you wondering if he paid the people to do the crazy things they did. One of the guys from our hall was chosen and he was made to believe that he was the savior of fruits and wasn’t allowed to let people touch his apples or pears. I would definitely not miss the show if I were you. That happened Monday night also known as…. The first day of classes!

My schedule this semester is almost amazing. I have an 8 A.M class every morning, but I end all my classes before 1oclock. Good and the bad I guess. The first two weeks of classes haven’t been too stressful even though thinking about my first Physics quiz tomorrow is stressing me out a bit. So this first entry is basically just an intro to my life at Embry-Riddle. I know you all are dying to know more about what I’m about and all the good and bad things that happen here, but this entry has gotten to be much longer than I had expected.

Here’s my contact info, feel free to email me whenever you’d like and I’d be more than happy to answer all those questions you’re too afraid to post on the discussion board.

Catch ya later!

Spree

*sniffles* So, you may be wondering why I’m holding back from tears. As you guys may know, this is my LAST journal submission to you guys. So, this is the last time you will all read about my life on Embry-Riddle’s website. If you are on Facebook, however, then you can follow up on the rest of my college life by adding me!

Okay, so this is a REALLY sad time of my life here in college when the semester is almost over, classes start wrapping up, exams are almost here and we must all say our goodbyes at the end of it all. But before I get into all the mushy stuff, let me tell you about the past 2 weeks here at Riddle. Classes have already been ending and some of them have not completed the course yet. I am officially done with 3 out of my 5 classes and have not begun studying for the finals yet! I don’t plan on starting till an hour before the test, just kidding! I must say, I had a lot of fun with all my professors; the good and the bad ones. Speech class was amazing where I gave a total of 4 speeches that were all great, Physics was a breeze since I already knew most of the material from high school, Basic Aeronautics 2 was fantastic- I had the best professor EVER!!! Accounting class was very informative to say the least. Information Technology was very fun and interesting; I really learned a lot in that class! Overall, this semester’s school work was very strenuous but I value every little bit of knowledge I have gained!

Alright, onto the fun part! So, like I said, the end of the semester is here, so a couple friends and I decided that we should do something together before we start finals. So, this past weekend, 3 of my closest friends and I drove down to Miami! One of them lived there, so we got around easily-thank God! Alright, so we left Saturday morning and got into Miami in the afternoon and went straight to the malls to do some SHOPPING! Yes, who doesn’t love to shop?! Anyway, so we got some cool stuff. And then, after that we decided to go plane spotting at Miami International Airport! I’ve never actually gone plane spotting before, so that was like the highlight of my impromptu trip. That night, my parents were in Miami on business, so we met up with them and then headed over to our friend Guillermo’s house for dinner- you know, the one who lives there. They’re Dominican, so we had authentic Dominican food that was ‘muy sabroso’..? haha, I have to work on my Spanish. After, we went to the hotel room that my parents got for us that night at the Courtyard Marriott and not too long after being restless in the room, we headed out to downtown Miami! WOO HOO! That was CrAzY!!! So busy and full of people just ‘partying it up’! Came back to the room around 3am and hit the bed.

The next day, my parents took us out to dinner at P.F. Chang’s restaurant and right after, we left them and headed back to the airport for even MORE plane spotting! YAY. We ended up getting back into Daytona Beach around 12:30am Monday morning. Now, that was one of the most fun weekends I have ever had here at Riddle; and it wasn’t even in Daytona! Haha.

So, now comes the part where I must bid all of you goodbye. It has been such a wonderful pleasure and experience to write to all of you guys and share my life here at Embry-Riddle with you. I do hope that you enjoyed reading all my submissions and that you will share some of the good and bad experiences that I had here at college because without the bad, how would we know what’s good? Do not hesitate to contact me at all with any questions or comments that you may have; even if you just wanna talk more, just add me on facebook (search for my name), my aim is ‘xtriniboix’ and email is pundib07@erau.edu. It has been an honor and a privilege to write to you guys and I’d like to thank the one who made it all possible, Jill Meredith who works in admissions. I love you Jill! Thanks to all of you out there who have contacted me and now have became my friends. Thanks to my friends for making my freshman year in college an unforgettable experience. Thanks to my parents for supporting me and loving me unconditionally. Thanks! Thanks to everyone who has made a difference not only to my life, but to the world! All the best in getting to Riddle, pre-freshmen! Can’t wait to meet a few of you!

Take care, and once again, thank you for choosing Vick Airways!

Have a good one!

Your (Preferred) Student Journal Writer,
Vick!

Quote of the week: Life is too short to live the same day twice!

Peace

Greetings Internet Friends,

Welcome to the countdown. We are looking at only three weeks left. If I could in some way explain the excitement and anticipation I am feeling right now I would, but this is just so unreal. I talked about this last time but I am way excited for the next year because I am coming up on the end of my trek towards a Bachelor’s Degree. That is something that is really truly exciting because when you get to this point you realize that you have been going to school for about 15 years and you have almost reached the goal that everyone set for you all those years ago.

Well enough of the day dreaming. Let’s report the news. Three weeks to go folks. I don’t how close you are to the end of your semester, but let me fill you in on college life. Time flies during the semester. In high school, your semester might extend over winter break and even when your semester changes your classes are relatively the same thing every semester. That’s kind of how my high school seemed at least. But, when you get to college it is straight through 16 weeks and out. No slowing down or breaks. The time goes extremely fast and here at Riddle we are on the semester system. Universities on the quarter system only push through 10 weeks and then the quarter is over. All I’m saying is be prepared to hit the ground running when you get to college. If you kick your legs a little before you hit the ground, you have a little momentum built up and you don’t get run over. Either that or tuck and roll. Learn to adapt so that when you enter this different style you just roll with the changes. Okay, those were kind of awkward but I think the point got across. College is fast paced. Be ready for it.

I think the reason I got on that is because I just looked at my schedule and saw things starting to stack up. My classes are beginning to come to a close and final assignments and exams are lurking around the corner. I am fortunate enough that nothing is lining up on top of each other. I will have a steady flow of work for the next few weeks. Next week, I have an advanced engineering math exam early in the week and a thermodynamics exam late in the week. I also have to throw in a couple of homework assignments in the middle there with a Tech Report Writing Paper rough draft due. The week after that I have a resume and cover letter due and preparation for my final exams including one final that might take place on the last class meeting. Then finals for three days and it’s all over. I am really going to have to stay focused and just keep working. There will be stress, oh yes, but this is the time I really enjoy. It’s a time to test my ability to work under pressure. And then when the three push is over, I get that chance to just sit down and take a look back. You look at everything you accomplished and you just feel awesome.

Oh the other thing to take into account when you start to get into finals is how you balance your time and how much you focus on your work. I’m sure you all have had the experiences currently towards the end of the year when your friends start wanting to have fun. The summer is calling to you and there are little fun events around campus involving end of the year celebration. The college scene is amplified ten fold. There are concerts, parties, campus functions, student organization events. Being that I am staying for summer, I can hear that sweet beach calling my name. There have also been tons of other events that are totally exciting. There is a concert coming up this weekend hosted by Touch ‘N Go. If I remember correctly, country music star Gary Allan will be performing. I’m not exactly a country music fan but the concert environment is always a great time. The University Block Party Event is coming up as well. I have never been to one but I’m told it is a lot of fun and from the sounds of all the activities and events planned I’m sure it will be a great day. Last week we went to the Up ‘Til Dawn Finale event which is a 7PM to 7AM party in the University Center. A lot of fun and I encourage you to join in the event not only for the fun, but also for the cause. I seriously encourage you to consider getting involved with Up ‘Til Dawn and at the very least, attend their events. These along with all the events of the other student organizations you get involved with provide for a really busy social life. Remember to stay on top of your work because that is why you are spending all this money to be here after all.

As far as what I have been up to, I will be attending that concert this weekend. I am currently working on my application to become a Morale Captain for Up ‘Til Dawn. I am also starting to get involved with ERFSEDS (Embry-Riddle Future Space Explorers and Developers Society). I am also preparing for my move off campus. That is a big deal. When the first semester was over, I just had to pack up some clothes to take home with me. This time, I have to pack up everything I own which now includes some furniture I bought throughout the year. Fortunately the move is only down the street to an apartment and not all the way back to California. Oh yea, my apartment. It’s pretty sweet. I will be living with Cat and we have been accepted and left our deposit so the apartment is ours. We will be here all Summer taking Summer session courses and working.

It is now 11PM and for the first time all year, I am going to get to bed on a Wednesday night before midnight. This is a good sign. I hope all is well with everyone. If anyone is taking a tour or visiting the campus and you see me around, stop me and say hi.

Until we meet again,
Steve

One word . . . wow. I can’t believe there is only 3 weeks left of school. This semester has flown by and I can hardly even remember the fall semester. I know one thing is for sure, I’ve never been so busy doing so many different things. All my professors have decided it would be a good idea to have exams at the same time so I have been studying like a mad man for all of those, and finally they are over! But I have another set coming up in 3 weeks then I have finals! I don’t think I am going to have the chance to rest until the end of the year! I am super busy but I am still having a great time, especially with my classes . . . (how’s that for a segway!)

TTh – Physics 104 – Well, with last semester and this semester combined, I took 7 tests and a final, and so far I have gotten A’s on all of them. I guess I like physics. I have always been good at math and things that only have one answer. Anything like English or writing papers I am horrible at. I always seem to be wrong, but with physics there is only one answer and I know the answer. So it all works out. We’ve got one more test then our final so hopefully I’ll keep up the A’s.

TTh – Basic Aeronautics II – We took our third test in this class as well and I did pretty darn good! I ended up with a 90 which should bring up my test average because I got an A on my first test but a C on my second. So hopefully I’ll take our fourth and final test and bring up my average. Other than that, we are just cramming a whole bunch of material before classes are over. In the beginning of the semester, we had all this free time, but now we are cruisin’ through stuff and we won’t stop until the very last day!

MWF – Air Traffic Control I – We took our third test in here as well and I still don’t know what I got. I think I did pretty well but I’ll find out for sure by next class. Aside from that, not to much new here!

MWF – Intro to Psychology – Since our professors like to give tests all at the same time, I also had my third psych test and once again I think I did pretty well but I won’t find out until next class. However, we did have a pretty heated debate the other day. For some reason we were talking about plagiarism and we started talking about students who wrote a paper for one class and then later on down the road, they turned in their same paper in a different class. My professor said that that was unethical and nobody agreed with him. Everyone said since you wrote the paper, you should be able to turn it in however many times you want. After 20 minutes of a heated debate I raised my hand and said I agreed with the professor to a certain extent and everyone was saying ‘come on! what?!?!?!’ because literally everyone else disagreed with him. Then the professor said ‘oh come on . . . you might want to leave the class early so you don’t have to be confronted by the mob.’ It was all a joke but it was pretty funny. Anyways, psych still seems to be one of my favorite subjects so I would definitely recommend Dr. Kring as a professor to all you future students out there!

Flight – Well it has been pretty rocky the past couple weeks because the weather has been pretty bad. I haven’t got to fly a lot, but I did do a solo cross-country to Gainesville. I’m not sure if there are any Gator fans out there, but I flew over Gainesville last Monday when they played Ohio State in basketball. So I thought that was a pretty cool time to fly over Gainesville. The flight itself went pretty well and I had a lot of fun. It is definitely pretty wild to be flying all alone up there. I just had a friend who did a solo cross-country down to Key West and I’m looking forward to when I get to do that some time next year. But as more time goes by I get closer and closer to finishing up my course and taking my check ride. So I have to start getting ready for everything because it is just around the corner!

This past two weeks I haven’t got the chance to do too many things besides study but I did find time to do some fun things; like ride a horse! My girlfriend has a horse that she has had for quite some time and I just recently went for a ride. I didn’t go real fast because frankly, I was kinda scared. I have no problem flying planes or jumping out of them, but when you ride a horse you are trying to control something that has a mind of its own. My parachute doesn’t have a mind of its own, I tell it what to do and then it does it. So riding a horse was pretty entertaining. I had fun and I was riding for a little while and then I decided that I wanted to go faster, and then I almost fell off. I’ve decided that horse riding isn’t for me. I’ll stick with jumping out of planes. Speaking of which, I just made my 22nd jump and I’m lovin’ it. I’d recommend that everyone drive over to DeLand (20 minutes west) and at least check it out while you are down here. It’s quite a rush!

Other than risking my life on horses and jumping out of planes, I went to another concert with my girlfriend. I don’t know if anyone has heard of Stephen Lynch, but he is a comedian song-writer with a bit of a mature approach. It definitely wasn’t the cleanest show, but it was pretty funny. Coming up in two weeks, I am going with some friends down to Tampa to watch a Tampa Bay Lightning playoff game. It should be pretty fun and I hope they win!!!

Also, Easter was this past Sunday and I got the chance to see some of my family which was nice. We went to my Uncle’s house and did the whole lunch then Easter egg hunt. I use to be the one who would look for the eggs, but by the age of 15 my mom wouldn’t let me do it anymore. I’m not sure why, because I was really good. Anyways, now I hide the eggs and I am a pretty good hider. I am also pretty tall and I could get eggs in places where no one could reach. Which isn’t really the point, but it’s fun for me anyway. So Easter was a success this year.

Other than that, I have just been busy busy busy studying and all that good stuff. Life here at Riddle is going pretty well. I’m coming up to the end of the semester and I’ve got to make sure I finish the year strong! I’d love to write more, but I’m not sure what to write! I’m staying busy, I’m having fun, and life is good!!!! Now it is time for me to try to get some rest while I can! It’s gonna get crazy here again in a week so I need to rest while I can! I love exclamation points! I’ll see ya later!

-Blake
email: wasteofsoap@yahoo.com
aim: wasteofsoap
videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=blakeguiles

Tests, Tests, Tests

Test always seem to come in rounds in College. You have tests for all of your classes within about four days of each other. Hopefully your teachers let you know well ahead of time that you are going to have a test.

Weird stuff: I’m sure this has happened to many college students, but it is kind of strange to be surfing around on facebook and then see a few of your high-school-mates in wedding pictures for their own wedding. Not that I have any problem with marriage, but I don’t know. Wait until you graduate and get into college and then see your friends’ wedding pictures where they are drinking apple juice instead of wine to toast because they are not 21. It’s just weird. So that was my little tangent on that. Thought it was worth mentioning that uh people, I guess, really DO grow up after high school. Sometimes maybe a little too fast, eh?

Things have been moving pretty slow since I finished my recent wave of exams. However, the semester’s end is coming a little too quickly for my tastes. I turn around and we only have two and a half weeks left of my first year of college! Time flies when you’re having fun or working your toosh off. Literally, I think the last time I actually thought about it, we had a month left and then POOF two weeks!!! It’s nice though.

Except that I am staying to take classes over the summer, so I don’t really get much of a break. Steve and I are going to Virginia right after our last exams, picking up furniture, and driving back to Daytona with Sophie in tow! We made our security deposit on the apartment today, and we were told that we can look at our ACTUAL apartment sometime next week after they clean it. I’m full of antici…….pation.

The weather in Daytona has been dismal the last few days. It’s not Floridian at all, to be honest, which takes some of the fun out of it. We’ve managed to keep ourselves fairly busy, though. Been bowling a lot. I’m getting better, not that I was ever truly terrible.

Anyway my point is that even when you can’t laze around in the sun at the beach or have a cookout in the pits outside, there’s still stuff to do. Shopping, movies, and bowling. I think for my last journal of the semester I’ll give you all a run down of things you ought to see and do (and eat) in Daytona. Hopefully it will prove a helpful little guide for you when you come to Riddle, which I know all of you undoubtedly will, right?

OH! And I just registered for fall semester classes last night under my new and improved SOPHOMORE status! Yay! And just so you know, registering as a freshman sucks because you are the DEAD LAST people to register and you are all battling for the same classes. Trust me; it gets a lot better once you are bumped up. I didn’t have any problems at all with my registration this time, AND the server didn’t completely crap out like it did when our 1,000+ freshmen tried to register for spring classes at the end of last fall semester. So yeah, it gets better. Don’t fret.

That’s all for this week. Email me if you feel the need! Rumbebb5@erau.edu

Welcome back friends!

We have begun our final leg of the journey. We are now one month away from the end of my first year here at Embry-Riddle. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am totally excited to be done with this year. This has nothing to do with Riddle. It has everything to do with the things to come in the next year or so.

First of all, I am now finishing my third year of college. Although I am not right on track to graduate in four years, I am still looking at the end of my college career and it is definitely approaching fast. If I work hard and stay on track, I should graduate in 4 years. That sets me to graduate during the Fall 2008 semester. It is really exciting to see all this work finally approaching the reward I’ve been working for. I am also looking forward to this next year because I will be moving off campus into my own apartment again. As I have said many times before, Campus housing is great, but nothing beats the freedom of your own place.

As far as current events go, I am working hard to keep up with all my work. This last week has been rather difficult. Coming back from Spring Break always is. You go from not having any schedule or work to do, to being right back in your normal routine. It is a hard transition. This year was especially difficult. I went out with a few friends the Monday night after we got back and we ended up in a crisis that was not anticipated. We ended up staying awake almost all night, which was not at all what we intended to do. We worked out the situation, but as a result of the energy and lack of sleep, I ended up getting sick. I spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday in bed trying to recover from my illness and this put me way behind. I was finally able to get to class on Thursday and turn in homework and get caught up. However, I took a hit in the energy department in the process. A lesson can be learned here I think. You will have to excuse my language, but sometimes sh*t happens. Sometimes you just can’t control a situation and it completely throws off your plans. You have to learn to work around an issue and make things work, even if that requires missing a day or two to recover from an illness. If you relax, gather your thoughts and work through the hard time, you will eventually get caught up. By the way, this process may result in a few late nights. That’s enough about that.

Spring Break was awesome. I turned 21 so as you can imagine, there was a bit of a celebration here. I’ll be honest, I did buy alcohol and I did drink. It was a great time and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Another lesson here. Whether or not you choose to drink or party is your business. If you choose to drink/party, do so responsibly. Always drink responsibly, always designate a driver, and never do anything that could potentially risk your life or the lives of anybody you encounter. Just be smart about the situation. Back to me. So I did enjoy my Spring Break and I am going to be meeting my brother in Las Vegas in a few weeks to fully embrace my new found legality.

Well, that is about it for now. I have to get some rest so that I stay healthy for the next few weeks. They are going to be crazy. Four weeks left and I have at least one exam and one final in each class. That along with trying to find an internship or job for the Summer and planning my courses for the Fall. Trying to squeeze in some fun on the weekends including the Up ‘Til Dawn Finale Event and hanging out with friends. This month is going to be nuts! (That means awesome)

Until Next Time, Stay Cool
Steve

Well, hello there!

So once again I am here to grace the world’s presence with my words of wisdom. Ok, ok so I’m not a guru or anything, but hey who said a Riddle student isn’t smart?!

So, the last two weeks have been nothing but wonderful! I mean, I didn’t have much work at school to do for the first week, then the second was spring break! YAY

Ok, so I had my financial accounting test on the Thursday before spring break and well, that sucked! I mean, not only did I have to study while my mind was perfectly set up in vacation mode, but the test was hard as a b*tch! UGH! Sorry for the language, but oh my god, I bet if you had to do that exam, you would have said the same thing! I made an 80 (B), the highest grade was like 98 and then the second highest was like 83; class average was 75- ok, so that’s a ‘C’ (pass) but the professor had no consideration for how bad his class average was and blamed us all for not studying hard enough. Whatever, the rest of my classes are fine with A’s, so I’m not that bothered by it. The next big problem I have to face is a huge debate on abortion for speech class that I have to plan out for Tuesday.

Anyway, enough about school; let’s talk about spring break 2007!!! What did you do???

Well, before you brag about yours, let me brag first! Haha.

Ok, so on March 17th, at 1pm, I departed Daytona Beach for Atlanta, GA on Delta Airlines, then connected onto Delta’s flight to good ole Trinidad and Tobago! Yes, yes I went home for a week, and it was awesome! I landed at 8pm that night in Trinidad and some friends and family and I boarded the first flight to Tobago the next morning at 7am. OH MY GOD- GORGEOUS! Here’s a picture for ya’ll to see!

Well, those 2 days in Tobago were amazing! I did sooo many things in less than 48 hours than I did at any time here in Daytona Beach during the same amount of time or maybe I did, oh well, whatever! Hehe

So, I ate as much Trinidadian food as possible- curried crab, fried bake and fried shark, macaroni pie, Indian delicacies, and so much more! And I am aware that you may not know what some of the foods are, but you only must try to love it! haha.

The remaining 5 days were spent in Trinidad with my family and friends at the malls, movies, dinner, parties here and there, loved it!

Sunday morning the 25th, I boarded Delta Airlines 8am flight to ATL again then connected onto the 4:30pm flight to DAB which got delayed until 6:30pm! Well, by the time I got back into my room in Adams hall that night, I was beat and I my stomach was not cooperating well with the rest of my body! So, I dropped my suitcase, climbed into my lofted bed and passed out! Thank god I didn’t have to fly the next morning!

Speaking of flight, my solo was supposed to be the Friday before spring break, but that morning, the weather was terrible, so it didn’t happen!

And like I said, I got ill with my stomach that Sunday so that’s also why I didn’t fly that Monday (yesterday) morning. It had gotten so bad that I ended up in the hospital last night around midnight. Imagine a pain like a few knifes stabbing up your stomach; yeah, that’s how it felt. I apologize for the graphical description, but it’s the best way to describe it. But I feel a little better now! So, hopefully I should be flying on Friday morning!

So, that’s my two weeks in a couple words.

Hope you guys have been safe and good and haven’t gotten into a lot of trouble lately!

Have a wonderful upcoming two weeks! See ya then!

We are aware that you have a choice when it comes to flying, so thank you for once again choosing Vick-Airways! Have a wonderful stay wherever you may be!

Quote of the week: “life happens while you’re busy making plans”