Lately school has become busier than normal. I have classes five days a week and after school things to attend nearly every day (including a DJ show for WIKD-Eagles FM). But above all the managing of school work, activities, is taking out the time to rest or just breathe a little and relax finally.
It seems all my journals are having a common theme of relaxing, taking a breather, sleeping, money managing or something to the sort. Now don’t get me wrong, all those things are important, but when in college there is one thing you must remember no matter what happens: your first priority is school, an education. An obvious thing I’m sure, but sometimes you forget the fact that if you’re not careful you risk spending extra money to retake a class you failed, or find yourself under academic probation or even expulsion. It’s easy to get wrapped up in everything going on with your activities (though many require a certain GPA) or even the very freedom of college itself. But with much freedom comes responsibility.
No longer will you have mom or dad to wake you up for school each morning or the call of a friend (possibly) to remind you that you have a test or homework. The thing is you’re getting older and you have to get used to the idea of living a life that is no longer on your parent’s terms but based on your own choices that you make. Sure you can stay up till 4 a.m. but if you have a class at 8 a.m. will you be regretting your all-nighter, sleep-in and/or ultimately miss your class and regret it when you realize you missed out on vital information or an important assignment.
It’s the decisions you make today that will have a profound effect on your tomorrow. As long as you remember that you will never forget that your main goal in college is to walk across that stage with a diploma and big smile proclaiming your achievements for all to see.
Hi everyone. I hope all is well with you. Things are good here in Daytona Beach. The weather has been in the 80’s and the town has been bustling with the race events and seasonal tourism. This is really my favorite time of year. As I have mentioned before, it is a nice change from the usual slow-pace that Daytona Beach is most of the year. If you plan to attend the Accepted Students day or visit the campus this spring, you will be able to see what I am talking about.
have been involved at Daytona Beach International Airport working in the Operations department as a shadow, basically. However, a few weeks ago, I was offered a part-time position as a “special worker” in the Operations department and, of course, accepted. I was then airport ID-badged and put to work. I started the week of the Daytona 500 race, the busiest time of year at the airport, so it was exciting to say the least.
I do want to say first, though, that I was off from work on Saturday and was able to attend the Nationwide Series NASCAR race with my friend Justin. It was great and we had a lot of fun watching. I remember last year watching the Daytona 500 and being freezing. This year it was the complete opposite—it was about 80 degrees and sunny!
These airplanes are absolutely huge and, because only some taxiways at the airport can handle the immense weight of the aircraft, it actually had to use its reverse thrusters to back itself up off the runway and onto the taxiway it parked on. What an incredible sight.Once it landed, it was a huge process to unload all of the suitcases, trucks, and carts. Then, it took about 4 hours to pump in the almost 100,000 gallons worth of fuel that the aircraft needed, actually depleting the stock of jet fuel the FBO had in their fuel farm. Unbelievable. The same process occurred when the aircraft came back after the race to load back up, plus an additional Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft that the Air Force flew in for the team.
The Thunderbirds are neat not only to watch in the sky but also on the ground because of the elegance of everything they do. Everything must be perfect and smooth, so even tasks like removing the chocks from the gear or lowering the canopy are done in sync and at a running-type pace.
The two air carriers here, Delta and US Airways, both increased their aircraft capacity for the race week, meaning Boeing 757-200’s flying in for Delta and a mix of Airbus A319, A320 and Boeing 737-400 aircraft for US Airways. One night, the terminal saw 3 757’s and 2 737’s parked there overnight, a rarity here.
This time of year at school is also the time of year that housing decisions must be made for the following academic year. Freshman, as you likely know, are required to live on campus. For upper classmen though, the decision must be made as to whether you will live on campus or off campus, and it really is a tough decision. I decided last year that I would live on campus for two of the four years, simply because I think that when you are new to the college thing it is better to be more directly involved on campus. Next year, however, my roommate and I were lucky to find a really nice, new apartment in a town just south of Daytona called Port Orange. While I do not love the fact that I will have to drive to campus for classes every day, it is a great apartment and I think we will enjoy it a lot.
I may also have mentioned before that my parents recently purchased a house down in Southern Florida. This is great for them and something they have wanted to do for a long time, and I will be able to see them a little more often now. This past weekend, I went down there as they were beginning to purchase furniture, etc. We had a great weekend and it was the first time my whole family had been together since I came back to school in January. My uncle also came down so we really had a good time. The weather was perfect, mid 80’s and sunny the whole time. I am looking forward to going down there again in a few weeks.Classes and everything are going well. This semester’s workload hasn’t picked up to the intensity of last semester yet, but I continue to work at managing my work so that I don’t get slammed with a huge amount all at once.
I know that this time of year is difficult if you are considering different schools and trying to weigh your options. Please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you might have at all in making these decisions. I am here to help and enjoy hearing from my readers. My e-mail address again is 
We all chipped in and grilled burgers, hot dogs, and then after we played soccer and volleyball. To make it even better we decided to head to the beach. I had to rub it in my friends’ faces. While they were up north dealing with snow and cold, we were sunbathing and relaxing at the beach. During the day, we totally forgot that it was only February!
We could feel the ground shake and the deep roaring of the rocket. It was a surreal experience and so glad I was able to see it a bit closer than school. If you are in class during the launch, most teachers let you out to see it and some even take their classes up on the roof of the College of Aviation to see it. There only two more Shuttle launches April 19th and June 28th. Accepted Students Sneak Preview is April 16th so if you are able to come down, which I highly recommend, see if you are able to stay a couple extra days so you can see it. It is so much more amazing than watching it on a tv, even a high-definition 56 inch version.
A final subject is the Daytona 500. Although I didn’t go to the race, its presence was known. You could hear the race from anywhere on campus and could see the smoke from the tires burning raging from the track. I’m not a NASCAR fan but there was one benefit to the race and that was the fact that there were so many planes flying in and out of Daytona. The day of the race, there were so many planes landing that the airport decided to park the planes on the alternate runway. I’ve never seen so many private jets and charter 737s in my life. I also loved how Delta began flying 757s into Daytona because of the known increasing traffic around this spring break period. It’s always great to see a variety of planes taking off right in front of you as you prepare for taxi. This coming week I will begin flying my cross-countries, which are flights that are more than 50 nautical miles. So that means I will most likely fly to Gainesville or Melbourne for my first trip on Wednesday. Hope you dealing with cold weather up there, northerners. Over and out.
Once we had the airport in sight and contacted Tower, we entered the traffic pattern. We did 3 touch-n-go’s, which are when we land and then take off right afterwards (hence the term touch-n-go). Once we did a couple of those, just to confirm that I make good landings, we asked for a full stop landing and then taxied over to the ramp. She signed my flight certificate endorsing me to fly solo. She then went over and sat and I started up my might Cessna 172S and taxied over to the runway. I performed my before take-off “run-up” and my before take-off checklists. After my final items, and clearance from tower, I made my way on to the runway and added full power. Once I was moving, checked my instruments, “Engine instruments in the green”, checked my airspeed, “airspeed alive”, and at 55kts or about 64mph I called out “Vr, Rotate” and pulled back on the yoke and I took off. It was seriously one of the most amazing feelings I’ve had. Having being stuck on landings and failing to past my check ride, this was awesome. I was supposed to solo around December 10th or so, but it finally arrived. Once I reached about 100ft or so below traffic pattern altitude, I turned crosswind (perpendicular to the runway after takeoff). I then reached traffic pattern altitude and then turned downwind, flying parallel to the runway. I glanced out of my window and caught sight of my instructor on the ground. I cannot express how exhilarating this experience was and how liberating it is. You are so used to looking to your right and seeing another person there. To know that you are the only person in this aircraft at 1000ft is one of the best feelings in the world and probably since school started and I took off for the very first time on my discovery flight. I can look back and see how much progress I’ve made and although I’ve had my ups and downs, this experience tops it all.
If you’ve read my journals up to this point, you’ve definitely heard about my downs and how disappointed you feel sometimes, but in all honestly, those are in the past and I barely remember them. I highly encourage you to check out my video where I’ll show some footage and pictures of my solo and talk about it a bit more. (
Small note is that my friend is coming down on Tuesday morning to visit for a week and I am so excited for him to get down here. We met through mutual friends and chatted for a bit but then lately we started talking more and more and realized that we get along extremely well, so I invited him down for a week. Other than that, Embry-Riddle is still exceeding my expectations. Also, the Accepted Students event is April 16th and I highly encourage you to come because I came last year and it seriously was an awesome time to finally meet the people I will be having classes with and the people that I saw on Facebook but yet to meet in person. Here’s the link if you would like to register (
February already? Hard to believe that in less than one month, I’ll be heading home for Spring Break! I know I know…why go home when you are in spring break central, right? To be honest, the beach is not exactly my favorite thing. Plus I love San Francisco! The first exams of the semester are coming up this week. Math, physics, and two papers due on Friday. Goodness…sometimes I wish I wasn’t in the honors program (for the essays). Turns out I also have to take Calculus 3 honors next semester too! I suppose it will all pay off in the end (hopefully).
Sunday was just my homework day, as was the rest of the week. I finished all the activities on my drafting workbook, much to my surprise. I think I have found a new love for drafting. It’s so much fun! We also started on the program CATIA, which allows us to make 3D representations of objects/concepts. For our class, we have another textbook which contains a series of tutorials for the program. I wonder how long until I finish that…
SPEEDWAY—Yesterday also marked day one of speed weeks, with the Budweiser Shootout at the Race Track. I can officially say Daytona has been invaded by NASCARNation! I have never seen so many people gather around that road since I’ve been here. There’s never any traffic and suddenly, BOOM ! It took me a good 20 minutes to get to Best Buy! Oh, and did I mention parking around the area was well over the $40 mark? Thank goodness the shops offer shopper passes (good for two hours)…because goodness that is too much! I can’t possibly imagine how crowded it will be for the Daytona 500…at least Campus Safety does a very good job at keeping danger at bay! Still, better be safe than sorry—so you won’t see me out and about at night-time. What was really surprising, however, is that you can’t hear these races from campus, like for the Rolex24, which kept me up all night. Let’s just hope this keeps up for the rest of the month…
Hello all! It has been an insanely busy (but interesting nevertheless) few weeks! The life of an engineer is really getting to some people. It is not easy to make it through it. I’ve already lost on hours and days of sleep, but it will all be worth it (I hope). So much has happened over these last two weeks it’s unbelievable to think that it’s only been one month since I was home!
ld their annual kite-flying event/picnic. Because my roommate is part of the club, she invited me to tag along. I must admit I’m not a big fan of Indian food, but I made some great new friends while still bonding with old ones. It really put our aerodynamics lessons to work! I learned the hard way. After having punched a hole through my kite, I ended up attacking people with my new weapon—it kept spinning in circles out of control!!
This past Thursday (I believe…), we held our welcome back dinner for the FIRST mentor program (Female Initiative Reaching Success Together), hosted by the Women’s center. The program pairs up upperclassmen with freshman students. It’s especially great, since our mentors can advise us who not to take as a professor (but shh….nobody needs to know that). Cindy Oakley-Paulik, the director of the Diversity Center, filled us into this semester’s activities, which includes a trip to the Space Center for an up-close tour of the facilities! Oh, and did I mention that the person who attends the most events and has the highest GPA gets a $1,200 scholarship…?
However, things did end on a high note! Girl’s weekend on Sunday! My roommate, and 3 of my other friends (Sam, Mary and Jess) went shopping in Orlando. We even saw a Justin Bieber look-alike (we think), and got lost on the way to the mall because we were trying to follow him. A lot of silly fun, but it’s what we do best! It was a very nice change from the constant testosterone overdose we receive at Riddle…
We actually experienced our first tornado warning of 2011 the other day. Severe storms rolled across Central Florida and a tornado watch was issued for the county. A tornado warning was then issued for about an hour when a huge line of storms came right across the area. Supposedly, there was a reported funnel cloud about 5-10 minutes away from campus. The campus alarm, called Code Red, was turned on and called everyone who is signed up for the system, which I recommend all you do when you come to campus, and alerted them of the warning. Alarms throughout the campus rang and campus safety sprawled out making sure everyone seek shelter immediately. Of course we still had our blinds open, pointing our cameras out. Heavy rain followed the sky turning an eerie orange color. No damage was reported and – call me crazy – but I love bad weather like that. I love sunshine but every now and then I like a little dramatic change. Speaking of change, I am slightly frustrated with Mother Nature at the moment. As soon as I move to Florida, all the hurricanes disappear and hometown, up north in Maryland, gets hit with numerous winter storms and constant snow.
Anyways, the Rolex 24 race, which is a race where drivers have to endure 24 hours of racing, was this past weekend. Many of my friends said that they couldn’t sleep because of the constant revving of the engines. Thankfully, I was able to. As I mentioned, classes have been going great. My humanities class, I have to watch the pilot episode of LOST for homework, which I never thought I would have to do. The class is called HU145 (Science Fi Heroes and Modern Monsters) and we talk about, not surprisingly, Heroes, Monsters, and Villains.
Aviation Weather (WX301) is going pretty good and so is my Instrument class (AS221). I seem to be really enjoying Flight Physiology (AS357), which is a course required for Aeronautical Science majors, and you are required to be a sophomore to take it. I am a freshman but because of those AP classes I took in High School I am considered a sophomore, so again, I highly recommend taking those upper level college classes in high school if they are offered. In the class you learn about how our body changes and works when we fly. At the moment, we are learning about the anatomy, which you need to know before you learn about how the body changes during flight, so we are learning about the different systems in the body like the digestive and circulatory system. The class also provides an opportunity for you to experience the effects of hypoxia, which is the lack of oxygen in the body, when you go inside a room where instead of actually sucking the oxygen out of the air, they simply replace it with nitrogen, which makes up a majority of the atmosphere anyways.