Let’s pretend I had this post written 2 weeks ago 😉

It’s been a super long time since I last wrote a blog post. That isn’t to say that I haven’t had time to…it just never feels like the right time. In my last post, I wrote about most of my Christmas Break. One of the few things I left out was seeing Avatar, twice (which still wasn’t enough), once in regular 3D and then the next day in IMAX 3D. Needless to say, I’m obsessed with the movie. I even found a 30 page book on the Navi language, including Phonology and grammar rules. It’s amazing to me that someone spent years of research and development to create a language for a movie! I guess it makes sense once you’ve seen the credits roll by twice; I’m pretty sure there’s several thousand names. I later found out that Avatar is literally the movie Pocahontas with different names and some insanely good graphics. Here’s a link to the plot duplication, ahem…coincidence: http://bit.ly/7Yb7TS.

I also went to the San Diego International Auto Show over the break. I think I’ve gone every year for the past four or so years, and there’s always a surprising amount of change every year. Some cool feature cars were ones with solar panel roofs, the same Lamborghini’s that never need to change because they’re just that awesome, and the indoor jeep track was neat. It’s entertaining to watch people freak out when the car they’re driving is balancing on 3 wheels on a 45 degree left-right slope. They also had a section with about 20 Camaros covering over a 40 year span. One of my favorite “vehicles” was an off-road wheelchair with…tank tread! I’ll try to write another post in the next couple days to cover our amazing snow days.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Is an explanation needed?

Off-Road Tread Wheelchair

I have been feeling really low for a week now. I think I got the flu initially. I had high temperatures and head-splitting headaches. To worsen it, it happened during the snow days. We got two of them last week on Thursday and Friday, thus a four day weekend as well. Except Dave, everyone at the house went to Flagstaff on Thu. The weather was so bad; they couldn’t come back till Saturday.

All that time, I was taking Tylenol, Thermaflu, Ibuprofin and a lot of fluids. I got done with a 24 pack Gatorade in 3 days. It was bad. L I went to the healthness center after four days of torture and self care. The doctor said I am on the way to getting better, so things should be fine in a day or two. Yeah, right. For two days, I am not able to eat anything. Nothing stays down. Hopefully, some more self care should solve it in a day or two.

To add to the pain, there was a structures quiz and HW. I managed to get the online quiz right but I was in no way capable of completing that HW. I bombed it real bad. I went to the Optimization class and found that the homework is postponded!!! What? There was homework? So, now I need to get done an upper level math course HW in a day. That is going to be great fun to watch.

Anyways, being sick alone taught me some things.

Real friends are very few.

They will help you when you need it, not when you tell them.

Don’t take medicines when the stomach is empty (I didn’t know that!).

Sometimes you just need to rest.

It made me think some of my long term goals and I have decided to graduate in 7 semesters! That is a whole semester of savings. However, I will also miss Riddle sooner L L

Let’s hope for the best! God bless you all!!

Last semester was really busy. So I couldn’t right a lot. Anyways, this is what happened last semester in short: Lots of studies. I was taking the Gauntlet.

Here at ERAU, we, Aerospace Engineers lovingly ( not! he he) call the combination of the three classes : Fluid Mechanics, Solid Mechanics and Dynamics as the Gauntlet. These are the first engineering course in which you use math and every other skill needed for good engineering. It is the first step towards taking higher level classes.

Things I learned:

1. Gauntlet is manageable. It is actually pretty much up to you. Don’t listen to people worrying about it, just hear it and forget.

2. You will have to sacrifice a lot of things like watching TV all weekend long or playing pool at the Union for long times. You know what takes the most time out of your day. Change it and you will be fine.

3. For every hour spend in class,  expect to spend two hours outside of class. That is what most of our professors told us. It is definitely true. So, that is like a max. of 36 hours a week and a week has 168 hours.

4. You will fail the course if you pile up the homework. These courses are homework intensive so manage time accordingly and you will see that you will be cruising through with ease

5. You don’t need to be a math genius to ace these classes, just don’t hate math. Solidfy your trig and calculus, and you will be doing just fine.

6. Keep up the spirit. Probably, it would be best if you attempt all questions yourself and then, have a study group to confirm answers and address problems and thus help each other as well.

Snow day number TWO!!  Despite having the heavy rains and wind the day before, the snow was still covering the ground when I woke up on Friday.  SNOW DAY AGAIN!  HOORAY FOR PRECIPITATION!! 

Snow at ERAU.

Actually, there is snow everywhere right now!  At home in Pinetop, AZ, there is (from what I’ve heard) about four FEET of snow, and they had school cancelled the whole week.  Apparently the brand new junior high got flooded due to so much snow.  I don’t know what my little sister is going to do for school!  It’s like a ghost town there… not even the businesses are open right now.  From Facebook, I got pictures from my friend at home and my friend in Flagstaff, AZ.

My friend Jessica Baker’s backyard in Pinetop!

Needless to say, I think they got WAY more snow than we did!

Here’s my friend Robin Myrick’s car in Flagstaff…

Can you see it?? Haha!

So that is Friday, January 22, 2010 in terms of snow!  Everyone, STAY WARM!

“…but the fire is so delightful!  And since we’ve no place to go, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!”

Well, we got our first snowfall on Thursday, and it turned out to be a SNOW DAY!  The whole state is COVERED in snow, and we’re all in a state of emergency due to flooding, tornado warnings, and severe road conditions!  And I came here thinking that this would be a mostly dry climate (and apparently, so did all my friends from all different states!).  Pssh.

The snow day started off for Hall 1 at one thirty in the morning.  Someone had set off the fire alarm, and so our whole hall got to see the first snow.  For half an hour.  It was freeeeezing.  Anyway, people were having snowball fights in pajamas and taking pictures while security had to call the fire truck because, from what I could tell, they couldn’t find the right key.  So that was the morning of the snow day.

This picture was taken at one thirty in the morning.

When I woke up, the snow had multiplied by three!  I called the Weather Emergency Hotline for ERAU, and…. OFFICIAL FIRST SNOW DAY!! 

Before…

AFTER!!!

A couple of my friends and I ate at Chartwell’s then decided to build a snowman in the parking lot.  His name is…er, WAS,… Frosty!  And his dog’s name was Fido.  I know…. so original huh?

Fido wasn’t born yet in this picture.  He came later. 🙂

It rained heavily for the rest of the day, and it washed away ALL of the snow!  So that night, a few of my other friends and I decided to be brave (or stupid) and go bowling!  However, the bowling alleys were smarter than we were, and they were closed for the night.  So we went to the Harkins in Prescott Valley to see Avatar in 3D!  I definitely recommend it, by the way.  We drove safely home, though, even though it was raining like crazy.

We thought we were pretty safe in saying that we’d have school the next day, because all the snow was gone.  But the next day…….

“Oh the weather outside is frightful…”  Haha!

Well, it’s time to start school again…that means homework! 🙁  Which I got homework from every class one the first day! But I’m not complaining too much right now because I only have school Tuesdays and Thursdays. I also only have 4 classes this term instead of 5, like last term. I have Advanced computers, where we are learning how to use Dream-Weaver and how to create websites. Then I have Psychology 101, which is my favorite class! I took Psychology in high school and anatomy, so they went hand-in-hand, but I loved them so much that I thought about getting into psychology or biology. So for now I am taking the first level of psychology, but I want to take the advanced course to. I am thinking about minoring in it. 🙂 Next, I have humanities. I thought I was going to be doing the Beatles theme, but our teacher decided to try something new for the first time, and only on our section!!! Of course I get bad luck like that!!!! My last class is only on Tuesdays, it’s Public Administration with Sabotta. It seems pretty confusing so far, but I know she is very helpful, so I am not worried anymore. Yeah, so that’s my schedule. Sounds simple enough, but I went through a lot of hassle to get this schedule!

I originally was going to take an astronomy class, and I was scheduled for it, and it sadly overlapped Macroeconomics, which is another class I really wanted to take, so I could not take it this term. I have always loved astronomy and wanted to be an astronaut ever since I was little, but my eyesight will stop me from getting into that field, which is why I want to become a pilot and hopefully a manager at an airport someday. Anyways, at the beginning of this year I saw that ERAU messed up with the Astronomy time and it ended up being only on Thursdays and late at night. (Makes sense that it’s at night, but since it showed 8am when I was signing for classes, I could not take Macro) If that wasn’t enough to damper my day, I got an e-mail from the astronomy teacher saying I cannot take his class since I didn’t have the prerequisite Physics class. So, now I was stuck with only 3 classes…Psych, Humanities, and Computers- and I need to be full time (12 credits) for my scholarships, so I freaked out. Well Diane Kelm helped me out within a day and got me into Public Administration, so now everything is settled! 🙂  And I get my excess money from my scholarships on Friday, so I am real happy about that! I have so many different expenses I need to take care of. Well, I enjoy my classes, even though I have homework every time I go. lol. But I guess it could be worse, right? Hope everyone else is doing okay now that we are all back. It always sucks to have to leave vacation, but I’m getting back into the swing of everything. Take care everyone and careful out there, everything is slippery!

Wow, I must say it took a lot of initiative to even get on here during my time off. lol. I have been so busy, so anytime there is free time is usually means complete relaxation! I hope everyone had been having an amazing break, I know mine is going pretty well.

There is so much to catch up with. Let’s start from final exam days… I studied very hard for each class and I had three exams on a Saturday and then my last exam was the following Monday, so I started break early! And I had my other exam just on the last day of class since our teacher was very cool. 🙂   I ended up getting 3 A’s and 2 B’s. I received an A in speech, Business 201, and Computers. A B in Microeconomics and Business 102. I ended up getting a 3.6 GPA and making Dean’s List 😀 I was so happy and my grandmother was estatic!!! (My grandma has taken care of me since I was too, so she is like my mother).

After finals, I went down to Phoenix area to my Boyfriend’s and his family’s house. We hung around a lot out here, but the week of Christmas we took a road trip to California to see all of my friends (and now Wyatt’s friends) and to spend time with my family and my Grandma. We hung out in Palm Springs area with my friend Philip. We spent the night there for two nights and both days were packed with get together and a birthday party. It worked out great because we ended up seeing almost all of my friends! Since my grandmother moved the beginning of December we had to drive an hour north- to Fontana, to see her new house where she now lives with my uncle and his wife. They have a beautiful two-story house and they live in a nice neighborhood. My grandma is very happy that all her favorite stores are only about 10 minutes away from her. We stayed one night at her house and just visited with her. My sister stopped by and got Wyatt a blockbuster gift card and payed for my phone bill. (We have a plan together) Then my grandma and uncle gave us some money. We ended up leaving late Christmas eve in order to get back to Arizona for Christmas with Wyatt’s family.

Christmas morning consisted of gifts, of course. I got $100 American Express Gift Certificate, Penguin car seat, a new outfit, and season of Supernatural. I had a lot of fun and I loved my gifts. Then later we went to christmas party and had a gift exchange. (draw numbers and can either steal a gift of open a new one) I ended up getting a pretty candle set! I also got a lot of candy, but I gave that to my boyfriend since I’m trying to lose weight. lol. There was a lot of food because we all did a pot luck. It was delicious! After the party, we went home and relaxed.

The next week we just hung out with some of Wyatt’s friends and play games, then we came up to Prescott for a weekend so I could get my mail and enjoy some colder weather. 🙂 For New Year’s, we ended up not really doing anything, so that kind of sucked. The rest of the vacation was just relaxing and having no homework! So everything went pretty well. Hope all others breaks were great too!

Wow… second semester is here already!  It’s weird having breaks in between classes this semester, because last semester I had four classes a day twice a week.  Now I have a three hour break until my Business Statistics class!  Perfect time to squeeze in a blog. 🙂

My winter break was fabulous!  (And unfortunately, I can’t seem to get my Polar Express pictures off of my email right, so I can’t post those.)  Christmas Eve was spent with my Grandma Jo (my dad’s mom) in Mesa, AZ.  It was so much fun to see all of my cousins and aunts and uncles, and of course, my grandma!  Her apartment was decorated to the “T” and it was just the thing to keep the Christmas spirit flowing.  We opened presents we gave to each other, ate popcorn from the huge cylinder tins (Christmas tradition…my cousin Kreston and I were the only ones eating the cheese ones!), and ate tons of food!  It was awesome!  Later that night, my family and I drove back to Coolidge to spend the night and Christmas with my MOM’s parents.  We listened to Sirius Radio, and the Bing Crosby Christmas Eve show was on the radio!  It was wholesomely funny, and we loved it.

Christmas Day was so much fun.  My siblings and I forgot our stockings, so we used Wal-Mart sacks to stuff (hehe) and we got candy, clothes, and … MOVIES!  I brought all of them to ERAU with me, actually!  But poor Landon had his wisdom teeth taken out a few days before, and he had FOUR dry sockets.  The only time he smiled on Christmas was when my Grandma gave him a huge blanket she’d made for him.  And then he fell asleep on it for the rest of the day!

He felt better after he found out that Dad got a Wii Fit for Christmas!  Here we are doin’ our thing at our house a few days after Christmas.

The Christmas party at my Grandpa Gene’s house was so much fun too!  On the 26, my family (minus Landon and my mom, who stayed with him) went back to Snowflake to hang out with them.  Lots of cousins, food, and sledding took place, and it was just too fun!  I love everybody!

And here’s Landon trying to juggle.  It doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but I thought it was a cool picture!

The rest of the break was just a blur of family and friends, dances, game nights, and movie nights.  It was kind of sad to come back to Prescott after such a long time of being with my family, but with all the classes I’m taking this semester, I doubt I’ll have any time to worry too much about it!  Eighteen credits, bring it on!

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.  Some come from ahead and some come from behind.  But I’ve bought a big bat.  I’m all ready you see.  Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

-Dr. Seuss

Wow! it has been a loonnngggg time since I last wrote a post. I guess I’ll start off where I left off 4 weeks ago. On Monday of finals week, we had a crazy storm; 80 mile/hour winds and sleet/snow. That was the one night that we had snow, which started falling around midnight. Naturally, all of the California kids ran outside (including myself) while anyone from elsewhere in the country sat inside and laughed at the amount of joy that came from…snow. We were outside from 12:30am until about 3:00am, which probably wasn’t the best thing to do on the first day we had finals. Here are a couple pictures:

Unfortunately, I was stuck at school 3 days after my last final since my flight was Saturday. I was able to hang out with the few people who were there and Saturday rolled around soon enough. The flight started well; we took off from Prescott on time and, after flying for 20 minutes made a stop in Flagstaff to pick people up. That’s where things started going awry. After we loaded our extra passengers, the pilots soon realized that with the small amount of ice that had built up while we were there (there was a lot of snow in Flagstaff) was making the plane overweight. After recalculating the weight and balance sheet, the captain decided that we would need another thousand gallons of fuel. After the adjustment was made, the plane was again too heavy, so we needed to ditch nine passengers. After nine reluctant people stepped off the plane for the hotel, travel, and extra $300 bonus, the plane was de-iced and we were on our way. At that point, our flight had been delayed by a couple hours and I missed two of the commuter flights from LA to San Diego. I was lucky enough to make the last commuter flight home and arrived in San Diego two an half hours late, but there none the less.

Last week, I didn’t do too much except visit my high school and hang out with friends here in San Diego. The few productive things I’ve done here so far include ordering a replacement shell for my Macbook Pro, having my Mac repaired, ordering a replacement remote, and…well, I guess playing PS2 doesn’t really count but I’m throwing it out there. Since Saturday, however, it’s been pretty busy. Our church does a Christmas show each year and we go all out. We already have about 10 moving/color changing lights, but we rented about 8 more of those and another 10 LED fixtures. I’ve operated a spot light for every show since they started doing it 5 or 6 years ago. This year we had rehearsal Saturday, shows on Sunday, one show each yesterday and today, and then three tomorrow since it’s Christmas Eve. I took a few photos with my phone so far, and here are few:

Wow… three days until Christmas!!  Time sure flies when you’re surrounded by family and and old friends!  After finals, I left JUST before the storm hit Prescott (thank goodness I didn’t get stuck in that!) because my last final was on Monday the seventh.  I couldn’t go home however… there was too much snow on the road in my hometown of Pinetop, AZ.  So I went to Coolidge to hang with my grandpa for a few days while the storm died down.  I am VERY grateful that I went there instead of home; my family at home didn’t have power for the three days I was in Coolidge!  The storm eventually died down to the point that I could take my Saturn wagon home without the fear of sliding off the road, and so I am home!  Yay! 

I have had a blast since I’ve been home.  My friend and I were able to go on the actual Polar Express Train in Williams, AZ, which really isn’t that far from Prescott.  It was SO much fun!  We went on a train ride, got cookies and hot chocolate, saw Santa (I know!), and both got bells that to my great relief we could hear!  Haha!  If that didn’t put me in the Christmas spirit, I don’t know what would!  Williams is a very cute town as well.  The train that we rode on was built in the 1930’s, and the train station was lit up with lights EVERYWHERE.  I’d never been to a train station before so the experience was great!  There were lights all over the town, reflecting even more in the snow.  It was just like Christmas in the storybooks!

 I don’t have the pictures yet, but I wanted to say how awesome it was, and I’ll post pictures in my next blog. 🙂

I went to my church Christmas party with my family too, which was so fun because I got to see some of my friends from high school.  We talked and caught up with each other and we all had a blast.  There was lots of food and desserts and the original Christmas nativity play put on by the youth of our church.  It was strange not being actually IN it this year… THAT definitely made me feel old!  It was a wonderful evening that put everyone in the Christmas spirit.

My dad, Landon, Lexie, Levi and I all went to see The Christmas Carol, in 3D, and it was a really good movie.  The 3D effects were amazing, and the story itself is SO accurate to the original book by Charles Dickens that it is just amazing.  I definitely was in the Christmas spirit already, but this movie helped remind me of the true meaning of Christmas that I had somewhat forgotten.  Levi didn’t like it because it was scary, but I thought it was a good movie!!

It has been fun hanging out with my siblings again.  I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I came home.  We have done so much stuff together.  My favorite is going to The Princess and the Frog movie… three times!  I LOVE that movie!  It’s Disney at its old-school best, and since I’m a diehard Disney fan anyway, I just can’t get my hands off it!

New favorite movie.  End of story.

So in a nutshell, my break is going great, and I hope all of your breaks are going great as well!  So Merry Christmas everyone!