So I had a great opportunity this past Saturday. That was going to Sunrise Ski Resort in Pine Top, AZ for an awesome day of snowboarding. The really cool part about it was that it was a school planned trip! The Embry-Riddle Student Life department set up this trip by giving offering the students a ride and a lift ticket for only $50 total. This was really nice because one, I didn’t have to do the 4hr drive alone or with just a couple friends and two, it was really fun going up with 45 other ERAU students. We had a group of 7 seven people that stayed together (which I would have never been able to fit 7 in my car so that was nice to have a ride), which was fun because the more people, the merrier a time you’ll have I always say.

I really like how different organizations around campus plan these trips for students. This snowboarding/skiing trip was one of many that many other clubs and all do throughout the school year. This is just one of many ways for students to get their minds off of school and homework for a little while. After all, engineers, pilots, weather majors, and all other students have the right to have a life here at ERAU. The good part about this is that Embry-Riddle will provide those opportunities for you to have a life outside of studying. Never thought a university would do that for you at all. Anyways, snowboarding was a great time. Of course it’s nothing like the CO mountains (where I go and snowboard) but who would have thought that you could snowboard in AZ? Lol.

Well, it’s that time of year again… volleyball spring training!  Fun right?  Well this morning my team and I all went into the wrestling room and did P90X for about an hour.  Let me tell you… I am DEFINITELY going to feel that tomorrow.  We’re not in the Activity Center this week for practice because over Christmas break, a pipe (or pipes) broke and totally messed up our gym floor!  That’s not the only place that got hit with burst pipes… my apartment complex got hit too!  My friend’s pipes (who also lives in the complex) burst as well because Prescott is SOOO COOLLDDD!!  Luckily Lauren and my pipes were intact when we got back, but it hasn’t warmed up any since then!  The other day, it was 8 degrees.  NOT including wind chill.  I thought that my face was going to freeze off, but luckily it didn’t! 🙂

This is how ERAU looked over Christmas.  Luckily it isn’t AS cold now, but it’s pretty dang close!  Photo courtesy of Wynter Schneider Krisha.

On Tuesday, the cold did not stop people from going to the speaker at Embry-Riddle, who gave a speech on the “12 Steps to Diversity.”  I thought that the speaker, Mohammed Bilal, did a fantastic job.  Not only was he on Real World on MTV, his poems/raps were so deep and I loved what he had to say about the world all connecting on a more personal level.  I’m so glad that I braved the cold to listen to his speech.  It was SOO worth it!

Here was the advertisement for the speech.  And yes, there were drinks and cookies provided… oh I love ERAU.

“There is only one success – to spend your life your own way.”

-Christopher Morley

I don’t know if you know but I am a member of the Kappa Phi Chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity at ERAU Prescott. I have been a member for a year now and I got to tell you, its nothing like you would expect. There are so many bad stories associated with being a Greek that quite honestly, it discouraged me joining at first. But once I got to know the people in them, especially the people in Sigma Chi, I realized that being Greek was part of something bigger than just partying and all that. It was a commitment to what your own personal morals and values are as well as the Fraternity’s. I’m really glad I joined becasue I have met people that will be with me forever.

We just finished our Spring 2011 rush period in a successful way. We had cool events like going to Buffalo Wild Wings, Dodgeball, and a Bonfire. We got to meet some really cool people that we hope accept the bid that we are going to give them. Hopefully all of them, six of them, accept. We have pinning tomorrow so we will see who takes it or not. Regardless, whoever accepts, we are going to proudly put them through our pledge process and hopefully initiate this April.

Jan. 21st was my birthday and lets just say that it was way different from last year’s experience. Last year it snowed and we actually had a snow day off from school so we made a nature/adventure video and then went to dinner. It is interesting to think that a whole year has gone by because I distinctly remember losing my pair of cheap gloves at the restaurant. Now this year it wasn’t as extravagant but was still nice, I had a boring day of school but then got to hang out with some of my friends at one of their houses and just celebrated quietly. It was a lot of fun and I hope that next years is even better because it will be my 21st on Jan. 21st!

So lately Prescott has been experiencing some MAJOR cold weather although there is no snow yet so nobody could tell that we are freezing to death up here!  The wind chill itself has to be in the negatives, and this morning for PT I thought we were going to freeze solid while running. We’ve dealt with colder PT days before but this was just ridiculous! The wind is so bitter and just numbs out faces and our fingers, you know that feeling when your hands are so cold you can’t fasten a button or text on your phone, it was 10x times worse than that!  While carrying the heavy water jugs during our squad runs today we discovered that the jugs were leaking. The water got all over those holding the jugs and froze on them within seconds! There was ice coming off our uniforms and we’ve never seen that before. It makes me wonder if the other ROTC companies all over the States are having to do PT same as us. I can tell that the whole country is facing this cold crisis because of how Facebook is blowing up with statuses reflecting the cold weather. At least our cars aren’t stranded and our pipes frozen, I guess those folks in the Midwest have it far worse, but the wind itself is too much for Arizona!

I most definitely am going to have a fantastic semester.  One of the classes that I am super excited about is my Forensics class, with Dr. Robert Baker.  He is the program director for Global Security and Intelligence Studies, and is working on a new track for students in GSIS called Security Operations.  Here is what the Embry-Riddle website says about him: 

“Professor Baker served four decades in law enforcement, corporate security and government security positions and is a expert in aviation security.”

And he’s my teacher.  Awesome!  My first encounter with him was last semester, at the 6th Annual National Security and Intelligence Symposium, where he addressed the audience with a speech on airport security which I thought was very interesting.  Now I get to have a class with him!  A class that is VERY interesting.  So far we’ve learned about fingerprints, their types and how to fingerprint someone.  Last class period, my friend and fellow teammate on the volleyball team Darja and I got to dip each others fingers in ink and actually fingerprint each other.  The ink wouldn’t come off of my hands for about twenty-four hours, but that’s okay!  I learned that I have loops on my fingers, and Darja has whirls.  Those are the most common.  My little brother (who is ten and brilliant) told me BEFORE I even took the class that he had arches, and told me only about 5% of the world’s population has them.  And… he was right.  Of course.  Good job Levi!

I’m pretty sure that Dr. Baker has this exact same picture hanging up in our Forensics room.  Pretty sure.  Then again, fingerprints kinda look the same when you’re just starting to learn about them… Haha.

This is definitely something that I like learning about!  I can’t wait to go to our crime scene during the class and look for fingerprints!  Oh, how I love my school.

“Don’t wait.  The time will never be just right.”

-Napolean Hill

We are already 3 weeks deep into the spring semester! The workload is steadily increasing and classes are gradually getting harder. Last week in Digital Circuits we had our first lab where we learned how to use proto-boards and from there on we constructed a light flashing circuit. It was a great lad except for the fact that we had to figure out almost everything on our own because our professor failed to explain the basics. In EGR 200 we finished our first small project last week and started learning the basics to CATIA. It is a neat program and there is so much to learn about it. Other than school I am currently working on the Embry-Riddle Jet Dragster and have been since my appearance here at Riddle. Over winter break I was fortunate enough to obtain a generous cash and materials donation from Airtech international which will be put towards further developing and expanding the project. We have made great progress in the past couple months, especially when Chris Larsen Owner of Larsen Motorsports came out here last November. This past weekend a couple new members joined for the semester and we will be holding interviews this coming weekend if anybody is still interested. We are currently working towards making a mold that will be used to shape our fiberglass nose cone.  Also with that we will be developing a mold for the jet inlet which we will bake in order to obtain a carbon fiber Inlet. The inlet and the nose cone happen to be our 2 biggest projects as of right now. The Embry-Riddle Jet Dragster is by far one of the most exciting projects on campus and I am proud and fortunate to be part of it.

I am taking my first night class here at ERAU and it actually is not that bad despite the long hours and cold outside coupled with the deserted dark campus. It is SIS320, or Topics in Global Politics, History and Culture with my favorite Dr. Stephanie Trombley. The topic this semester is: GENOCIDE, so although the class might be depressing because it is both a night class and 2 and a half hours long and about genocide, I like it. Today we talked about the Armenian Genocide that occurred in the 1910’s and discussed the fates of the government and collapse of the Ottoman Empire. To me the class went by really quickly and during the break that we had in between the class my friend Lauren and I ran and got some coffee from Outtakes. I don’t know what coffee I got because I’m not really into caffeine, but now I’m wired and my roommate Josh is tired, plus we have PT tomorrow so this isn’t a good mix. Anyway, tomorrow is my birthday and at least I don’t have to take the pt test, or APFT, tomorrow morning because that would be a bad start to the day. I took it on Wednesday with the rest of my platoon and got a score of 292 or something. Considering the unholy amounts of goldfish and Oreos that I consumed over break and the fact that I did not run once during my free time, it is pretty good. My run time was awful for me but at least it was in the maxing category. For the rest of the day today I ran around doing errands and talking to professors and then went to my MSL class. Joe and I fooled around and make a duck with the bills of our hats and later I was talking to one of my friends back home via text. We still have a good work ethic even though it sounds like we were goofing off, even if it was only for a little bit. I’ll put a picture of them up here again just for kicks because it is a good photo too.

sorry its sideways, our duck

So it’s been like 2 weeks since the semester started here at ERAU and I am already tired. I have had so many things to do and my house is still not fixed so it is just getting tiring. Thank god for the people that are letting me stay at their places, seriously, I would have not known what to do without them. Anyways, enough about the downer mood.

Classes are off to a great start. I am only taking 4 of them since they are the only ones required in order for me to graduate from every program I’m doing (AS major and ATM minor). The only classes I have Tuesdays and Thursdays are Air Traffic Management labs which are fun because you get to see flights and “control” them from an ATC perspective rather than inside the cockpit. Another is Personality and Profiling, which we are looking into criminal profiling. I like to think of it like a “Criminal Minds” class so that’s pretty cool. The last class is going to be the most fun I think as it is my Airline Crew operations class, which is the class that we get to “get our feet wet” with big airline part 121 operations. The cool thing is that we get to fly the Airbus A320 full motion Level D Sim at U.S. Airways. This time is time that I believe that we could log into our log books giving us a little bit of an advantage of knowledge over other people. The homework is not bad but then again its homework I want to do because I want to learn more.

I like the way that this semester has started so far, well not counting the house problem. Everything Embry-Riddle however, has been really cool and really fun and I look forward to a good if not great semester.

Christmas break was fantastic.  I loved being able to rest and relax for a change!  I got to see all of my family and friends and I had a great time.  I even got a little George Foreman grill so I could make yummy dinners at my own apartment!  (Last semester’s dinners included, well, frozen dinners.  That is not so this semester though!)  My family and I had a fantastic time hanging together.  Too bad it didn’t snow until New Year’s, but, better late than never!

This semester is going to be tough, but super fun!  I am taking Personality and Profiling with Dr. Bloom at eight a.m.  I have a good feeling about that class.  We start off listening to music that will wake us up, such as Dr. King’s Memphis Soul Stew!  (that was this morning!)  Then we have discussions about really interesting topics.  That class is stuffed!  You’d think that at eight in the morning, there wouldn’t be a lot of people.  WRONG!  There are 60 people in the class, with more trying to register!  It’s insanely packed.

Next I go to Chinese 2, with Yang Laoshi.  It is lots of fun.  This weekend we’re taking a field trip to the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix!  It is going to be a blast.  Then comes U.S. Foreign Policy, then Forensic Science (we get to do fingerprints on Thursday!), then Observing Asian Cultures.  All of these classes are going to be amazing, to say the least.  I also feel more comfortable in my classes, because I know most of the people in them.  That’s the good thing about being a sophomore in the GSIS program… we all take most of the same classes, so you get to make lots of friends and you see them EVERYWHERE.  No joke.  So that is my Spring 2011 semester!  I’ll keep you updated when I think of tips and lessons that I am learning here at ERAU. 🙂

“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.”

-Lloyd Alexander