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!

It’s been months since I have had much time to get back into my blogs.  College is wonderful for showing you what you need to learn and what skills to master for the real world.  So far, I have realized that I need much better time management skills.  I need to learn that I can waste energy focusing on things that are not important in the immediate scheme of things.  After getting all settled in at home and saying hi to everyone I left here in Southern California, I am ready to blog once more!

So many things have happened since September.  I audited a class, I made it into a Fraternity, I grew a massive beard, etc.  All of this is yet to come  🙂  Let’s start with the audited class.  Back in the middle of October, both my classes and my pledging period were in full motion.  It was then that I really saw how bad my time management skills were.  I was beginning to lose precious hours of sleep to stay up and to my stockpile of homework (not the Fraternity’s fault, mine for not using my time wisely) until one day in class, my Microeconomics teacher offered the class a solution: auditing courses.  I had honestly never heard of this option before, but it sounded like an angel had just saved me from failing a course.  Auditing, for those of you who don’t know, is when you opt to take the course, but get no credit for it.  It is not the same as dropping the course, however, because you still go to class and listen/take notes (or whatever you do in class).  I chose to take the credit loss and audit my Microeconomics class, because it was my lowest grade at the time.  This choice was difficult at first, because I did not want everyone to think I was a quitter and because I was afraid I would think about myself as a quitter, but I can honestly look back now and say it was one of the wisest decisions I made for my classes this semester.  I was able to almost every class of the semester, so I have already gathered some knowledge about the course.  Now, all I have to do is take it again and I will begin to master the course content this second time around.  If I can make a suggestion to every student who just has a schedule that is too full, because we all overload ourselves sometimes, auditing is a great way to “preview” a course if you honestly want to take it, but simply don’t have the time yet for the entire class’ workload.

After auditing, my next big thing was Sigma Pi.  After eight weeks of devotion, I was finally initiated into this amazing brotherhood that I am sure will be one of the greatest decisions of my life.  My brothers have become my extended family since I have left home for Embry-Riddle.  I will always be able to catch up with them and have a great time, even if we have not spoken in years.  To everyone who has the time and willpower, find a brotherhood or sisterhood.  It will change your life for the better.

After becoming a brother of Sigma Pi, I was a little less restricted on time.  This made it easier to make up some of the work I had fallen behind on.  Also, by this time it was November.  I have never heard of this tradition before, but apparently it was “No Shave November”.  I decided that this was a great idea, and instead of shaving, I just began to watch in awe as my face transformed into something new and unusual to me.  By the time Thanksgiving rolled around at the end of the month, my beard was in full bloom.  It was funny watching people’s reactions when they saw me looking so different from what they remembered.

So now we arrive at Thanksgiving day.  Sleep in till about 2 p.m., wake up and rush to get ready because we are supposed to eat dinner at 4 p.m.  For a long time, my family has had two Thanksgivings, one at our house with my mom’s family and one at my Aunt and Uncle’s house across town with my dad’s family.  This year, we only went to eat with my dad’s side of the family, because my mom’s family couldn’t make it.  We were still there before dinner started, so my mom took a few pictures.

After socializing and finishing up the food preparations, it was time to feast!  I ate and ate and ate until I pretty much passed out on the couch in the living room. I woke up twice, once to say goodbye to some of my family that was leaving, and once to leave with my family.  My mom chose to take a picture of my while I was sleeping, but I’m not sure when…

After Thanksgiving, it was time to shave the beast.  November had come to an end and I was more than happy to get rid of my beard.  I was so excited, in fact, that I shaved Thanksgiving night.  Due to the fact that my beard was almost an inch long, I had to use hair clippers to shave it off.

This would be my hair after it left my face haha.  I also got a haircut, since I hadn’t done that in over a month as well.  If that had been in the dustpan as well, it would have been completely full!

The next major speedbump I hit came on Sunday, when I was coming back to school to finish up the semester.  I had a flight on Great Lakes straight into Prescott.  The only problem was this: I was on an overbooked flight and guess who the last passenger to check in was? Yup, you got it right, I was the 20th person on a 19 seat flight.  After sitting around for over an hour waiting to figure out if I could get on another flight, I got put on a flight to Phoenix through Continental Airlines.  Instead of being back at school at around 1 p.m. I arrived in phoenix at 2:40-ish and had a 2 hour drive back to Prescott.  After my long day, I went back to my room and crashed for the night.

After making it through Thanksgiving, it was a smooth two weeks until the semester was finally through: NOT!  In the last two weeks of the semester, I was busy cramming for finals and doing homework.  I didn’t see some of my best friends for days at a time because I was always busy doing something.  Those last two weeks were quite dull and I am sure most of my friends know exactly what I was doing until the snowstorm hit.  I have never been in a storm as violent and hectic as this storm had been.  Lightpoles outside kept going out and turning back on in the wind, which was blowing at about 80 miles per hour according to one of my friends.  I was trying to sleep during the storm, but when it started to snow EVERYONE in my hall and the other halls were running around freaking out at the snow, slamming doors, etc. and I was definately not able to go to sleep…so, I ended up sitting out in the lounge with my friends until it was just me, my roomate, and one other dormie.  When it was about 5:30 a.m., we looked outside and decided it was the perfect time to go out and take some pictures of the snow before anyone messed it up the next morning.  After gearing up in warm clothes, we went outside and got a picture by my new powder coated car.

It was while we were taking pictures that we decided it would be fun to try and ride down the hill in the parking lot in the snow.  We all chose different modes of transportation: snowboard, longboard, and scooter.

We didn’t make it very far before deciding that the only good mode of transportation was the scooter, so we went back to the room and got two more scooters.  We rode down to the library, walked back up to our hall, rode all the way to the student union (best hill by far), walked to AC-1, made snow angels, rode down to the fields and towards the gym, walked up to mingus, and rode back to our hall.  It was one of the best times I have had in years and I will never forget it.

So yeah, that is where I’ve been these past few months.  I hope everyone did great on their finals and congratulations to us all for making it through a semester!  See you all next January!

It has been a busy couple of weeks!  I had to register for classes, get appointments with my academic advisors, and try to figure out what classes I should take.  Thank goodness for volleyball; because I’m an athlete, I got to register for classes before everyone else, even the seniors!  Yeah!  Because of the twelve credits I took this past semester, I’m taking eighteen credits just to catch up!  Next semester is going to be quite fun.

Last weekend, I surprised my little brother by coming home on his ninth birthday!  He’s getting so big!  Levi was so excited to have me be his “birthday present”.  The weekend was really fun, and I got to be a part of the traditional pick-your-own-present-at-Wal*Mart process.  He chose a crayon maker, which melts different crayons together and molds them into new crayons.  So as a result, Levi and I colored all weekend with cool, multi-colored crayons, and therefore had many discussions on whether crayon was pronounced “cray-on” or “crown”.  The sad part is, I’m the one who says “crown”.  It’s how I learned it!  Don’t judge!  Ha.  Just kidding.  You can judge if you want to.  I know it’s pathetic.

On Tuesday night, I started a new tradition.  My suitemate and I went over to Steven’s dorm (yes, Steven Leon, he’s a blogger too!) and watched a new TV series called “V”.  It’s about aliens, and I thought that it would be kinda cheesy, but I’m in love!  Then again, I’ve been in a stage where I’m fascinated by aliens, so I might be a little biased.  Nah.  I’m in love.

My suitemates and I also went to the midnight premiere of New Moon, (yes, I’m one of THOSE people), and had a great time!  We watched Twilight on my laptop while we waited for the movie to start, which was a pretty good idea if I do say so myself!  Everyone else was jealous. 🙂

This past weekend, Anna and I were able to go to Paradise Valley and watch our old high school football team play in the semifinals against Florence, who is my mom’s alma mater high school.  It was kind of funny to think about that!  We went to our friend’s apartment, who lives five minutes away from the school, and saw a few of our other friends from high school who live in the valley now.  It’s interesting looking at the situation from different viewpoints: when I was in high school, I promised I’d never come to anything that had to do with my high school again, but now that I’m out, I go to everything I can!!  I wonder if all my friends who are still in high school think I’m crazy, too.

Well, this weekend is Thanksgiving break, so I get to go home for Turkey Day!  Yay!!  And my nineteenth birthday is on Saturday as well, so it’s just gonna be a great weekend!  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Yeah… my family does NOT look like this at Thanksgiving.  Just FYI.  But it’s all I could find!  Ha!

“I think I’ve discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it.”

-Charles M. Schulz