Name:Spree

Major: Aerospace Engineering

Home: Edison, New Jersey

"Embry-Riddle is a one-of-a-kind school bent on making dreams come true. Since I was young, I would look no where but up and ERAU is filled with like-minded people who literally reach for the stars every day."

Photo Album: virb.com/spree.

March

January 7, 2008

I’m right now in Newark airport, waiting for my flight to Charlotte. I’m catching a connecting flight to Orlando and should be back on campus around 6 o’clock. Phew.

Last time I wrote, I was packing my bags and headed to India for two weeks to celebrate various occasions with my extended family from practically all over the world. I left for India on  the 18th with my 82 year old grandma =] The rest of my family, because of college/work weren’t leaving until two days later. We flew for 9 hours, landed in Frankfurt and waited about a half hour for our flight and sat for another 8 hours to Bangalore. At the end of the 17 hours, I just wanted to walk around, maybe even run because my legs were so bored of sitting for so long. We flew economy with Lufthansa and since it was an international flight, the seats were actually decent, but there wasn’t enough leg room as always. Finally landing in Bangalore was such a relief but SUCH a mess at the same time. The airport was pretty tiny and there were only two international baggage claim carousels and so many flights had landed at the same time and wow was it crazy. It was only me and grandma and me with my big suitcase that I could barely lift and a few of grandmas smaller luggage was too much for me to handle, but I did, so I felt pretty accomplished. We stayed at my aunts house that night and the next. Bangalore was pretty rainy, which sucked =/ but my two younger cousins wanted to go for a walk with me really badly and I didn’t realize why until they ran outside and started jumping in all the puddles. It was real cute and reminded me of when my sis and I used to do that when we were much younger.

It’s great going back to Bangalore and seeing my younger cousins. It’s strange for me to have someone looking up to me. One of my cousins, she’s 11; she sat with me for a half hour and asked me to explain everything in my makeup bag. Kids grow up so fast these days. She had all these questions and it was such a different feeling for me to actually have someone that thinks of me as a kind of role model, because in my eyes, I’m hardly a role model yet. My parents and sis arrived the next day and off we were to Coimbatore (still in South India) for the reunion to begin!

We took a 20 minute flight to Coimbatore and almost missed it. I’m sure we aggravated more than a few passengers on board when the plane was delayed a half hour because of us. We were going to Coimbatore to celebrate my grandpa’s (mom’s side) eightieth birthday. Eighty is a big deal, especially in India. There are special rituals and such that go along with turning eighty and there’s always a big party too! I hadn’t seen some of my cousins on my Mom’s side in years, so it was great meeting everyone again, especially since we’re all close in age to each other. We stayed at a hotel in Coimbatore and in India room service is so cheap, it was amazing. When converted, you could get Iced coffee for a dollar (which was expensive according to Indian standards) and a whole decent gourmet meal for under 5 dollars. It was great! Sis and I ordered room service like crazy, just because if we did the same here, we would’ve spent at least two hundred bucks. Anyways, back to the main reason we were in Coimbatore was the party.

The first day, we got to dress up and be in the presence of a really long puja. Us kids got a little bored in the middle, so we went shopping. We definitely turned way too many heads when we walked on the streets with clothing way too grand for casual shopping. After the puja, the kids put on a show of sorts. A few of grandpa’s brothers spoke about life during the old days, the really old days. There was some singing and dancing and a lot of excitement. We went back to the room and got ready for day two! Day two was a shorter puja and more dancing. My sis and I wore sari’s today! I’ve only worn one, one other time, during my Grandma’s (dad’s side) 80th birthday. Mine was pink and sis’s was blue =] That day ended with a little more shopping and that’s it!

The next day all my mom’s brothers (she has three) families and us went to this place called TopSlip. It’s a hillside community with an elephant safari and other things. It was cool even though we went when most of the elephants were sleeping but we saw a million monkeys! They were practically following us because we had some food in a bag. It was really great watching them so close by. We left TopSlip and went back to the hotel to prepare for the next day!

The next day was Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I had an unusual one of sorts. There wasn’t a tree or holiday tv shows or lights everywhere, but there was a lot of family and a visit to a garment factory! So people in India don’t celebrate Christmas like they do here, so it wasn’t really a big deal. My aunt’s dad took us to this factory that manufactures clothes! I love shopping, so I thought it’d be fun. Dad wanted to show us how painstakingly hard it is just to make one t-shirt. We first went to this manufacturing plant called Jupiter. This factory was cleaner beyond anything I could’ve thought an Indian factory would be. The place was spotless! I felt like I was back home walking through that factory. They were an all inclusive factory so they did everything from making the cloth, printing the design and sewing a shirt up. They were mostly an underwear manufacturing plant, but it was cool to still see the overall process. Then we went to the plant called Prem Group Company (PGC). This visit was my favorite! They served us delicious coffee on bean bag chairs and it reminded me of being back home, which is always a good thing. This plant was the primary supplier to this Swiss brand called Switcher. They also did Calvin Klein and Ferrari among a few others. It was awesome! They showed us the start to finish of a t-shirt. There were assembly lines set up to put the shirts together after everything up to the cutting was done - that part is all automated. They said that there’s nowhere in the world that can automate the actual putting together of the shirt. They inspected each shirt made like it was gonna change the world if there was a mistake, which I thought was pretty good =] overall, the two factory visits were a real eye opener.

New Years was fast approaching and I was counting on my cousin to make sure sis and I had a good New Years. Unfortunately…we got sick =[ really badly sick. Two days before New Years, we went to a restaurant that didn’t suit my sis and I and we got possibly the worst stomach infection in history. I spent New Years hoping I wouldn’t throw up again while feeling sick to my stomach. It really sucked. The mixture of all this traveling coupled with uneasy food really got to us bad. My entire family got sick with colds and stomach viruses, it was terrible! I was leaving for home on the 2nd and, thankfully, by then I was feeling much much better. I was going back by myself which was going to be a bit lonely unfortunately =[ But in Bangalore, I got a free upgrade to Business class! It was awesome. A 9 hour flight in Business class is so much better than in economy. I only got it for half the way though because the flight was booked from Frankfurt to Newark. I had a few hours to spend in Frankfurt and I actually had access to the Business lounge so I called mom. My flight left Bangalore two hours late, so I missed my original connecting flight from Frankfurt to JFK, so when they rebooked my flight, I was landing in Newark! I enjoyed that plane ride a lot, with pretty decent food and everything. Once I finally landed in Newark, my journey wasn’t over yet. My parents didn’t want me staying at home alone so I was gonna go to my Uncles house in Pennsylvania and spend a few days there until dad came back that weekend. I was going to take a bus because everyone was at work, but my friend Kay was on his way to PA and was willing to go a bit out of his way to drop me off. I was so sick on the flight it wasn’t even funny. I had the worst cold imaginable (that’s now almost gone) and I just wanted to crash in bed. He dropped me off at my uncles, which I was incredibly grateful for being so sick and all.

I spent the next four days at my uncles. They’re opening a new tax service office and it was exciting being around a new business. Exciting stuff for sure. Dad came on Saturday to their house and we were going to leave that day, but knowing we would’ve have Indian food for a while, we stayed the extra day. We came back on Sunday and did four loads of laundry. My dad goes to Charlotte, NC for business every week, so he barely gets to be home too. After packing, we thought it would be a good idea to go out for dinner, so we went to that restaurant Ming I’ve mentioned during Thanksgiving. It’s a family favorite, a mix of Indian and Chinese food. He felt bad that I would eat pasta and pizza for the next three months, so we celebrated the both of us actually being home for once. I only got to spend a few hours at home, even though I would’ve loved just two days to wake up in my own bed and make my own coffee and take a shower in my bathroom. The benefits of home =] I didn’t see my mom or sis before I left for the airport today because they’re coming on Wednesday from india.

oh my. Classes are starting!!!!!! They’re starting on Wednesday. This semester is pretty challenging for me. Here’s my classes:

Calc II – Lombardo

Physics II –

EGR 115 – Intro to Computing -Lehr

Technical  Writing – Porter

Honors Seminar – French.

I’m nervous for classes to start. :x My flight's almost here!

I’ve posted a TON of pictures from India, check them out and see how we celebrate an 80th birthday in India =]

Heres a link to pics in India:     http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=xnqk67e.195cv9pm&x=0&y=-ph8xrj  

I couldn’t upload all of them onto my virb, so I asked my cousin for the link to hers! Enjoy!

 + Enjoy your last few months of Senior Year everyone!

December

December 17, 2007

These past two weeks have been busy, busy, busy. I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep this entry short because I’m sitting in about twelve suitcases worth of clothing and stuff (that I have to stuff into two) in my room back home in Jersey!

When I last left you guys, TFO was preparing for our semester event Tropical Holiday, which I think, was a success. The night was a bit chilly but I went into the inflatable boxing ring with one of my friends, who happened to be a guy and I got to punch him all I wanted, it was great.

The night before our event we had planned to paint the rock and the funniest thing happened. We went there close to eleven so it would hopefully not be painted over by morning time, but just after we painted the first side, the sprinklers turned on, it was hilarious. Once I get the pics from that day I’ll post them, we all got wet and the paint started to drip so we placed a plastic bag over the big sprinkler, but that obviously didn’t work. Then I ended up pretty soaked because one of my friends dumped a bag full of freezing water on me thinking it would be funny, lol.

That was that week, Saturday (8th) was my first final, Calc! I spent hours and HOURS studying for it. It was definitely worth the effort though cuz I got an A! WooHoooo.

Then I had a Physics final on Tuesday that I really needed to study for because according to ratemyprofessors.com, it was going to be hard.

Saturday Me, Roomie and Suitemates all took a break from studying for finals and had a chick night. We all wore matching t-shirts that said SMILE! and we watched chick flicks while eating some AMAZING chocolate we bought from this store called the World Market nearby. They have the best variety of Lindt and other foreign chocolate at great prices. It was a fun night.

I spent the rest of the weekend studying for physics. All the physics professors had review sessions for the final which was really helpful, and there were study sessions going on all over the place, it was just a matter of asking someone.

Anyways, during all this, my flight out of Florida changed! I was supposed to leave on that Saturday, but my last final was Tuesday and with this whole India trip, I would only get to spend two days at home, so Mom changed my flight and I left Tuesday, out of Orlando instead of Daytona Beach and now had a stopover in Charlotte, which sucked but it was much better than going home four days later. Charlotte was a cute airport, I did a little bit of shopping for my family and my flight was delayed almost two hours, which sucked so much, but it was still much better than going home on Saturday, so I sucked it up again.

I remember leaving Daytona in a T-shirt and jeans feeling hot and landing in Newark airport wondering why I was idiotic enough to think I wouldn’t need a jacket. The day after I came, there was a snowstorm! Brr, it was cold. Ooh I forgot to mention we did a Secret Santa thing for our floor, it was a lot of fun. I got a bunch of cute bath stuff and some really really yummy good chocolate, you can never go wrong with giving me chocolate.

After I came back home, it was a little weird. I got so used to waking up every morning and basically doing my own thing hanging out with the same people almost every day and not being in that atmosphere is almost a little strange. I remember going downstairs the next morning and I was like, wait, I have to cream cheese my bagel myself? lol, as strange as that sounds, Einstein’s (a dining facility at Riddle) has been putting cream cheese on my morning bagel for me for months! I adjusted quickly though, after all this is home.

It feels great, but I’m going to India tomorrow! I can’t wait. There’s going to be a big celebration and I’m going to get to see all my family and go shopping, woo hoo! I’ll be sure to take pictures and show everyone how we celebrate my Grandpa’s 80th birthday.

The next entry won’t be for a little while, so I hope everyone is busy submitting applications and such for Riddle, trust me it’s worth the effort. Enjoy your Christmas, New Years and any other holiday I’m missing! Take care everyone!

December 3, 2007

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving break because I did! I got to go back home and spend a good four-ish days with my family. My uncle, aunt, and cousin came from Pennsylvania and my grandma was there so we had a good time. I got there on Tuesday evening and my mom saw my dyed hair for the first time and was like, omg, what happened? No one said I gained weight, which is definitely a good thing because I ate all that ice cream just a few days before leaving. On Tuesday I didn't do much, I was glad to be home so I wore my pajamas played a bit of guitar hero, hung out with sis, and finally got to relax for the first time in a while. Wednesday I went out for a few hours in the morning to meet some people, which was awesome and then went out to this Indian-Chinese restaurant called Ming. If you're afraid of trying Indian food for the spice, this restaurant is perfect. The food is so delicious. Family from PA came this night and slept over for Thanksgiving. We don't really celebrate Thanksgiving with turkey and cranberry sauce like most families do, mostly because we're all vegetarians and it never really became one of our traditions to celebrate it. So we went to an Indian movie that night and sat in a crowded theater to watch a pretty funny movie. It made me feel better to know that we weren't the only people who weren't eating all day. After the movie we went to a nearby restaurant and ate some spicy food. After coming to Riddle I've been able to handle much less spice than I used to. I coughed when I was eating some home cooked food which prior to coming to Riddle wasn't spicy. Then came Friday! Me, my sis, and one of my best friends went shopping all morning, it was awesome. We were planning to buy Digital cameras for sis and me, but then ... somehow we didn't. I can't remember exactly why but we postponed it to December because we didn't have enough time to figure out exactly what we wanted.

I came back from home Sunday morning and had to get work. I had exams in so many classes that week, but one was postponed to today, which was nice =] I studied all Sunday and Monday and studied major for my Calc exam, which I know I did well on, yay! Then came this past weekend. I hung out with my suitemates and roommate and a bunch of one of my suitemates navy friends. I played some video games, watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith for the first time and oh yeah, CLEANED. One of my friends from the hall helped Alex and I clean our room so we could walk from one end to the other without being stuck with a thumbtack. It looks amazing now; I can barely believe it's my room. Housing is a stickler when it comes to fall checkout. Everything (including chairs) has to be off the floor over December, the bathroom should be spotless, and they just have so many ridiculous demands for us to have our room clean. It's crazy.

Today in my Honors Seminar class we had a debate. There were eight of us participating in today's debate and another set of eight on Wednesday's debate. Our debate question was, should Embry Riddle develop new Humanities majors like art, literature and the like. I was on the con side, opposing the idea. We lost, but we definitely put up a good fight. The judges were three students from our class and the result of the debate doesn't affect our grade, so I'm not worried. Both teams planned a lot for the debate so it was definitely a lot of fun and a new experience for me. I like giving presentations and talking to people about stuff. I think it's the training I've gotten my past four years at my high school where I'd end up giving a presentation at least once in three weeks. The best part is, of course, getting to dress up! For once I didn't just wear jeans and a sweatshirt and wore nice shoes instead of flip-flops. lol

TFO has our big event this Thursday! I'm so excited. Riddle has this rock in the middle of campus called the Spirit Rock. People from different clubs (and even randomly) spray paint the rock to advertise, etc. We're going to paint the rock on Wednesday to promote our Tropical Holiday Party! It's going to be great. Our event is like palm trees with holiday lights and Santa in a bathing type of thing. An inflatable boxing ring is our main attraction and there's going to be a ton of food. We even got local businesses to donate things like a digital camera for our raffle. Riddle also donated an hour of flight sim time and a free of hour of flight lessons, which is AMAZING! The event is going to go from about 4-9, but clean up will run later. Friday is study day, so I'm going to do exactly that, study.

Saturday is my first final and its calc, so I really want to start studying as soon as I can. My suitemates, Alex, and I decided that we were going to dedicate Saturday night to ourselves. We're going to make a Target run and buy a lot of chocolate and then lock the door and watch movies all night. No boys allowed. With the overflow of guys at Riddle, it's definitely necessary to have at least one night a semester with just your girls, chocolate and chick flicks like A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, and Grease!

So there's my two weeks in a nutshell. I'm sorry for not putting up pictures yet. I've been waiting on sis to send me some because I left the digi cam at home, oops. But I'll take a TON of pictures on Thursday during the TFO event and post them, so you guys can see what a Riddle event looks like. I can't wait!

Feel free to write to me about anything you want to ask. I've gotten a few emails and I do try to respond as soon as I can, so don't hesitate. Make sure you get your application in soon!

Next Journal entry I'll be back home packing to leave for India on the next day! Oh my, what an exciting two weeks it's going to be.

November

November 18, 2007

It's been two long weeks since my last entry and a lot has happened!

On the fifth I attended this lecture by Dr. Kevin Trenberth about global warming and how it's inevitable. He's a famous person in the subject of this and it was cool to hear his opinion about it. His presentation though was so fact based and had a million different graphs that I'm assuming most of us didn't understand. It was still decent though. The next day, to fulfill a requirement of one of my classes I attended this presentation by PenAir and he was talking about the company and then about one of the recent disasters that happened. As sad as the disaster was, it was fascinating hearing about what they found, or didn't find and how different clues would help them figure out how the accident happened. The plane had crash-landed incredibly fast into ice throwing the pilot and the only passenger hundreds of feet away and in a mangled way. The plane had practically blown up but different tests said the plane was functioning correctly. It was captivating even though the accident itself was terrifying.

I worked out every day that week, which was good because I didn't have that much work to do. We had Friday off for homecoming, which was sweet. The career fair was also this week. It was huge! There were so many companies present and all of them obviously related to the Aerospace industry. I asked around to see if any offered internships for freshman but not many did, which was a bit disappointing. It was still useful to see all the different companies present and get a feel for how the expo works.

That weekend was homecoming so campus was active with different things going on like the parade and different activities going on like a chalk art contest and sign building competition. Since we don't have a football team we have a homecoming for the basketball team and we creamed the other team.

Life continued as usual and my first class of my freshman year ended today (11/19). It was EGR 101 and we completed our last project and hopefully did a fantastic job on it. Yesterday my friend and I had our long-awaited eating contest. He thought he could beat me in eating ice cream, but my mom and I know no one can beat me in eating ice cream. We had the contest planned for a few weeks and we were going to see who would have that one more scoop. We ended up eating ice cream for an hour and a half before the buffet closed and we had to leave. I won though, because he came upstairs and threw up for an hour and I had practically forgotten that I had 47 scoops of ice cream. I don't know what it is with ice cream and me but I really can eat a lot. I gave him a bottle of Pepto and he's fine now =]

I'm going home tomorrow! I'm so excited. I'll be back next Saturday, so it's a bit of a short trip, but at least I get to go home for a little while.

Finals are fast approaching and it's really strange for me to start studying for finals when it feels like the semester just started. I have a quiz early in the morning tomorrow and then am catching a flight out of DAB to Newark! This week is pretty packed, filled with visiting family, eating a lot of Indian food and meeting up with friends.

I know this entry is much shorter than my usual, but as eventful as these past three weeks have been, they've lead to a lot of homework. I have a few tests the week I get back from home so I'm making every effort to start studying, so I don't have to go crazy that weekend.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! Don't forget about black Friday! I know I won't  ;]

Btw – I've added pictures (career fair  + volleyball) ! Check them out

Spree

November 5, 2007

Hi everyone!! Yesterday while walking to the gym I remembered that another journal entry was due on Monday and I was like... "I don't think anything has happened that's worth writing about" but then... My friend was like.. LOTS has happened and rambled a list of things to refresh my memory.

Last entry I mentioned I was going to see the rocket launch. I posted pictures of it that day, but never got to tell you how amazing it was! We were in Titusville, about an hour away from Daytona Beach. It is supposedly the best viewing spot aside from the KSC itself. We're hoping to get bleacher seats for the next launch.

Halloween, of course, was fantastic. We had a little party on our floor and I dressed up as my opposite door neighbor and vice versa, ton of fun. My roommate and I supplied the chocolate because we just had so much to spare. A bunch of people watched scary movies after our party, but I'm too big of a chicken to watch scary movies, they give me nightmares, so I opted out of that and stuck to a bag of M&M's.

The Saturday after Halloween, I got to give my open house speech to like 800 people. I got to meet the chancellor and many other people who work in undergraduate admissions, so it was definitely a lot of fun. I want to be a tour guide sometime lol. After I presented my spiel, I went on a tour with the largest tour group and spent the day answering questions from eager parents and children. Most of the people present during open house were either from Florida or New Jersey, which wasn't all that surprising to me. It feels like Riddle attracts Jersey kids like no other. If you were at the open house, shoot me an email, I'd love to hear what you thought about your day at Riddle! I ended my work day only to find out that we had a review session in physics for the test that Monday, so I practically ran (still in my work clothes) to the session so I wouldn't be late. I spent the rest of the weekend pretty much studying for exams, working on a project and eating when I could.

I've gotten active with TFO (Task Force One) lately. We scrounged up materials for our homecoming float, which has to be completed by today. We also participated in a charity even for Palance Powell. Palance is a dining services worker who got hit by a car when he was riding his bike. Embry-Riddle has made an effort to help his family out through various fundraisers. TFO baked cookies and cakes that were sold for donations. FYI, if you're doing a bake sale, depending on your crowd, sometimes it's better to let them take as many cookies as they want and mention that it's a "by donation" basis. Some people donated $20 for a cookie or two, much more than we would've gotten just selling the cookie by itself. We were present during the women's volleyball game and I've posted a bunch of pictures up of our team so check them out on my pix site.

This weekend is really busy. I have to write a paper, write this journal entry, work out, write a mini paper, and do my math and physics homework. Phew, that was a mouthful. I've been working out a lot lately! I can see calf muscle and I'm hoping to get abs very soon. Working out is really relaxing for me, it's definitely a good way to get frustration out and is a major stress reliever even if it's just for an hour and a half every other day.

The semester is almost over, as crazy as that seems. We're being assigned our final projects, our final exams and it's all happening so quickly! Mom warned me about this and that's why I've been trying to make sure I have time for everything I need to do and actually get it done. Life is hard especially when your friend can watch movies all day because somehow they got a free weekend and you're bombarded with work knowing your friend is having way more fun than you. haha, that takes a lot of self control right there.

Have a good week everyone!

Spree

October

October 22

Hi all my Journal readers! Just to let you know, it's okay to email me and ask questions about whatever you'd like. I got my first email response from a reader who was concerned about my physical fitness after the whole kickboxing incident. It was great! It's nice to know someone's reading, other than my friends and mom. lol

These past two weeks have been great! .... and then not so great. I've had my share of tests and quizzes but got to see the coolest thing ever! On the 10th, there was a rocket launch and we got to see it....from the engineering building! How cool is that? Actually being able to see the rocket launch from campus! It started out as this tiny speck of orange light in the distance that blended in with the lamposts and turns into this quickly rising blob of orange light that you could see for almost 5 minutes. It was amazing, I've never been that close to a rocket launch. On the 23rd (tomorrow!) space shuttle Discovery is set to launch at 11:38AM and I'm going to be there!! A bunch of us are heading down there because it works out so well between classes to have just enough time. I'm so excited. I'll be sure to take pictures so everyone can see!

The night of the rocket launch, there was a show put on by Mike Super, an illusionist. He was so cool; it was great. He made a girl levitate, a guy be affected by voodoo magic and did some cool card tricks too. I've taken pictures and posted them on my site. As engineers, we couldn't accept levitation and "magic" as reality and throughout the show, we kept pointing out the quirks in his tricks that made them work and we figured out a majority of them too, just by being attentive. That too was a lot of fun.

Every week here passes fairly quickly, every test and quiz springs up on you if you're not ready, so when you get here, start working day one, or it'll be much harder to catch up. In some ways, college is easier for me than high school and in some ways, it's much harder. Here, especially being away from home, causes so many more distractions. We could go out to lunch at the buffet downstairs and take two hours just eating and talking. I've learned to control that over the past two weeks and make sure I stay a max of 45 minutes, less if I have to get work done. It's also not a wise idea to cram before a test because a lot more material is covered in one test. For example, in my physics course last year, we spent at least a month on Newton's Laws and forces. Here, we're done with the section in about two weeks and keep moving because the test doesn't span just one chapter, it spans four. College, I've learned, is all about balancing your social life with your academics, while keeping in mind that you're not here for the social as much as you are for the academics, especially at Embry-Riddle, a school with a far from partying atmosphere. I'm not saying we don't have fun, there are people who like to party, play board games all night and those who like to watch movies late at night.

Last weekend, my dad came to visit! He was in North Carolina for business and flew in to Daytona before going back home to Jersey! It was great seeing a really familiar face again, because there's no one more familiar than your parents. When he came last Friday night he took a bunch of my friends and me out to dinner. Nine of us crammed into a five-person sedan and piled out at an Italian restaurant, it was a sight to see. Dad was pretty impressed by my friends, yay. After dinner, I went back to my dorm to sleep so Dad and I could go shopping in the morning. We basically spent the day from 9-4 shopping, eating lunch and fixing some things in my dorm. We bought another full-size mirror (the first one broke :x) and dad fixed it in a way that it would be impossible for it to tip over, which is definitely a good thing. He left Saturday evening after a trip to Starbucks! I bought a new watch that weekend, because my old one was so rusted on the inside from the terrible rain a few weeks ago, that the battery practically exploded, it was gross.

This past week went by really quickly too. We were assigned a new project in my Intro to Engineering class and this one is to design a launch system mount. We learned about orbital heights and velocity first, then designed a satellite, are now designing the mounting system and rocket to put it in orbit and then going to design the plane that will transport the satellite in the near future. Exciting stuff isn't it?

This weekend is Biketoberfest! Oh my, it's scary outside. You can hear the bikers "vroom"-ing their bikes and there's so many of them, too!  They're everywhere, making a lot of noise. I heard bike-week in March is ten times worse than this and I'm not looking forward to that, I'm scared already. Speaking of scared, Halloween is coming up soon and I'm not excited. I don't like Halloween, especially now because we can't go trick or treating and eat a lot of candy.

My opposite door neighbor and a few of his friends were going to a Garba in Tampa on Saturday and tried so hard to convince me to go too. But...not only did I not have Indian clothes with me, but Tampa is two hours away and we wouldn't be back before 5 in the morning. For those of you that don't know, Garba is an Indian dance that comes around this time of the year and lasts a few weeks. It's usually a lot of fun, but the ones back home are only 5 minutes away. That night I got some work done and watched a movie with some friends, it's was low-key, I'd say.

Alex and I rearranged our room like crazy to make a big open space in the middle. I put pictures on my website. There's plans to buy a mini trampoline ($15 on e-bay), to put in the open space, so we can workout and jump on it to let out frustration and have fun. I'll let you know how that works out.

My plans for today include studying for my physics exam next week, writing a paper and completing my part in that Launch mount system project I mentioned earlier. Sounds like it's going to be a long night.



P.S – I've added new pic's on my website. Some of the rocket launch, the Mike Super show, our newly rearranged room and, when I get them, pictures of the shuttle launch.



Until next time!

Spree!

October 8

Hi everyone!

The journals were finally posted this week, yay! I felt a bit left out, so I decided to set up my account on virb too. This way you can check out all the journal writers' pics on the same site. Yep, convenience at it's finest. Btw, the website is virb.com/spree.

These past two weeks have been chill. I've been working harder than I think I ever have in high school but also have more time to do everything. I've officially joined the clubs I want to and here's the final list… Task Force One, the Society of Women Engineers and the Honors Student Association. All three together offer me a good balance between some leadership, fun, academics, and career opportunities. Both TFO and SWE are planning a homecoming float, the theme this year is something from a TV show. I've never been to a homecoming, or seen a homecoming parade (other than on TV) because I went to a small school, where our pep rally's lasted all of 30 minutes (it's okay though, we loved it). Homecomings during the end of November, so I'm excited!

I finally booked my ticket to Jersey for Thanksgiving! Yayy, I'm excited to have a break and see some extra familiar faces, like my parents for example!

Last weekend, a bunch of us saw the movie, 'The Gameplan'. It was pretty good. Later that day, we walked outside and could barely stand up straight because the wind was blowing so furiously. I held on to my friend, hoping that both she and I together won't fly away; it was crazy. The best part was that the wind wasn't cold. If it ever gets windy in New Jersey, you'll feel your nose stuff up and turn into an icicle. Here, it was windy as anything, but you didn't even need a jacket to survive it. This past weekend, I went bowling with the Society of Women Engineers and had fun. By the end of the night, it felt like my fingers were going to fall off but I didn't come in last in a few of the games. Yay!

I realized I never mention anything about my classes and I should, because they're cool this semester and you'll definitely want to know which teachers to take to make sure your freshman year isn't harder than it has to be.

Here's a list of what I take:

EGR 101-Honors Intro to Engineering w/Mrs.Lisa Davids

-          This is one my favorite classes. We always do extensive projects and the people in my class make it so much better too.

EGR 120 Graphical Communication w/Ms. Elaine Weavel

-          This class is a drafting class. We use Catia here and it's similar to AutoCAD, if you've used that before. Drawing by hand is a bit challenging for me, but on the computer, I love it!

HON 150 Honors Seminar w/Dr. Barbie

-          You won't be able to take this class unless you're an Honors student but it's awesome! It's a class about analyzing different forms of rhetoric, oratorical, media and print. It's great.

MA 241 Calc 1 w/Dr. Mancas

-          This professor is great. He makes sure you understand everything and will do absolutely everything he can to make sure you get the grade you deserve (and want).

PS 150 Physics w/Dr.Barjatya

-          This class is possibly my most challenging class, only because we go at a really quick pace. The professor is new, but I like the class because it keeps me on my toes at all times.

That's all the classes I'm taking my first semester. It's a total of 15 credits. FYI, if you can (as I did), ask to see if you can get out of University 101. It's a one credit course that meets twice a week and can be not worth all the effort, or so I've heard. I've gotten my first paper this past week and it's for the Honors Seminar. It's a rhetorical analysis of any historical speech I want to do and I've chosen to analyze the President's address to the nation on 9/11. It should be interesting; it's one heck of a speech.

           Jill Meridith, who makes these handy journals available to you, gave me awesome news the other day. She asked me to be the student representative speaker during the prospective student orientation! I get to get up on stage, introduce myself, tell everyone something about myself, and then am available for the rest of the day for questions etc. The orientation is on Oct. 27, if you're attending, be sure to look out for me and wave hi. You are also always welcome to ask any questions you may and expect an honest answer. I'm really excited; it should be a lot of fun.

           These next two weeks should be fairly normal. Dad might come visit next weekend, so that should be cool. The 22nd, is the first day of Priority Registration for the Spring Semester, so I'm hoping to have an outline of all the classes I want to take that semester by that weekend at the very least.

That's all guys. I'm ready to open my calc book up and get my homework done, still aware of the fact that it's a Saturday night. Btw, don't forget to watch Grey's Anatomy on Thursday nights, the new season so far is awesome.


Until next time,

Spree!

Email:shankars@erau.edu

Photos:www.virb.com/spree

September

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September 10

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

PS: Here're some pictures of Daytona Beach and my Hallmates etc. Enjoy!

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