Classes so far are great, I am taking History of Terrorism (been looking forward to this since freshman orientation), Studies in Global Intelligence I, Information Protection and Computer Security and some more classes. They are all interesting and I can’t wait to take my Counterintelligence course next year! Because this year has been so jam packed I haven’t had much time to do many social activities. My friend Angelo and I managed to take a break in our schedules and visited our friend Anna and the notorious Liesl Hall in their volleyball game last week. Our team did a good job and it was inspiring to see all the freshman taking in interest in the many extracurricular activities we have offered here at ERAU. Last week we held our Activities Expo or whatever they called it when all the clubs and organizations presented booths to attract new members. I found myself convinced into signing up for several groups but I don’t think I can make them fit into my schedule just yet!

Last week all the MSIII’s and the Ranger Challenge cadets (I’ll post about this soon) went to Fort Navajo up by Flagstaff to conduct the Eagle Raider FTX to prepare us for Warrior Forge 2012 in which we will be attending LDAC. Several important informative classes were taught to us by the MSIV’s and we got to go on the Night LandNav course and to the firing range the next morning. I admit I need some practice with both but I plan on improving myself over the course of the semester in both categories. Well, this has been the start of the Fall Semester, hopefully the level of difficulty peaks soon so we can roll downhill to easy street……(This is ERAU, never gonna happen, but it can’t hurt to hope right?)

About to learn how to apply camouflage

Cadet Salas on the Firing Range

Time for the stress part of chress. I still have four finals left, Personality and Profiling on Monday, Humanities on Tuesday, Social Psychology on Wednesday and U.S. Foreign Policy. Ughhh I have a lot to do so I better abandon the chess-filled fun of my room and head to that cursed library which is about to explode because so many people are crowded in there!

>Chess has taken Joshua over to the dark side

So for Easter Break I went back home to Tucson with my friends Joe and Josh so that we could spend some time with my family and most importantly, so that they could experience Eegee’s. Unfortunately only a few people here at Riddle know what Eegee’s is and they are all from Tucson except our very own beloved Queen of Blogging Liesl Angelique Hall, and Tucsonans Daria and the vindictive soccer girl Whitney. April’s flavor of the month was Orange Dream and I usually am not a fan but this year it was better than I remember it. It was kind of strange seeing my school friends in a place that I have grown up around but it was cool at the same time. We just got to spend time around the house and then came back here to continue our studies. Studying ruins everything!!! Next year is going to be worse though so I guess I shouldn’t complain now. Oh well, Good Luck everybody!

I hope they liked it

Last night on the 8th the Eagle Company of Army ROTC here at ERAU held its Military Ball at some Prescott casino. We had been hearing about this Ball coming up for awhile so our Company Commander Cadet Welch had to get lots of information out to us and pretty much had to organize the whole thing so that it would be a success, which it was. I asked my friends Lindsey and Rachel from ASU to come up and accompany me and my roommate Joshua to the ball and we all went together. The girls came here and we all got dressed up ready to go (I had previously had a minor crisis in finding a proper black jacket to go with my getup and thanks to my friend Jake I managed to find one and not appear like a fool) and we drove there in Joshua’s truck. The first few minutes were strange because I had never seen so many girls in the same place in Prescott (they were all dressed up too so it made it easier to identify them as girls). We got in line and mingled a bit and it was fun introducing Rachel and Lindsey to all my Army friends here. They even got to meet some of the cadre and I’ll admit that was a bit strange because I never imagined friends from back home crossing paths with someone as influential as the cadre.

By some act of God the four of us got seated together with possible the best table there and the ceremony started. Dinner eventually came along and the entire time I was just talking to two of the most favored MS-IVs and joking around with everyone as we ate our steak and salmon. Salmon was delicious, I ate fish because it was a Friday during Lent and it was not some cheap salmon that casinos serve, it was actually very good. The raspberry tart thing they gave us for dessert was amazing, here’s a picture of it, all the desserts were amazing as they were possibly the most important part of the evening! Dinner concluded and then dancing started for everyone because after all it was a ball. I’m not the best dancer and of course didn’t spend too much time on the dance floor. We went back after that and some of my roommates wanted to watch some movie. I figured that was too boring so I decided to take the girls over to our other friends’ room where we had a few exciting expeditions during the night. We played indoor Capture the Flag, went on an ice cream run, watched Night and Day and had some more mini-adventures while it snowed outside.

SNOW

Great, now we have a PT test on Monday and it is going to be freezing!! The girls left this morning and I went out to buy a bunch of stuff in preparation for Mark’s wedding in a month. There is still snow everywhere and the JFTX is coming up but at least we’ll be in Fort Huachuca this time instead of the frozen tundra known as Fort Navajo in Flagstaff.

Some pictures from the Military Ball:

Anyway, Spring Break was a much needed vacation from here because I really needed to get away from all the homework and Army stuff, even there is never getting away from the Army! I went back to Tucson and immediately saw my friend Brandon that first night. I cannot remember every detail of break because I was lazy in blogging but I was able to see my friends Bobby and Therese on one of the mornings, went to dinner with Julie and Emily, lunch with Julia, caving with Michael, Brandon and Megan and a whole bunch of activities with people whose names none of you know. It was a lot of fun and a really good way to relax before coming back up here to study and work for the rest of the year. I love spending time with my family and being home just beats any vacation that I could wish for. I found out that my brother Michael is going to France to spend his Rotary Youth Exchange year abroad and I am so proud of him! I went to Germany with the same program four years ago and cannot wait for him to come back speaking fluent French. I just hope that he gets a good host family this time.

Parent’s Day was last Friday/Saturday in which Embry-Riddle invites all parents of ERAU students to come and visit here. My Mom and brother James came up on Saturday to see me although we didn’t partake in any Parents Day activities like we were supposed to. I showed them where I lived, my future roommates for next year and then took them out to lunch with my roommate Joshua. We went to Zeke’s and for those who know it, was delicious beyond their dreams and we were stuffed for the rest of the day. Afterwards they checked out the bookstore and went shopping for food and such before I had to say goodbye and they went home. My Mom loves going to outlets on the ride home so the usual 3 1/2 hour drive back to Tucson was some 6 hours because of Mom’s shopping! Poor James! I like it when she does that though because I know I’ll always remember it when I am not at ERAU anymore.

Some more good Army news is that I was fortunate enough to get offered some Army school slots this upcoming summer. Only a fool would turn down any of these amazing opportunities and I got to pick between Airborne, Northern Warfare and an attempt at seizing a Combat Diver Scuba Slot. I picked the Northern Warfare slot but a lot of commitment and physical and mental training comes as a prerequisite in order to pass the school. It happens this summer in Alaska from July 31th – August 18th and it is going to be freezing up there even in the summer! I will probably turn into either an ice cube or lose my permanent Hispanic tan by the time I get back. I am excited but if I said I wasn’t nervous then I would be lying because I most definitely am! I know that I can do it but I have to prove myself now through physical conditioning so that I can be prepared instead of some cornfused cadet with the “deer in the headlights” approach to everything I will be presented with.

The Army’s Military Ball is happening this Friday and I am excited because I invited my friends Rachel and Lindsey to come up from ASU to be my dates to the ball! It is going to be fun and my friends Joshua and Emily had to get all dressed up today for inspections so that nothing we wear is entirely inappropriate. I mean, please, this is a professional environment. I am really looking forward to living with these two next year because they are great friends and I know that we will get along great.

Joshua, Emily, Steven

The night before on Friday we attended Casino Night in the Activity Fair where some 500 people or so (I actually don’t know but exaggerating the number will help someone make an image of people packed into the Activity Center) gathered to gamble fake money for charity and in an effort to win raffle prizes. I proved that I am the King of Blackjack despite the fact that when Bobby, Aaron and I went to a casino in San Diego I merely stood there and watched everyone lose. I won up to $5252 in fake money and bought a bunch of raffle tickets although I didn’t win anything. Whatever, its not like I could’ve used a free iPad or semester of housing or even that girl bike that some freshman won. Anyway, we stayed the night at Shawn’s house and then went to Flagstaff early the next morning. We rented our boards and boots from some cheaper place and then went up to the Snowbowl to start snowboarding. I have never gone before and was nervous for it because I fully expected to fall on my butt the entire time. Well, I can say with 100% guarantee that that happened pretty much most of the time. I caught on with snowboarding pretty quickly and learned to carve and head down the mountain pretty fast with an unorthodox method of mine. I would sit down on my butt and pretty much sled down the entire way at superspeed. It ended up hurting my wrists and butt pretty bad but it was worth it. We ran quite a few of the mountain courses and then when we reached a lodge I found that a cut on my wrist was bleeding pretty badly. It turns out that during one of my spills my wrist came in front of my to protect myself and my abnormally sharp incisor tooth cut my arm. Strange yeah but not unheard of.

After that happened I resigned to staying at the lodge eating chicken strips and keeping an eye out for snowbunnies while the other three tacked the Black Diamond trail. I fell asleep waiting for them to come back (hence there were no snowbunnies around and I was disappointed in Flagstaff) and when they did they were all dead and exhausted. I had regained some energy after my little nap and therefore was ready to call it a day. It was so much fun even though I did get frustrated after falling all the time. So that was our taste of mini-vacation and it sure was great to get away from this place for a while. But now we’re back and have PT tomorrow, just one more week left!!!

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!

It was hard coming back here to Embry-Riddle because I know how my city is suffering and I wish I could have gone to the memorial services and prayer sessions that were going on when I was gone. I talked to some of the others from Tucson who have to be here and we all agreed that we’d rather be in Tucson to hear the President’s memorial speech and with our families during these tough times. I looked through some of the back pictures that my friends took during break and realized that we have to move on with these people in our hearts and minds so that we can prevent another tragedy. I had some fun times during break and that happened on that Saturday was not the best way to finish off the break. Despite this, I had some great times with my friends, including going to Winterhaven, the hilarious road trip, and New Years! I’ll put some pictures up so that we can look at something besides that creepy mug shot of the killer that’s been posted all over the news.

This creepy skull that Kara and I found

Our group!

We had our first PT session this morning with a company run and some simple situps and pushups. It was interesting getting back into the physical loop of pt because I most definitely did not exercise for pt standards over break. The last time  I did pushups and situps at the same time was about a week ago when I went on a road trip to California with my two friends. Usually I am organized, uptight, stingy and don’t really know how to relax but this trip was all about spontaneity. We had no plan and just a cooler full of unhealthy food and Bobby’s miracle of a phone that got us to our destinations. We took turns driving, and I would reveal everything that we did on the trip, but then that would make it less special of a memory. In a nutshell, we went to San Diego and entered a pizza eating contest (actually, I chose to watch Bobby and Aaron stuff themselves silly with nasty pizza and was left with an ordinary behaving bowel for the rest of the trip) and then went to a casino to make ourselves feel better. We all lost money there, and I admit to fabricating the tale of how much I actually lost in an attempt to make the others feel better but this was counterproductive. The next day we managed to get to Coronado Beach and ate a ripe pineapple for breakfast before exploring the Del Coronado Hotel, which was pretty cool. We spent a lot of time on the beach and that’s where I got to do some situps and pushups, which was a bit uncomfortable in the sand. We drove all the way to LA, which is far more sketchy than New York apparently, and we met up with Bobby’s sister Therese and my cousin Beth near Disneyland! They were there for our high school choir’s annual trip to Disneyland and it was really great to finally see my cousin.

We drove through LA and saw downtown Hollywood and eventually made it to Knott’s Berry Farm. I haven’t been there in years so it was a whole new experience and I’m glad I got to experience it with my friends instead of having to wait in long lines with people who didn’t want to be there. We must have gone on eighteen rides apiece and made good money out of our discounted entrance fee of a mere $24.99. We went on every ride and managed to get a few videos of us riding and almost throwing upside down. We then spent the next day recuperating from a severe lack of sleep and then headed home on Saturday, the same day as the Tucson shootings. That was a summarized explanation of our trip but there is a LOT more to it that I choose not to mention here. It was a blast and a great way to start off the new year, with two Way’s. Eh nobody will get that, but it was fun and I hope to do it again sometime.

30 in pizza

Hotel Del Coronado

On the Silver Bullet at Knott's Berry Farm