The icicle lights were so beautiful on the castle!

The Haunted Mansion! Actually, while waiting in line to go on this ride, we stood next to a tourist group full of people from China and their interpreter. I paid close attention to the conversations going on and was surprised by how much I understood! COOL!

It’s my second to last spring semester, so my goals this year are to keep going strong in school and in volleyball. It’s been a busy year so far (okay, the year’s only consisted of a couple of weeks, but still). I’m still in the GSIS program, so I’m taking eighteen credit hours this semester, including Intelligence and Technology, Chinese IV, Social Psychology, Microeconomics, a math class, and International Relations. So far they’ve all been really great and I’m excited to see how they turn out! My professors are all awesome and it’s fun to see how much enthusiasm each professor has for their subject.

Volleyball is still going strong. Spring Season starts in a couple of weeks so I’m still trying to live up to my New Year’s resolution to stay in shape. We lost two of our seniors, Laura DeGeorge and Sarah Galeai, but hopefully we’ll still have a good team this next season. It’s so strange… this fall season, I’ll be a senior! These past few years have just FLOWN by. Seriously, I have no idea where they went. Everything is just going by so fast, and I’m just trying to keep up while wondering where the heck all this time has gone. I guess life is kind of like that no matter where you are. But here at ERAU, it seems like everything just goes at the speed of light! And… I’m loving every minute of it!

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, and may all your New Year’s resolutions come true!

“Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.”

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

The first snowfall here at ERAU was on November 18th. There was occasional snow in between then and the last week of November, but on December 1st, the clouds dumped snow by truckload. Most of the time, the snow does not stick and is mostly gone by noon the next day. However, the storm dropped temperatures enough (at least to 10 F) so that there is still snow over a week later! Here is a picture of snow over Prescott from my flight yesterday.

My group of friends and I went to the annual City of Prescott Tree Lighting Ceremony in downtown and the lights plus snow created the perfect winter wonderland image. Here is a picture of our group downtown!

And here are two pictures of the courthouse all lit up!

Hopefully we will get more snow because it puts you in a good mood for winter!

I wanted to share my experiences with my online courses to give others an insight to them, because I know it can be a hard decision to make. Sometimes we have no option when we have to hold down a job or take care of family, but if you are fortunate enough to only take campus classes, I would definitely recommend it. Online courses are nice because you can get them over with and have the freedom to study when you want, but there are still due dates every week. You have to be self-motivated and I suggest trying not to procrastinate as long as possible. I wish everyone the best of luck with the upcoming final exams in December. I know there are a lot of projects and term papers due! I hope we all stay focused and do a good job. Don’t forget to register for Spring classes soon. Just remember to choose classes that you need, but also work best for your schedule!

GO EMBRY-RIDDLE GOLDEN EAGLES!!

It is quite different getting to use two power levers and a gear switch, but it is a lot of fun! When picking a practice area to go to, I decided I wanted to go to crown king; which is a practice area dedicated to only multi engines. After preflight, I got in with my instructor and started the engines. It is easier to start than the 172 because there is no mixture control in the Diamond; its is all control by the Engine Control Unit (ECU). We taxied out to runway 21L and took off.

In the practice area, I completed all the standard private maneuvers (stalls, slow flight, steep turns) and got to have a feel for how the aircraft flies. During the flight, we climbed to 12,700′ MSL; but not for more than 30 min. Also, on our way back, we got to 180 KIAS (indicated airspeed) and a ground speed of 199 KTS! I had a beautiful landing which was aided by the trailing linkage gear on the Diamond’s. I taxied back to the ramp and that was my first flight. I logged my first multi-engine time in my log book. It was a proud moment. I hope you will enjoy the Diamond’s as much as I do!

Riddle has a tradition of playing the Humans vs. Zombies game ever week prior to Halloween. It is pretty hilarious to watch. First everyone who wants to participate registers on the website solely devoted to the game. Everyone starts off as a human, which is signified by a bandana tied around your arm, except one person is a zombie, shown by a bandana tied around your head. If a zombie “attacks” a human then they too become a zombie, but the human can defend themselves by hitting the zombie with a sock and therefore stunning them for 15 minutes. Zombies, if they do not “feed” for 48 hours will die off, dwindling down the players of the game. Of course there are safe zones, such as class and in the library so it doesn’t distract for studies. I didn’t participate this year but plan to next year.

The game continued from last Monday until Thursday night at Zombie Prom, which I helped plan. We did a conjoined dance with Yavapai Community College where everyone came dressed as zombies, or in costume. It was tons of fun!



Friday night was the infamous, and ever hilarious, hypnotist Bruce McDonald! It was literally a laugh-out-loud event! The next day, there was the static display at the flightline as well as performances by Matt Chapman in his Eagle 580 and Elaine Larsen in her ERAU Jet Dragster! They put on an awesome show of aerobatics and jet dragster action which was the most exciting part of the weekend! here is a picture of Elaine Larsen and Matt Chapman performing!

I definitely got sunburnt that day, but it was worth the burn! Among the spectators of students, faculty and community members, 4 Apache helicopters, and 2 F/A-18′s  flew in before the show and left after it was over! I am always excited about the activities at the flightline because you have the opportunity to get up close to the aircraft and even sit in them! This is me in a WWII T-6 Trainer!

I even got to meet Matt Chapman and Elaine Larsen during the day, and getting to see them perform made it that much more awesome!

The topper of the weekend, and another personal favorite, are the fireworks! This year, my friends and I drove down to the lower fields to watch them and they were awesome! We got pretty close, which made the booms bigger and it felt like it was a private show! Here is one of the pictures from the fireworks!

So, when you come to Riddle; make sure you attend the various activities of Octoberwest!

Great pictures taken by Julie Lacey! Thank you! :]

Since our tournament in Denver, Riddle had a what’s called our Career Expo as a part of Octoberwest, where different companies and agencies come to ERAU talking to students about career and internship opportunities. The whole Activity Center is packed with booths of representatives, and students dress in business-like attire to try to impress future employers. It was very exciting to talk to people who are interested in recruiting students from such a specialized school. Overall, I say it was a success.

Octoberwest in general was also a success. We had a group called the Mural Mice come and do an awesome chalk drawing on the sidewalk in front of the Student Union, clubs and different groups painted our Spirit Rock, we had a parade on Saturday, we had a Block Party (complete with face painting and carnival food!), and my personal favorite, the hypnotist Bruce McDonald. Bruce McDonald was my favorite because he took normally shy students and, in his words, “Let them show us what’s inside their creative imagination!” Students who were hypnotized showed the student body just how awesome their ballet skills are, showed us how straight a row of chairs really can be (in their hypnotized state, Bruce McDonald told them that they would win a billion dollars if they kept chairs all in a perfect row), and showed us how good their singing skills really were! The best part: they don’t remember a thing. It was hilarious for the audience and even the hypnotist couldn’t help but let out a few chuckles. He comes every year, and it is definitely worth it to go and watch!

Here are a few of the people who volunteered to be hypnotized. Bruce McDonald definitely did a great job. It was hilarious! (Picture courtesy of Greg Finn. Thank you!)

These past few weeks have truly been memorable ones, and after midterms (when I can relax again) I hope to keep making great memories here at Embry-Riddle!

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

-Cesare Pavese

I can’t believe it, time has been whizzing by! This semester I am taking only twelve credits, but it is certainly challenging. I have U.S. Foreign Policy with a new professor, Dr. Fields, he is great. The class is heavy with reading, but I enjoy it. Dr. Fields has been especially great at making each student in his class feel recognized by taking the time to get to know every person’s name and a little about them. It is things like that that make me really enjoy the fact that I attend a small school. I am also taking Business Law. I like this class a lot, though I already know many of the materials covered because I am considering law school after graduation and the course is very basic, but still helpful. My final class is the notorious….Chinese! I am still on the Chinese Track which I love, so I am taking Chinese five and six right now. The thing I like most about the Chinese Track is that I have the class every day and I am very familiar with my classmates so I am never hesitant to speak in front of the class, which is a must.

The most exciting thing of this semester for me is being a Resident Assistant (R.A.). It has been so much fun meeting all of my residents and helping them adjust to Riddle life, I have been really enjoying it.  Also this semester I am a Campus Academic Mentor (CAM) for the GSIS program. I sit in on the college success class that freshman are enrolled in and help new students with any questions that arise. That has also been fun because I have gotten to meet many of the new students.

I am excited for the rest of this semester, I can hardly believe midterms are only a couple weeks away.

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

Anyways, tonight was the club fair! If you have an interest in a particular activity or like a particular object, there is most likely a club for that. From the sweater vest club to the skydiving club, Embry-Riddle Prescott has a club for you! One of my favorite clubs is the music club. I played the alto saxophone all throughout high school and wanted to continue in college, so I joined with the music club. There are 3 groups within the club: jazz, choir, and drumline. I am in the jazz and drumline groups because I am not the best of singers. Jazz is a pressure-off group of chill students who play on their free time; get together and have an awesome jam sesh! Like each group in the club we have performances on campus and in the community! So if you like to play an instrument or sing, or even want to learn how, you belong in the music club!

In every flight course, students are required to go on cross countries. For the non-flight students, a cross country is a long flight to an airport at least 50 NM straight line. For my flight course (multi private), I have to go at least 150 NM away. I am choosing to go to the John-Wayne Airport (SNA) in Santa Ana, CA! It’s really convenient since I live about 30min from SNA. I have my route all planned out and I am just waiting for this Saturday 9/17, to go; assuming the weather is good enough to fly in *fingers crossed*. I personally love cross countries because you get to fly somewhere new or somewhere where you want to go (just as long as its a Riddle-approved airport). If you are a flight student, you will be doing many of these in your years here. If you are not a flight student, take the opportunity to go as an observer to wherever the student is going! Observers can go on cross countries as long as the are a dual flight. However, as an observer (anyone, even flight students), you can go on a local flight to the practice area and see Prescott from the air! I encourage every Embry-Riddle student to go on at least one flight; and if you’re lucky, I could be your pilot!