Week 89 – 30th April – 6th May

Monday – 30th April

I was in the library from 10am to  1am, just studying for stability and control, although I did take breaks in between and actually saw the Manchester City vs. Manchester United match. I must say that I got a ridiculous amount of studying done, and by the time I left, I felt in pretty good shape for the test the next morning.

Tuesday – 1st May

There were a whole bunch of other people studying in the library in the morning, getting ready for the stability test. However, it proved to be fruitless as everyone in my section got raped on the test. It wasn’t that we didn’t quite know the material, it was more that every variable required like 10 minutes of calculations, and you needed another 10 variables before you actually put it into your final equation. Everybody after class was just moaning and groaning and most were just glad to be done. I went home, grabbed my longboard, and headed to Ponce Inlet, stopping by Sandy Point Progressive Sports for the first time.

I can’t believe that I haven’t been there earlier, as the shop has virtually every extreme sport (well almost) equipment for sale. Kiteboarding, kayaking, surfing, windsurfing, snowboarding, and tons of accessories like clothes and car racks. I was there to actually check on the Thule roof rack for cars, since it’s a pain to transport surfboards with the removable Blocksurf rack, and it’s not stable either. It was a pretty decent day out at Ponce Inlet and I caught some decent footage with my GoPro.

I was happily resting in the evening, when Navin called, asking for permission to buy a piece of furniture, as he wasn’t sure if it would fit. I ran it by Reggie, and in a matter of minutes, we were on the way to Sears to collect our air hockey table that cost Navin a whopping $40. This is a table that’s about 5’6″, and usually sells for $180. If we had resold it to some frat, we would have instantly made money.You can even convert it to a ping pong table!

 

Wednesday – 2nd May

We all slept late, messing with the table, and just enjoying the end of the semester. I woke up late and did my accounts to see how much money I had. After checking my finances, I headed down back to Sandy point to buy that surf rack, which I am very pleased with, as it is ridiculously stable and makes transporting boards a breeze. I can also keep the equipment and bring it to any future vehicle I have, needing only to change the fit kit, which are the metal plates that connect the foot of the rack to the car. Those normally run about $60, so it’s only 10% of the total price of the rack. Obviously I also invested in the locking mechanisms, so it is impossible to steal the rack of the car, as it’s now an integral part of it.

Thursday – 3rd May

Around lunch, Sebastian, Navin, and I finally got together for that flight we were supposed to take. We rented a plane from ERAU, took off and headed towards Flagler Airport (10 minutes flight) to have lunch at their airport restaurant. I got to fly the plane for a while, under the supervision of Sebastian, who’s a certified flight instructor (CFI). Lunch was pretty awesome, and we took the scenic route back to Daytona, passing over Ponce Inlet, so I could get a bird’s eye view of the place I always surf at.

The breakwater is to the right, and the best waves occur near the corner made by the shoreline and the breakwater. When the tide is high and I can’t drive on the beach, I go to that parking lot and lug my board all the way to the shore.

 

At night, we all headed over to John Li’s wine tasting party. Navin and I totally forgot about the dress code, but it was cool as we’re “the neighburs.” His house is literally about a five minute walk from ours, and we walked over with our own beach chairs and wine. It was a pretty cool party overall. Reggie came after us and got the memo about the dress code, but came in a super beng shirt.

Friday – 4th May

With the waves dying down, I washed my car today and cleaned the interior. There’s still a bunch of work that needs to be done to make it perfect, but for the time being, it’s a really decent car. I just need to address that oil leak soon. We also started to prepare the house for our own Cinco de Mayo party, and I went to Sam’s club to get food.

Saturday – 5th May

During the day, I made apple pie, and this time it turned out a lot better than the last time, as I got the dough much better.

We had a dinner party, with the closer friends, who all chipped in for ingredients as we had rib-eye steaks, which were excellent. There was a lull after dinner, and it wasn’t till like 10pm, that a huge ton of people showed up. After Nick and Chris were happily buzzed, they wanted to go out, so I decided to follow them to Seabreeze and see what the clubs had that night. It was pretty pointless in my opinion as there weren’t that many people, and for some reason they just wanted to find people they knew.

While at the clubs, they were on the lookout to make lady friends, but I was totally indifferent to the endeavor. Maybe the wealth of good times at Zouk back home has given me perspective because I know that in this environment, with the male-female ratio the way it is, it is better to just not play the game. You may hope to find a girl from the area, outside of Embry-Riddle, perhaps from Daytona State College, but they know the Riddle ratio and they know they can wrap you around the finger, just like many Riddle girls do. There are after all, a few DSC girls who keep hanging out with Riddle guys, and we’ve known of people who’ve paid for their entertainment. I’m not saying that the girls here are bad or vixens or anything, it’s just that they are highly valued around here. It’s simply economics, with a low supply and high demand, prices will go up. Unless you’re willing to pay the price, just don’t even be in the market for it.

I’ve met some really excellent people here both guys and girls, and some girls tell me that they actually feel lonely, despite all the attention they get. Because sometimes they become commodities in the eyes of guys, and frequently judged by the people around them, it’s hard for them to just make normal friends and be themselves, because someone is always either trying to hit on them, or afraid of getting too close. It’s actually not that easy to be a girl in this school. Navin, Reggie and I have our experiences and we know what’s going on, but more importantly, we’ve managed to not let ourselves get affected. Reggie is beyond the point of caring, while Navin and I just chuckle from the sidelines.

Some of the other guys know that nothing is going to happen, but they’re just happy to have female company. I guess it does take a certain amount of self-control, and being burnt a few times to just totally ignore the dating scene here and to focus on other activities like studying, surfing, or cycling. In a game where statistically you’ll lose, it’s not worth playing unless you look like Christian Bale or something. My personal opinion is that if all the energy is channeled somewhere more productive, great things will happen.

Sunday – 6th May

It was the laziest Sunday on record, as we woke up in the morning to clean the house, after which I pretty much slept the afternoon away. We did watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on the TV though, now that the PS3 is hooked up to it.

Week 88 – 23rd – 29th April

The Week’s Highlights

With only about a week left to go before finals, all the projects are starting to get due. I must say I successfully fought off the procrastination monster and got started on projects simultaneously. Between the Non-Verbal Communication final paper, Stability and Control final project, and Space Mechanics final project, there was a ton of things to do. The number of times I stayed in school till late this week wasn’t anything to joke about. I had to sacrifice eating at home/cooking in order to work on stuff in school, where I’m a lot more productive.

When Thursday, the last day of school swung around, I had pretty much finished almost everything needed. I was given a take-home exam for the Non-verbal class, to be turned in the following Monday, giving me the whole weekend to work on it. I really do like the honor system that Professors trust you not to cheat. I did, however, give myself a little break on Thursday afternoon to look after my blossoming basil plants! They looked to be outgrowing the little planter box they were in, so I bought some tools and replanted them into the sandy soil outside.While I was at it, I also planted some Italian Parsley and Chives from seeds. Those are going to take away, but as Florida has no frost, it’s not like they will die over the Winter. I also finally bought that longboard fin I’ve been wanting for a while. Should be fun to out on the water.

 

Week 87 – 16th – 22nd April

Monday – 16th April

It was a day of just hammering away at Stability & Control, where I did a ton of hand calculations. With my meticulousness, I crammed into 7 pages what most other people take 14-20 to do. There are a few people whose hand calculations are running over 20 pages, but they don’t make efficient use of the paper. Our team is also short of one person, so I picked up the slack and did that extra set of calculations so that the team would have sufficient data.

Tuesday – 17th April

It was the SGA banquet in the evening, and I got Member of the Year for the Avion, for all the changes and improvements I helped to push. I would later find out also that we won a Student Activities Award for most improved organization.

The 2011-2012 Executive Board of the Avion with our Student Assistant

Wednesday – Thursday – 18th April – 19th April

Nothing to report. Cretated a new recipe though. Chicken aglio olio.

Some zucchini, pan fried chicken, olive oil, seasonings. pretty good.

Friday – 20th April

After math, my next class wasn’t till 2p.m., and when Forrest and Maxwell called me to the ocean, I couldn’t say no. A lot of people don’t understand how barring life/death, pass/fail situations, I can drop everything I’m doing to go out to the beach for an hour or two before getting back to work.

I have to credit Steven Covey and his 7 Habits of highly effective people, especially the one about sharpening the saw. Too many people I see around this school are sawing away at their school work with about the bluntest tool you could find. They just keep hammering away at the work without taking the time to look after themselves. “I don’t have time to relax/cook/eat/sleep” is a very common thing you hear. My argument is that I make the time to do these other things so that I work more efficiently once I’m done. I normally come back from the ocean in a very good mood, and I’m normally very productive as well.

If you want to take the teachings of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, there’s good time pressure, and bad time pressure (he uses good debt and bad debt.) The idea is that good time pressure is pressure you have that makes you more productive. Taking an hour or two to go surf means an hour or two less for schoolwork, which means I better darn well make sure my time spent doing school work is efficient and productive. Bad time pressure is when you have a ton of deadlines and you didn’t manage your time properly and end up having to pull all-nighters, destroying your health, and just creating this cascading cycle of struggling to keep up. I guess not everybody learns this lesson because it’s easier to just procrastinate and panic.

I had to get back to school, so I started heading out of the water first. When I was cleaning up on the shoreline, I saw Max walking out, blood dripping down his face. Apparently he got his nose sliced by his own fin as he got lazy when it came to punching through the wave. The lifeguard gave us a piece of gauze to stem the bleeding, while Forrest came out as well. It was a fairly deep cut, but it wasn’t really bleeding all that much. We had Tia Cori’s for lunch, before I went back to class, still in boardshorts with trunks on the inside, although they had dried out by the time I reached school. Max needed 5 stitches to patch up his nose, which should now have a pretty wicked looking scar.

Saturday – 21st April

I studied the whole day, but did take a break to go out and test the GoPro.

Sunday – 22nd April

The last production of the Avion went fairly smoothly, before the whole Avion, almost 18 of us, went to Vince Carter’s for dinner. The place wasn’t that fantastic, and I don’t think I’ll ever go back there again. The burgers are cheap, but that’s about the only good thing about the place.

Week 86 – 9th – 15th April

I can sum up this week with: Sleep, Study, Sleep, Study.

So to treat myself to working so hard, I bought Publix Sushi for Friday’s Dinner.

Week 85 – 2nd – 8th April

Monday – 2nd April

It seems I picked up a case of rashes from my swim and so I went to health services to get it looked at. The whole changing of seasons probably wasn’t helping anyway.

The nurse that looked at me gave me a prescription for an anti-allergen and steroids to counteract the rash. The rash was a really strange one, with two lines going from the shoulders to the elbows, and one thick band across the chest. I had to go to Publix and get it filled. Even with insurance, it was a damn $20.

Tuesday – 3rd April

It was a pretty normal day between the classes, studying and the Avion.

Wednesday – 4th April

A normal day, but with a swim in the afternoon.

Thursday – 5th April

Classes were normal and after that I went home to study and rest. I was invited for the dusk patrol with Forrest and Maxwell and it was supremely fun waves. Forrest caught the sole overhead wave of the session, and although it was nice and sunny, once it hit 6 plus, it became quite chilly. The surf left me tired the rest of the night so slept early.

Friday – 6th April

I was riding a surfing high from the previous day, so productivity was high  from the surf, and made even higher because of the good sleep. Classes were normal and in the afternoon, Navin and I went to the bank to settle rent money for the next year. I made shrimp linguini with my own basil and it was pretty darn good.

Saturday – 7th April

I went to the farmer’s market in morning and spent the whole day at home, doing grading and actually finished Supreme Commander 2 with cheats. The game was a lot dumbed down compared to the original, which was pretty epic with it’s scale and strategy. It was a good decompression as my brain is a little fried from all the stability and control. I had breakfast food for dinner and it was awesome. Bacon, eggs, and biscuits!

Sunday – 8th April

It was the Avion as usual,  with studying in the library before heading to Easter mass. I came home after that. Overall, this week wasn’t very eventful apart from the surfing.

Week 84 – 26th March – 1st April

Monday – 26th March

My nice “new” car did not start in the morning. With no time to spare, I had to take the truck and then I had to rush back after class to get Reggie. It was a near miss in terms of scheduling, but everybody got to their classes. I came back home in the afternoon and somehow the car started, although it was a very terrible start, like the car did not want to. It could move under it’s own power, so I brought it to Ron’s workshop where he got the horn installed like he was supposed to, and he helped diagnosed some of the problems. It seems that either the ignition coils or the spark plugs are acting up, but since the car worked fine at that time, I just had to continue to monitor.

Tuesday – 27th March

The car did not start in the morning again and this time I was screwed as everybody else had left already, so I was stranded. Instead of worrying about getting to school, I just emailed the professors of the two classes I had that day and stayed home. One thing about the USA is that such problems happen, and is not that uncommon, so people are more chilled. The emails I got back were those summing up the day’s class work and an invitation to their office hours if I needed help. I’m hesitant to think as to whether pressure cooker Singapore education system would be so forgiving and caring.

I called VW and found that there was an open campaign on the ignition coils, which I was hoping would solve the problem. I paid a tow truck to have it towed to the dealership as it would save me the trouble of troubling someone to get me from the VW service center and for some reason, I was actually surprisingly productive in school work at home.

Wednesday – 28th March

Classes were as normal, but the stability test was a slight curve ball. It was doable, but I didn’t have enough time to finish the actual calculations, so I wrote down what I needed to do but did not have time to do. Navin and I checked on the car at VW after school and they changed the ignition coils as part of the open campaign, saving me something like $280 and I paid to have new spark plugs put in it. Hopefully these two things will solve the misfiring problem and ensure my car starts on demand in the morning. The spark plugs costs $64 and I paid another $160 to have them run a full diagnostic as to everything that was wrong with the car, with the assurance I would get a report after they were done. My intent was to take that report and go back to Ron’s, since I knew the dealership would overcharge, and make you fix everything to make the car “perfect,” or tell you that in order to fix the problems, you have to fix them all at once. The reality is that while that makes sense, it’s overkill because most problems are caused by one thing, so you just need to fix one at a time if you have the time to do it.

Thursday – 29th March

Classes as normal and I went home straight after, where I got a good deal of housework done. I bought a new lamp, exactly like the one Pixar has in its introduction moving, the swinging arm type lamp. This new lamp is improving productivity as putting the light above my work just makes it much easier to focus. Before this lamp, I always didn’t want to do work at home as I couldn’t really see what I was working on too well. I made a nice awesome burger at night. had a can of mountain dew with dinner. not a good idea. Also, I used my pay to buy a GoPro, so I can film myself while surfing!

Friday – 30th March

After classes, I went to pick up my car and it cost $220. I’ve spent about $500 on repairs so far, including the battery change (which in hindsight wasn’t really needed), the oil change (that was very needed), and the floor mats. On the way home, I bought a fuel filter and did the change with Navin in the evening in our garage. The fuel filter cost me $16. VW wanted to charge $99 for parts and labor. The job took us maybe 30 minutes at most. This just goes to show that it’s so much cheaper to DIY. When we were done, the 6 of us, Ki, Navin, Nick, Chris, Sebastian and I went to Boondocks for dinner, and while we had to wait, the conversation was excellent and we all had a good time.

Saturday – 31st March

It was the Tau Beta Pi initiation ceremony in the morning with a combined lunch with Sigma Gamma Tau’s induction, so I went to help out. Took up the whole morning, and the afternoon and evening were just spent working on stuff.

Sunday – 1st April

It was a long production at the Avion to make the April Fool’s edition, which meant we had a combined total of 20 pages. I took a swim in the evening, and I’m really quite out of shape.

Week 83 – 19th – 25th March

Monday – 19th March

I went to the surf shop in the morning to get wax before doing a quick grocery run, and selling my old Razer keyboard and mouse for $30. I dropped by to collect packages from school before making sausage squash carbonara for dinner. Relaxed day for Spring Breka.

Tuesday – 20th March

I didn’t go out the whole day and instead played a lot of Mass Effect 3. The afternoon and evening was a cooking frenzy, where I prepared burgers, made lasagna meat sauce, baked an apple pie, and made sambal okra and shrimp for my dinner.

Wednesday – 21st March

I woke up late, trying to sleep off that slight cold, probably from that evening surf session on Monday. In the afternoon, I went to Deland to the VW place to get the 2001 Volkswagen Jetta 1.8T Wolfsburg Edition. It was about the right place according to online sources for that year and trim of the car. Mechanically the car seemed perfect, and the interior was passable. I finally have a car to do my own things and live for my own schedule. I also finished Mass Effect 3 in the evening as well as made lasagna for dinner.

Thursday – 22nd March

I headed down to Miami in the morning with Ethan to go see the Above & Beyond concert as part of the pre-Ultra Music Festival events. I didn’t get an Ultra ticket because of how expensive it was. I think I’ll do it for my senior year though, the last opportunity.

It was a 3 hour drive down to Miami, and my car seems to have performed with no problems at all, getting a decent gas mileage too. The concert itself was not bad, although it was more concert than rave to me, it was just a sit back and enjoy the music kind of event.

We could have stayed the night in Miami, but I was not very impressed with the whole place, and staying the night would have been quite expensive. I also wanted to have my Friday and Saturday to do some school work since I didn’t really do any at all the whole first part of the break, so we had dinner around midnight and were back in Daytona by 6am, with naps taken along the way on the drive back for safety reasons.

Friday – Sunday – 23rd – 25th March

The weekend was spent recovering from the trip, which didn’t take that long and the rest was spent working on stuff and making the Avion.