So. What did I do this summer? WELL. To /SUM IT UP FOR YOU/. (Sorry if I use the names Sylwa and Roberta interchangebly. They're the same person. xDDD)

Sylwa and I went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University for their summer camp- Flight Training Alpha. And here's how it went, starting from the moment I picked Roberta up, to the moment I dropped her off. xDDD I'M SURE YOU'LL ALL FIND THIS SO EXCITING. DO TRY NOT TO WET YOURSELVES, NOW.

I got to Roberta's house at precisely 10:28am (or... Somewhere around there. XDDD). The car ride there took about four hours. During this car ride, Sylwa and IIIII... Played I-Spy (lmao), and /I/ learned to make a paper airplane. And it turned out really bad because SYLWA wouldn't let me use her silver sharpie, EVEN THOUGH she has twenty more at home. .-. And then we stopped at McDonald's and saw a really strange picture, and then... Shall I skip ahead just a tad?

We got to the hotel and the first thing we noticed was how the TV /did not/ have any good channels. THEN we noticed that Roberta's blanket had a hole in it, and the sheets were dirty. I looked at /my/ sheets, and notice a biiiiiiiig yellow stain, and a few tiny green-brown lumps. Well, /delicious/. Then, on the blanket, there was a nice blue stain, maybe toothpaste? Anyhow, the beds were totally and completely unclean. Then we move on to the balcony. The curtains that you had to move aside to get to the sliding door were dirty and grimy, and so was the bar that you had to lower to open the door. The ceiling was disgusting and ugly and gross. We closed and locked the door, and graduated on to the bathroom. The shower was dirty. The whole bottom of the shower was coated in a pretty little layer of dirt. When we turned the shower on, it sprayed a clean spot in the middle of all the dirt. It was pretty gross. THEN there was that whole /JESUS CHRIST THE WATER IN THE TOILET GOES UP WHEN I FLUSH IT/ problem. So we called the plumber and he pulled out all this nasty stuff and carried it away in his pretty little bag. And then the next day, guess what. IT HAPPENED AGAIN. Roberta and I played Go Fish with her cards while we waited for the plumber. ... He came an hour later. THEN we decided, well what the heck. Let's go swimming. So we go to the pool, and there are all these bugs that swim really fast across the surface. You know, those tiny little things. But THEN, in that hole next to the pool that's like a drain or something, the top was off and you could see into it. There were these HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE (and I mean huge. Like, REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY BIG) roach-crab things. They had like, shells that were really hard. And they moved like crabs. But they LOOKED like roaches. And there were four of them. So anyway, yeah. That pretty much sums up our stay in the hotel.

... I definitely do NOT reccomend La Quinta to any of you. .-.

ANYWAY. That was the miserably /bad/ part of our stay. But there was one /tiiiiiiny/ little good thing about this whole stay.

... We got to fly an airplane. A freakin' airplane, guys. We /flew/ it. A real Cessna 172. And here's the camp story:

Day 1: We were introduced to the Embry-Riddle campus. We get to camp a few minutes early, and walk inside. There is NO ONE there. It's this HUUUUUUUGE lobby, with no one there. And Roberta's all. "... I feel welcomed." XDDD THAT WAS GREAT. Ahem. Yes, so. A while later, everyone comes and welcomes us and stuff. We get these nifty little bags that I still use like, every day. To carry my tennis racket and stuff (xD). Anyway, yeah. In these bags were a binder, a book, ear phones to connect to the radio in the plane so you could hear the co-pilot and Air Traffic Control and any nearby traffic and stuff. And there was a shirt. And a squishy plane. 8DD Squishy. ANYWAY. Yes. So we got all our stuff. THEN we went to the admissions office and got our pictures taken, and these little cards printed out. One of them was for free food at the caffeteria, the other was for access to the airport. Anyway, my picture sucked. LIKE ALWAYS (xDD). So then we had this tour with this guy at this place, and he was all and thiiiiiiissssss iiiiiiiiisssssss and talking all boring-like and stuff. It was NOT FUN. ... ANYWAY. After that, we had to watch this admissions powerpoint, and that was all well and good because I learned that I could get into Embry-Riddle on a tennis scholarship. After that, we finally had lunch- pizzaaaa. THEN, we had three hours of Flight Simulator. DAAAAAAAAAAMN that was fun. You were sitting in the cockpit of a REAL Cessna (yes, a REAL cessna. Taken right off the production line. 8DD), and you... Well, you flew. xD Anyway, that was when we first met our flight instructor, Dave. He was the person who taught us to fly a plane. He was pretty durn cool. 8B Anyway, then we had GROUND LAB. Ground lab was this thing where we sat and listened to this southern guy drone on for hours about stuff I'd already heard about. ANYWAY. Then we got picked up and went back to the hotel.

Day 2: Well. We were /supposed/ to have our first flight today, but because of Tropical Storm Alfredo or Agusto or Alka-seltzer or whatever it was, we had to postpone it. So we got some extra simulator time, instead. Anyway, after the flight simulator we had lunch, and then we went to the maintenance building. It was pretty boring, until we got to this place where they actually ran an engine for us. We had to leave the room and shut the door and wear ear-muffs (and even with them, it was SODAMN loud), and watch through the window- but it was awesome. Because it was pouring rain, we were soaked by the time we got back inside the building for this meteorology presentation. That had to be the most boring thing I've ever sat through. BUT, after thatm we had the Daytona Tower Presentation. THAT was fun. We all got this little airplanes to throw around. 8DDD Anyway. We also learned how much an air traffic controller /makes/. Darn that's a lot. xDDD After that, we had ground lab again. x-x NOT FUN. We learned all about Angle of Attack and stuff, even though I'd already read about that a million times. And then we had pick-up, again. And we went back to our dirty, grungy hotel.

Day 3: OUR FIRST FLIGHT! Because the remains of the tropical storm were still floating around, it was a pretty bumpy ride. I went first, so I sat in the captain's chair, the instructor (Dave) sat next to me, and Roberta sat in the back. I got to take-off and fly the plane myself for a while, with some help from Dave. When we landed, my hands were on the controls, but Dave pretty much did the landing himself. After the flight, we had lunch and tutor lab (which was just a bunch of stuff with simulators). We also had a behind-the-scenes tour of Daytona International Airport, and United Airlines. We saw how their luggage system thing worked, and we also saw how they played pranks on each other by hanging nude pictures over each other's mailboxes. And we also saw how their workers just laid around drinking soda. xDDD And then we had this crash and fire rescue thing, and I thought it was really cool how they were all... Like a family and stuff (xDDD). But the standing around part was pretty boring. o-o

Day 4: More flying. Roberta got to go first this time- she got the smooth weather (xD). On the way back, it was a lot bumpier. YAY I GOT TO FLY IN THE BUMPINESS. You could tell that Dave was really letting us fly the plane, now- his hands were off the controls a lot more, he was telling you what to do, but you really felt like you knew what you were doing. I got to practice some stalls and lazy eights, and WOW those were fun. The first stall we did was the power-off stall. You pull the throttle back to idle, put the flaps in 30 degrees (full flaps), and pull back on the yoke. The plane jerks and everything goes kinda quiet, and then the plane, which is currently pointing nearly straight up, turns all the way down and goes into a kind of dive, which you have to pull out of. You give the plane full power, and voila. You just pulled out of a stall. Then there was the power on stall, where you just go straight up until you stall. Oh, I forgot to mention that stall warning horn. It goes off when you are about to stall. It's pretty unnerving at first, it kind of freaks you out. It's loud as hell, you can hear it through your ear muffs. xD But no, those were fun. The lazy eights were fun, too, except they made you kind of nauseous if you ate a big breakfast. But anyway, that's what I did. By this time, Dave had noticed that I liked to do all the crazy stalls and lazy eights and all those stunts, while Roberta preffered flying straight and level. XD HE NOTICED THAT. THAT'S SO COOL. xDDD Anyway, after the flight we had lunch, and then this talk about ROTC. We were supposed to hear from the Air Force, the Army, and the NAVY-- but only the Air Force was ready for us. The Air Force had this whole presentation set up, while the Army had one guy talk to us about something, and the NAVY didn't even show up. xDD Wow. ANYWAY, that was pretty interesting for me, because I'm really considering joining the Air Force. Or maybe even the NAVY. They've got the cool planes. 8DDD Anyway. Yeah. so that was our little ROTC talk. After that, we got to go in this AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWESOME simulator. It was a spacial disoreantaion simulator, and it was /fun/. There was this one program that the guy wanted us to do, and it involved this really nauseating spin dive that you had to pull out of. The guy was like, any volunteers, and nobody said anything, so I stepped up. I'msobrave. ^^ And I actually recovered from the spin! It was /awesome/. And when I stepped out everyone was like. /Whoa/. Are you /sure/ you've never flown before, because you are DAMNGOOD. xDDD Anyway. Yeah, so they congratulated me on my awesomeness. After that we had ground lab x-x. And then we went back to the hotel.

Day 5: Last day. DDD: I walk in with a stomachache, and I'm really not feeling up to flying- so Roberta goes first. I spend the whole flight staring at the airsick bag. I can remember the picture clearly. There's a picture of this guy running and holding his mouth and looking really sad, and then on the other side of the words there's the same guy holding a full bag and looking all proud of himself. I've never gotten airsick before, and I wasn't even nauseous, it was just that my stomach hurt. Anyway, it made me feel better to look at the airsick bag xDDD. Anyway, we stop at this airport and go inside and rest for a bit, and I'm on the verge of skipping my flight. I mean, I did /not/ feel well. But then Roberta and Dave are all, you'll feel better in the front seat, anyway. And so they get me in front of the yoke and I'm all... How the hell did I get up here. I can't fly like this. But I'm all. Okay, fine. Have it your way. And so THEN Dave's all, okay use the rudder pedals to steer the plane down the runway and I'm all thinking. I thought I was just gonna sit here, not fly? But Dave knew what he was doing- the second we took off, I felt better. So, yeah. Flying is DEFINITELY my thing. 8DDDDDDD After the flight, we had lunch, and then ground lab. It wasn't /too/ bad. None of the ground labs were /toooooooo/ bad. But anyway, I only fell asleep once. It was better than all the other ground labs. xDDD Anyway. After the ground lab we were supposed to have the flight simulator, but because we had had extra flight simulator on tuesday and no flight, we had extra flight today and no simulator. So we had a pool party instead. After that, we had our "evaluations", where we reflected on everything we did. xDDDDDDD Anyway. After that, we had to fill out this question and answer thing. BUT THEN. AFTER THAT. Was the dinner party. It was fun because. Well. It was fun. And good food. 8DDD

Anyway, I can't possibly make you understand how amazing flight camp was for me. My one goal in life was to fly a plane, and I finally have. Now I have to go and make myself a new goal (xD). I learned to fly a plane, and I've gotten a chance to see the college that I am seriously thinking of attending. So, all in all, this was probably the best trip of /my/ life.

Despite the crappy hotel. 8P

And if you've actually managed to read through this whole hideously long journal... God bless you. xDDD