Disney Fanatic

If you know me then you should know that I am a Disney Fanatic! Ever since last Summer and I have been all about Disney. I have:

• Watched documentaries about the theme parks
• Joined the Disney Movie Club
• Downloaded Disney music
• Visited the Disney Store quite often
• Started to follow all type of Disney accounts on Twitter
• Went to Walt Disney World

That last one has been the most special. [How ironic that Mulan starts to play on my iPOD while I'm typing this.] I went to Disney World the first week of classes and it was AMAZING!!!!! Later today I am going to write a post about it!

Have to go to Hydrology......exciting

Until next time....

Music Has Power

For Christmas I got an iPOD and I love it! Whenever I am upset, sad, or happy I am listening to it. I listen to music when I'm walking to class, driving around, forecasting, and working on stuff around the room. I choose songs that are motivating and have a lively beat. Recently it has been mainly Owl City and Disney songs but the playlist changes about every month.

Music has a power to change things! Recently I have been faced with a tough decision and I have decided what to do. If everything works out, then the consequences of this decision will change everything, but for the good. Music helped me calm my racing mind and make the right decision.

I am not saying that the music led me to the right decision but it helped me think things through. God lead me in the right direction through the music from artists such as Chris Tomlin, Crowder, and Owl City. I pray that everything works out and now I put it in God's hands.

I am listening to it right now while writing this post....here are the songs that played while writing it:

• "Zero to Hero" from Hercules
• "Kiss the Girl" from Little Mermaid
• "You are My Joy" by DC*B
• "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz

Until next time....

Despise it!

I hate cold weather!

the end.

Promise Kept

I promised a while ago that I would write a blog post about "case studies," well here it is....

Case Studies are something we do in Synoptic 1 & 2 and I truly believe that they were created to torment us as students by adding stress, frustration, and anger to our already hectic lives. Before I explain what they are, it would be nice to have a mental picture, so let me save you the trouble of using your brain and provide that mental picture:

There you go....that is a case study map. They are these huge weather maps that we have to analyze and there are 5 maps for each installment and we get two installments each semester.

Each map has different things we have to analyze but before we go into there, there is something that must be said. The atmosphere has several different layers as everybody knows and weather occurs in the Troposphere layer which is right above the surface. In Meteorology we break that layer into different layers of constant pressure. Here are the pressure levels we use starting at the surface and going up in height:

• Surface
• 850 mb [approx. 5,000 feet up]
• 700 mb [approx. 10,000 feet up]
• 500 mb [approx. 18,000 feet up]
• 300 mb [approx. 30,000 feet up]

We get a map for each of these levels and now we will go into what we have to analyze for each level:

Surface:

• Isobars [lines of constant pressure]
• Highs & Lows
• Cold & Warm Fronts
• Areas of precipitation
• Areas of fog, haze, and dust

850 mb:

• Isobars/Isoheights
• Warm & Cold Air Advection - Basically the movement of cold and warm air [that probably didn't explain anything lol]
• Low/High Heights

700 mb:

• Isobars/Isoheights
• Areas of dry and moist air
• Low/High Heights

500 mb:

• Isobars/Isoheights
• Troughs/Ridges
• Areas of positive/negative vorticity
• Low/High Heights

300 mb:

• Isobars/Isoheights
• Wind speeds
• Upper level Jet maximas

You might not know everything I mentioned but the point is that each map requires a lot of shading and takes hours to complete. The entire case study takes days, and are given a full month to complete. You go through a lot of colored pencils and produce a lot of eraser shavings. The teacher is particular in the grading. The isobars have to be straight and not too wavy, there must be no pencil marks, everything has a certain color that you must shade it, etc.

We [the students] don't look forward to these but we have to do them. We get our first installment for this semester on Thursday! Here we go....

Christmas Break

This break has been awesome!!!

I came down the 19th and that night we had the Transition (college group at church) Progressive dinner. The days that followed were full of family time as my Aunt Rene was in from Virginia. Christmas arrived and we went over to my Grandma's house to celebrate with the family. I got gift cards, an IPOD Touch, and a Pee Coat [hope I spelled that right].

On December 26th, it snowed in Goose Creek!!!! This RARELY happens and was wonderful to see. That night I went up to Columbia with my Dad and did Christmas with him and my sister. Joanna came down the following Wednesday and stayed until New Years Day. On New Years Day I went to Passion [see blog below to read about it] and that was AMAZING!!! God really taught me a lot! Now I am just chilling around the house doing the lists that Mom writes for me and hanging out with friends.

Tomorrow's agenda includes sleeping in, lunch with Jerrika & Trikia, and then playing the wii with Tim and who knows whatever else.

Yes my break has been AWESOME and I still 6 more days....life is good!

Until next time....

Passion 2011

This past weekend I went to the Passion "Conference." I use that term loosely because it set up like a conference but it truly is a worship experience. Here is what happened...

We left Saturday and arrived in Atlanta at 3:30 PM and our hotel room was not ready due to New Years Eve the previous night. We got two of the four rooms and went to dinner and then to the Main Session. There were two arenas, the Phillips Arena and the Georgia World Congress Center. We were in the Georgia World Congress Center first and the session opened up with Matt Redman in our arena and Chris Tomlin in the Phillips Arena. Louie Giglio then started off Passion 2011 and a spiritual ride that was AMAZING!

We saw Tomlin, Charlie Hall, David Crowder, Matt Redman, Giglio, Beth Moore, Frances Chan, Andy Stanley, and John Piper. One thing God taught me was that it doesn't matter who preached or sang, it is all about Jesus. We are to make the NAME of Jesus famous and not the name of people. This was the last thing we discussed at Passion and it has stuck with me since then. Every Passion I have gone to I have looked forward to seeing Crowder but that is not what it is about. I will never forget this.

At Passion they have a campaign called "Do Something Now" which supports around 10 different charitable organizations. Each organization had a goal and the total amount goal was $500,000. After 4 days $1.4 million dollars was donated by 22,000+ college students and volunteers. PRAISE GOD!!! You can see the different organizations here: http://268generation.com/passion2011/#/atlanta/do-something-now/causes

There were small bible studies called Breakouts and the one of the many that I attended was David Platt, speaking about his book "Radical." Platt talked about how churches are consumer-based and it is not about making money it was about spreading the Gospel through service and ministry. This idea of serving God through service, I believe, touched our group from Ridge the most. I can see that our group is on fire to change the church so that the Gospel is spread.

This is only a brief look at what happened at Passion 2011. I believe that everybody in our church group came back changed in some way and I pray that we continue to have that flame in our hearts for a long time! Next year Passion is moving to the Georgia Dome for Passion 2012! I ask that you pray for Passion 2011 Ft. Worth, which will take place on April 1-3. God is moving in our generation!

wow.....

It has been a VERY long time since I blogged! So much has happened since then that it could take several blogs posts to cover all of it!

Starting tomorrow I will start posting about these events but here is a little preview:

- Passion 2011

- Christmas

- Case Studies

Until next time.....or I guess until tomorrow!