Winter Break was great. Much needed as well. After yet another exciting and action-packed semester (sometimes overwhelming..) being home with family and friends was fantastic.

Skiing in BreckenridgeOf course, any good Coloradan would need to go skiing over break, so, I did. I have a pass called the Epic Local’s Pass, which allows you to ski all Vail Resorts in Colorado. My friends and I decided to do just that over break, and skiied at Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, and Vail. All ski resorts within 30 minutes of one another.

After skiing our hearts out, we decided to play in the snow with a different method of transportation: the snowmobile. We are all practically novices when it comes to riding snowmobiles, but that didn’t stop us from diving head first into an exciting two day adventure in the Colorado backcountry, near Leadville.

Our entire arrangement for hiking up to a yurt (essentially a small hut) was to use our newfound snowmobile as a tractor and pull 4 persons up via towrope. Imagine waterskiing, but instead, behind a snowmobile, in the snow. What proved to be a great idea at the onset turned to a particularly arduous journey, but the views were fantastic and it couldn’t have been a better trip.

Anguilla BeachesAfter Christmas and the New Year, my family went southbound to the Caribbean to catch some sun. As my parents and younger sister live full time in Colorado, they were definitely very excited to be warming up. We stayed for a week on the British West Indies Isle of Anguilla, a truly beautiful and perfect setting to relax. Plus, driving on the left side of the road!

While break was a whirlwind of activity and catching up with friends, school is now back in full swing. I’m very excited about my classes this semester, as I am finally taking AME-261 (Flight Mechanics) and ASTE-280 (Foundations of Astronautical Engineering). These two courses relate exactly to what I’m interested in working on after graduation, so I was excited to finally be learning this material.

In other areas of my life, club tennis season is now in full swing. We’re training hard every week to prepare for sectionals in early February (the qualifier for both the Cali Cup in the Bay Area and Nationals!).

TKE Rush Spring 2016With a new semester, our Rush process for Tau Kappa Epsilon has started, and we’re looking forward to meeting great new people for the Spring.

I hope you all enjoyed this recap (albeit slightly lengthy) and wish you the best in Your New Year!

Fight On!

-Naish

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Naish

Naish

Aerospace Engineering, Class of 2018, Learn more on his profile here!