Happy Birthday to me

We had a quiet celebration at home for my birthday. As is tradition, airplanes are worth 10 years. The gooey butter cake was delicious!

S&T Club Swim Meet at SLU

 Benjamin's swim club had their first meet of the year at Saint Louis University this weekend.

Visiting AstonFly

 Noah and I visited AstonFly aviation school today. The school is located southwest of Paris, in the Yvelines department. Their training program lasts two years, and lessons are in English. 

You might live in France if...

 dinner delivers itself to your door.

 

Fall Career Fair

 Benjamin attended the fall career fair. They're expected to dress professionally to meet the recruiters. Over 400 companies come to meet students at the fair, and we hope this will lead to an internship at some point. At any rate, it gives the students good experience for interviews later.

Parade of Nations

Benjamin once again represented France in Missouri S&T's Parade of Nations. To our surprise, there were two other French kids this year, on an exchange from their French engineering schools, so Benjamin carried the Europe banner instead of the French flag this time.

Peter, Benjamin's apartmentmate, representing Bulgaria, and Benjamin

Benjamin told the spectators how to say "hello" in French

 

L-Approaches

Today Noah did a few circuits practicing L-approaches with the instructor, where you approach the runway from the perpendicular instead of head-on. 

Then he did a couple of solo circuits. To get his PPL license he has to have at least ten hours of solo flying time out of the 45 hours total.

learning about L-approaches

Noah landing solo

 

More Flying

The weather being what it is in northern France, Noah is trying to get hours in when he can. He gets out of school at 4:30 pm on Thursdays, which gives him enough time for an hour of flying if he can find an instructor available.

Abbaye St Jean des Vignes in the background

Maverick back on the ground after a few solo circuits

 

Benjamin and the Solar Car Team

Benjamin is right back in the swing of things. His  solar car team kicked off the year with a murder mystery night. Benjamin is on the far left in the classy red plaid shirt & tie. As the token Frenchman, he was Jean-Pierre Monseigneur.

 

First day of senior year!

Senior year ("terminale") is pretty intense in France, with the baccalauréat test at the end of the year. The pressure is not quite as bad as it used to be since they reformed the bac to include more portions that simply count your grades from the year instead of from one testing session, but the results of the bac help determine what educational or career path one may pursue after high school, so it's still a pretty big deal, and seniors have a lot of homework and studying to do.

Back to Flying

Juniors and seniors start school a day after the sophomores, so Noah took advantage of the extra day off and found an instructor available to fly with him for his first flight after vacation.

checking the oil

towing the plane out of the hangar