Some students you never forget — even the ones you first met through a computer screen. In this episode, Peter reconnects with Jandayra "J" Gonzalez, a former student from the strangest chapter of teaching either of them can remember: hybrid learning during COVID, when a class of masked faces and Big Blue Button tiles somehow turned into one of the closest groups Peter ever taught.

J and Peter look back on what it was actually like building a real connection through a screen — the guesswork of imagining what your classmates looked like under their masks, the "social wild west" of a group chat full of kids who just wanted someone to talk to, and the surreal moment they finally recognized each other in person for the first time.

From there, the conversation moves into where J's life has gone since: working her way through Seven Brew as a barista, learning to drive for the first time as a young adult, moving to a brand-new town where she knew no one, and slowly finding her footing as a Writing and Rhetoric student at UCF.

The two also dig into J's quiet, ongoing relationship with creative writing — from a secret poetry account she deleted in high school to the writing she's only now getting comfortable sharing again.

As always, we close with our two signature segments: something we each learned today (this one involves tooth enamel and a Mitski song played 203 times), and the advice J would give her past self if she could sit down with her — a reminder that most of what feels catastrophic in the moment usually isn't "the ruin of England."

A conversation about screens turning into real relationships, chosen versus given community, and figuring out who you are once no one's watching anymore.

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Growth isn't always linear — and neither is figuring out who you're becoming.

This week, Peter reconnects with Andres Valcarcel — a UCF classmate he shared math classes with 13 years ago — for a conversation that spans career pivots, entrepreneurship, endurance sports, and the search for meaning outside of a screen.Andres started at UCF chasing an engineering degree and walked away with one in finance instead. A connection from high school led him into the live event ticket brokerage business, where he learned to manage his own book of business, relationships, and inventory from the ground up. That early hustle became the foundation for what he's built since: he's now a co-founder of two companies, including a collectibles business spanning action figures, trading cards, and comic books, and Take Flight, a sports performance company gearing up to launch its own beverage line.Peter and Andres dig into the wild growth of the collectibles market — from a $10 billion industry six years ago to $75 billion today — and what that boom says about our collective craving for nostalgia and joy in an age of constant screen time and app fatigue.The conversation also turns to cycling and endurance sports, which Andres picked up during COVID as a way to process uncertainty and eventually built into completing a full Ironman. He opens up about the mental and even spiritual side of endurance racing, including a hallucination during the marathon leg where he saw a vision of his eight-year-old self cheering him on — and the advice that moment left him with: cheer harder for yourself, especially for the small wins.Along the way: e-bikes and responsibility, the last generation to remember life before constant connectivity, and why growth is rarely a straight line.If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who could use a reminder that growth isn't always linear.Follow us on Instagram @catchingupthepodcast for clips every Friday, and catch new episodes every Wednesday.catchiNG Up: Beyond the Classroom — where conversations continue beyond the classroom.

Peter reconnects with former student Mariana Ramirez, a UCF computer engineering and game design grad heading into a full-time role with Lockheed Martin on the Orion program — the capsule that will carry astronauts back to the moon and, eventually, to Mars under NASA's Artemis missions.

Mariana traces her path from a high school Game, Model & Simulation class to a NASA internship, and shares what it's actually like working toward humanity's return to the moon. She and Peter reminisce about their anatomy class days — the "coffee shop classroom," a still-hanging student painting, and a shared love of Marvel and tattoos — before diving into Mariana's world: learning Japanese as a third language, rebuilding a Pokémon card collection after a devastating loss, and living for EDM festivals like EDC and Ultra Miami.

They also get real about growth, identity, and resilience — from graduating during COVID lockdowns to navigating a male-dominated engineering field as a Latina, and the family sacrifices that shaped her drive. Plus: Toxoplasma gondii (yes, the cat parasite), Japan travel tips for Peter's upcoming trip, and advice for anyone still figuring out where they fit.

In this episode:

• Working on NASA's Artemis/Orion program and the road to Mars
• From Timber Creek High School to UCF's #1-ranked game design program
• Rebuilding a Pokémon card collection worth thousands
• EDC, Ultra Miami, and the culture of music festival communities
• Navigating engineering as a woman and a Latina
• Growth, gratitude, and honoring immigrant parents
• Advice for her 16-year-old self

Follow @catchingupthepodcast on Instagram for clips every Friday and new episodes every Wednesday. Catching Up — where conversations don't end when the bell rings.