Take your Jumpseats...

Hello again!

Keeping up with my attempted ‘Five Cabin Checks‘ theme, I‘m going to fill you in on five things (or changes) worth mentioning since my last post.

1. I got my wings and passed my initial flight attendant training course with FLYING colors. (Yay!)
2. I bought myself a new PINK Sony Vaio laptop to keep up with the internet, email, my blog, and my loved ones while I’m traveling the world.
3. I realized that I have approximately 3 days left of freedom until my company owns me and NEEDS me to fly as much as the FAA will legally allow it.
4. I NO LONGER have a set schedule, EVER, that insists I wake up every morning at a certain time and be at work certain days of the week.
5. I realized that free wireless internet is the greatest invention EVER. I can only imagine how many different networks my little pink princess is going to be hooked up to. Ha!

Let’s start from the beginning. I got my wings on Friday and honestly… never for a second… thought to myself, “It’s in the bag.” Because just when I thought we were all safe, another girl got sent home. All it would have taken was ONE NIGHT of me giving up, failing a test (90% or less) in the morning, and they would have had me on the next van to the airport and on a flight that wasn’t supposed to be mine. I personally, had risked way too much for that to happen to me. Technically, we weren’t hired until we successfully completed training. So, I left my previous job without any guarantee of an income, but I relied SO MUCH on my ‘will to succeed’ that I wouldn’t settle for less. That, and the fact that I’ve been longing for a drastic change in my life and surroundings, without having to relocate. The opportunity that I have now to travel internationally and get paid for it is unbelievable to me. I can tell you now, I have NO idea what to expect of other countries. To date, I have only been to Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean outside of the United States. I can’t wait to add stamps to my passport and see places such as Budapest, Iceland, Jamaica, Canada, and Hawaii. (OK, I KNOW Canada & Hawaii are considered the U.S., call me crazy, but they’re kinda NOT, in my opinion.)

19 of us graduated on Friday and I hope we all make it through our O.E.’s (Operating Experience, our first flight at least 5 hours long that officially certifies us as flight attendants). I can honestly say too, that I hope I get to fly with every single one of them someday. They weren’t kidding… the people you go through training with will be your friends for life. I always found myself filling up my free time when I wasn’t studying with chatting by the pool, calling one on the phone (particularly Anoir… he would always say to me, “Honey, I have to let you GO… you LOVE talking on the phone… I have to STUDY and I’m trying to get off the phone with you…), or grabbing a bite to eat with them. As far as I’m concerned, Miami was a dump because we didn’t see anything outside our hotel. Oh well. We were there for one reason only… and if any of us forgot that for a minute, we’d quickly throw out a pop quiz question that would remind us, “Shit, I should know that by now.” As if I wasn’t putting enough pressure on myself already, it was always nearby in the eyes of the other hungry future flight attendants. :-)

The final on the last day was about 15 pages long, 100 questions, and 250 points. It took us a serious hand cramp and an entire ink pen to get through. If you knew it, you knew it. If you didn’t… you didn’t. Thankfully, we ALL passed, and we were all called back to get our wings at 2 o’clock that afternoon. Wednesday we have an employee orientation and Thursday is my physical. I’m not kidding, I could be on my first flight within a WEEK, if not sooner. They need us out there and it’s going to be a crazy beginning to my crazy new career.

SO… to keep in touch with life in Rockford and beyond… and for others to keep their tabs on me… I bought myself a new laptop that is my new baby. It’s a PINK Sony Vaio that I can picture setting up in my hotel room ( our company has an agreement where we have free WIFI wherever we go & stay, thank goodness J ) and zoning out to after a long day of being in the air. I have never EVER wanted a laptop, but now suddenly, it’s a necessity. Not that I can even really afford it now… but hopefully if I keep up my pattern of being put up in a FREE hotel for days at a time and not spending anywhere NEAR my per diem a day, I can pay it off pretty quick and I‘ll have it for years and years. Honestly though, Ramen is NOT that bad, and kind of delicious. If you make it in the microwave and eat it out of a mug! (That’s me & Nik’s trick!)

The thing that has really enticed me about being a flight attendant for the last couple months has been the fact that a typical F/A schedule is NOTHING like the ordinary. I am SO SICK of the ‘Monday through Friday 8-5’ ... Hating Sunday nights before I had to go back to another ‘week’ of work. I told my In-Flight Manager in my interview that I was craving a new schedule. I WANT to leave at 2 in the morning on a Saturday for a flight and then have a random Thursday afternoon off. The most I will ever know about my schedule ahead of time is that I am ON for 18 days a month and off for 10. When I get my schedule (tomorrow or Thursday, hopefully...), I'll blog again to 'announce' where I'm off to first.

For now, I HAVE to go. This is getting too long, and the staff at Beef-a-Roo is starting to stare at me wondering why I've been here mooching off their internet for over an hour. :-)

Cheers!