To sink or swim…theatrical flair is a must

First day of training started off with a bang. We were taken straight on to the simulator where we were given a dramatic evacuation scene performed by our trainers.  Little did we know that we would be not only seeing this scene over and over again but playing the parts all week. 

All simulator performances need to come with a side of exaggeration and heaps of assertiveness. Anybody feeling a little shy soon learnt that being quiet just meant you would end up doing repeat performances until you got it right J So needless to say I am now quite comfortable making an ass of myself in front of a group of my peers.

With the simulators came heaps of theory. For the past two weeks we have been doing safety and emergencies procedures.  It’s by no means rocket science but does require a lot of memorization. All checks need to be learnt word for word. The beautiful airplane equipment naming people seem to have a sadistic side, as the names seem to be deliberately long and hard to learn.

We had had a doors test on the first Thursday.  It was a bit rocky to start but after 10 seconds of staring at the door to figure out the third check everything else went well. This was only the beginning; there were many tests and exams to follow.

Our days are pretty long, I’m up at ten past five and we get home from college at four thirty but with the added bonus of 2-3 hours of studying…I’ve gotten lazy since doing my honours and it’s been an adjustment.

So needless to say with the hectic workload for the past two weeks there has been a dramatic drop in partying, well this coupled with my rapidly depleting finances…can’t wait for payday J

Through the training we have a daily report card which you get to see to identify where you need to improve. Mine have been generally good, that is except for the infamous missing clip day. I washed my hair in the morning and pinned it back with a clip but later in the day the clip slipped out of place and a strand of hair was lying to the side of my face. There are quite a few girls with fringes so this stray hair was by no means the most disobedient hair do out of the bunch. However I was asked to please clip it back, which I promptly did, only to find this little incident on my end of day report card. Alas this stray hair will continue to haunt me as after receiving my SEP report at the end of the training the infamous stray hair was again mentioned…oh gosh!

But all exams are done and dusted, our whole batch managed to scrape through. Lots of celebrating over the weekend. I also managed to work on the tan a bit and cleaned my apartment so a fruitful weekend. Now it’s a countdown to pay day…going out in Dubai is an expensive past time I’ll be eating two minute noodles and bread for the next week I think.

First day of training started off with a bang. We were taken straight on to the simulator where we we a dramatic evacuation scene performed by our trainers.  Little did we know that we would be not only seeing this scene over and over again but playing the parts all week. 

All simulator performances need to come with a side of exaggeration and heaps of assertiveness. Anybody feeling a little shy soon learnt that being quiet just meant you would end up doing repeat performances until you got it right J So needless to say I am now quite comfortable making an ass of myself in front of a group of my peers.

With the simulators came heaps of theory. For the past two weeks we have been doing safety and emergencies procedures.  It’s by no means rocket science but does require a lot of memorization. All checks need to be learnt word for word. The beautiful airplane equipment naming people seem to have a sadistic side, as the names seem to be deliberately long and hard to learn.

We had had a doors test on the first Thursday.  It was a bit rocky to start but after 10 seconds of staring at the door to figure out the third check everything else went well. This was only the beginning; there were many tests and exams to follow.

Our days are pretty long, I’m up at ten past five and we get home from college at four thirty but with the added bonus of 2-3 hours of studying…I’ve gotten lazy since doing my honours and it’s been an adjustment.

So needless to say with the hectic workload for the past two weeks there has been a dramatic drop in partying, well this coupled with my rapidly depleting finances…can’t wait for payday J

Through the training we have a daily report card which you get to see to identify where you need to improve. Mine have been generally good, that is except for the infamous missing clip day. I washed my hair in the morning and pinned it back with a clip but later in the day the clip slipped out of place and a strand of hair was lying to the side of my face. There are quite a few girls with fringes so this stray hair was by no means the most disobedient hair do out of the bunch. However I was asked to please clip it back, which I promptly did, only to find this little incident on my end of day report card. Alas this stray hair will continue to haunt me as after receiving my SEP report at the end of the training the infamous stray hair was again mentioned…oh gosh!

But all exams are done and dusted, our whole batch managed to scrape through. Lots of celebrating over the weekend. I also managed to work on the tan a bit and cleaned my apartment so a fruitful weekend. Now it’s a countdown to pay day…going out in Dubai is an expensive past time I’ll be eating two minute noodles and bread for the next week I think.