Fingers crossed
A has his systems oral exam today. He and his partner have studied and are feeling confident, so hopefully it will be good news for them. They are scheduled for a 5 hour block for the exam, but don’t anticipate needing all of it. A always did good in the oral portion of his checkrides, so I think he’ll be fine. Resisting the urge to make all kinds of naughty comments involving the words oral and exam…
A had an interesting experience in the FTD a few days ago. He and his partner have been doing really well and have had good reviews. The other duo that they are splitting time with haven’t been so lucky. They seem to be struggling a bit. They had a new instructor for this particular evenings FTD session who had mixed up which was the “doing well” duo and which was the “needs more work” duo. A said the guy was a total jerk and rode their ass about every little thing. However he missed about half of what the other guys messed up on. Self fulfilling prophecy in action. They realized during the final brief what had happened. The instructor threatened A and his partner with an ATR (additional training required) and A flat out told the guy “I don’t like you”. Yes, A has balls of steel.
A is coming home tonight for the first time in 16 days. Ironically, I can already feel a headache coming on… He’ll be home monday pm-thursday am, then back to IAD and then back home again sun pm for a few more days. Then off to the full motion sim at Hobby Airport in Houston. We are looking forward to having him home. M can’t wait to do boy things like catch lizards and play video games. And I’m looking forward to some adult pursuits. And also to him getting my a/c fixed in my car. It’s supposed to be in the 90’s all week here. Can’t wait to get to the airport tonight!
New stuff
Oh oh oh! I just added a link to another pilot wife’s blog in my blogroll for even more reading (and empathizing) pleasure. Check the blogroll on the sidebar to find the link. I’ll add more as I receive requests or find sites. See what interesting things you can find when you have time to poke around a bit?
One down, two to go
A had and passed his systems written exam on Tuesday. That guy in class that you hate because he always gets good grades yet never cracks a book- that’s A. He scored an 89%, 2nd highest in the class. 5 people, including his sim partner, didn’t pass. So next on the plate is FTD’s for the week, the oral exam on Sunday and then a short trip home for a few days. We had a minor panic when they gave him his May schedule and it showed him going straight from the LOFT training to his IOE, and him being gone from the 9th through the 31st. But we heard that that is most likely going to change.
Looking forward to having him home again for a few days, even if it’s days I’ll be working.
Keeping the home fires burning
We made it through week 3, so hopefully we have hit the half way point of training. A stayed in Houston this weekend to study. He doesn’t do text books very well, he just retains an amazing amount from lectures and hands on stuff. Study sessions have been hard on him and he hasn’t attended many. I told him- as long as you know as much as everyone else knows, you’ll be fine. And he tells me he does. We’ll find out when he has his systems written exam tomorrow.
Maybe it’s just me, but I had some higher expectations for what his training would be like. I guess those low fares translate into less money spent on training as well. Tomorrow is his exam. He still has no idea what happens on Wednesday. He has no schedule. Straight to FTD/Sim stuff? A few days off? Where will the sims be- Houston? Memphis? Orlando? He has friends in other classes so he knows what they did/are doing and his class seems to be getting the shaft on all this. They haven’t even had a chance to do a walk-around on a real plane. I would have expected that that would be a REQUIRED part of training. Also, they didn’t get to practice any evac procedures. Again, woulda thought that would be required. And now we hear that they will be doubling up on IOE’s. He’ll be riding in the jumpseat for his partners IOE and then they will switch. Hopefully he won’t end up getting shorted on that time as well. At least he’ll learn from his friend’s mistake. They don’t use headsets in the sims, so when his friend showed up for his IOE, he realized he didn’t know where to plug the headset in.
We’ve been fine back at home. It was kind of nice to take it slow this weekend instead of frantically trying to fit everything in. A always worked weekends when instructing, so having to occupy ourselves on a weekend is nothing new. M was on the phone to bio-dad last week and said “I need a new daddy now because you are in CA and A is in Q-ston and I don’t have one here anymore”. So we had to talk about that a little. Seem to be clear on it now though.
We had a rough spot this past week when I got angry at A on the phone and then spun it out of proportion in my head and wouldn’t talk to him on the phone for 3 days. One of those things where it starts with some small slight and blows up bigger and bigger the more you think about it- like when “you put pickles on my sandwich when you know I don’t like them” becomes “you must not love me because after 2 years you don’t know I don’t like pickles” when really it was all the Subway guy’s fault. But it blew over eventually. A told me he did finally come and look up this blog to see if he could find any clues. Said it made him feel good to read what I’ve been writing, hooray for validation.
I’m sure a good deal of it was hormonal and blowing off steam about our whole situation. Now that we have emotionally come to terms with it, we are less in shock. Carrying a baby that isn’t going to live and waiting every day for the inevitable to occur, hiding pregnancy symptoms from friends and family, and A not being here to help deal with it has taken it’s toll. For him it’s easier; he’s away and doesn’t have to deal with it, but also he can’t let it interfere with his studies. I’m left trying to hold the pieces together. We’ve been able to let this pregancy go emotionally, now if I could just let it go physically…
In the end though, the days keep on coming, we make it though one at a time, and the world keeps spinning, just like it should.