On the studying agenda for tonight was finishing up questions from the chapter on airports and then just finished reading a chapter on aeronautical charts. I think I'm going to save the questions for tomorrow night, possibly. However, CAP's Basic Officer Course also begins tomorrow, as well as the CAP meeting, so we'll see how it goes getting the questions finished. I looked over them and started answering them in my head, although I prefer to break up the readings and questions for the same chapter because it seems to help all of the info stick in my head better that way. Geez I've got a lot of work to do... :/
My pilot buddies say the written test is pretty easy with just a little bit of study. Plus, it should be easier for me because I'm smart and because of my enthusiasm towards aviation. I know all of that is supposed to be complimentary, but at times it makes me feel only more frustrated. All of these pilots keep telling me this, yet I'm studying my butt off and progress is slow. Easy, my aileron. My friends tell me that I make all of this look easy, too, but trust me, it's not.
Anyways, the title of today's entry describes my current emotional state. Re-adjusting to life after Oshkosh is difficult. The clock struck 12, my white horses turned back into mice, and my carriage turned back into a pumpkin. I don't want to be here and I don't feel like I fit in my world anymore. Never anticipated that this could possibly happen. I feel almost homesick, if one could feel homesick for a place they only lived in for a week. It was paradise to me, and not only because of the airplanes - it was the people, too. I don't know if it was Wisconsin or just people coming together for their love of aviation, but I've never seen a huge group of people get along so well. While I was there, someone told me they reached record numbers - a million people supposedly walked through that gate this year. A million people. With one common interest. I met people from all around the world and the United States. I met fellow student pilots, aerobatic pilots, helicopter pilots, aviation enthusiasts, CFI's, and homebuilders. No one was better than anyone else. Sure, we had the good-natured ribbing between the rotors and fixed wing, but it wasn't serious. I'm just a student pilot, yet the homebuilders and aerobatic pilots treated me like one of them. None of this "But you are a girl" nonsense. People respected each other, no matter their background. They said "hi" when you walked past them. Strangers were treated like life-long friends and family. If there was trash on the ground, someone picked it up. Surely we must have had different viewpoints/opinions, but for that one week, it didn't matter. We bonded over something we all had in common, rather than focusing on our differences and ripping each other apart.
Yesterday in Georgia, we had a vote on T-SPLOST, which is basically asking for more money to repair the roads. It was shot down by a landslide. Why? Mostly because we have no money and people are tired of the government asking for more when they squander it. My co-workers were upset because they said we desperately needed better roads and a better transit system and it was a shame people voted it down. MARTA (our "transit system") sucks and throwing money at it won't help it. So anyways, the co-workers blamed the Tea Party ("The Party of No") for T-SPLOST failing. In that moment, I wanted to return to my week of harmony. Perhaps it's just that one event. Maybe the other 51 weeks out of the year, it's not like that. At least that's what I keep telling myself and it keeps me from running back there. I still haven't taken off my bracelet yet. I can't bring myself to do it and frankly, I don't want to. I'm holding onto that Oshkoshian Spirit for as long as I can.
I've decided that if I can't be in paradise, then I was going to work really hard to make my reality as close to paradise as I could.
No comments:
Post a Comment