Sunday 29 July 2007

Pictures from Graduation Day



Have just uploaded pictures taken on Aviation College Graduation, bunch of happy faces all nervous but eager. The same day we received our familiarisation flight schedule, our licences and basically our wings to fly! We lined up at the foot of the stage waiting for our names to be called. I was the first, and when it's announced "... from Singapore!" I felt like I was winning a beauty pageant. It took much hard work and sacrifices to get here. Hope it's all worth it in the end.
Now we've all got our own schedule, developed our unusual sleep patterns, some of us try to catch up. A few of us are lucky enough to have flights together. It's all good.




Heading to graduation party, picture taken in our apartment lift. From left: David (Malta), Richard (Australia), Merisa (Japan) and me!

Saturday 28 July 2007

Pictures from First Flights

These are images from my familiarisation flights, first to Amman, then to Tehran. Both were extremely satisfying experiences, I count my blessings with these great crew I flew with.


Fantastic first flight to Amman, great crew (bunch of ladies!) who autographed a polaroid picture for me!


Little girl in the picture (right) was travelling with her mom and baby sister. She got so playful with us as I snap polaroid pictures of her and her family for keepsake.


Fun and lovely crew for Tehran flight: Khaled (middle - a great SFS to fly with!) and Bena (right).


Ghassan and me.

Wake Up to Athens

On 24th morning 6am I was woken up by a phone call (which I nearly mistook as an alarm - God forbid!) from scheduling telling me I have a flight to Athens. Bus arriving in one hour. I thought I heard wrong. Groggy, I asked the voice to repeat the flight details and pick up time. Then I'm wide awake and straight to the shower.

A great flight and several hours later I arrived in Greece. In the peak of Summer, it's 40 degrees celsius. Despite the scorching heat a few of us crew ventured out for some sightseeing. First stop The Acropolis - it was a significant sight, the must-see in Athens. Visitors go wild with cameras shooting every angle of every rock. One Polish tourist could not withstand the heat and fainted right under my nose, we lend a hand right away laying her down , loosen her clothes, lift her legs and fan at her face. Fortunately she gained consciousness quickly though she must realised she's been drenched in water by her family in an attempt to revive her.

Princess (yes that's her name!) from Philippines and I were eager to do more sight seeing. She's an avid photographer with a Multiply site to prove. Together we hop on the tour bus stopping at the Archaeological Museum, Omonoia and Temple of Olympian Zeus before heading back to the hotel.

The next morning Princess and I took a nice idyllic walk around Monastiraki where the flea market and more sights are located. As I was telling Princess the day before, the locals seem to take some kinda fascination towards Asians (I've noticed strange glances at us). Then evidently this young Greek guy spoke to me shyly "Singapore... Where's that? You're Chinese? When I see a Chinese girl I just dunno what to do... Why are you leaving so soon. Wo Ai Ni." Cute, but I have more important things to do - I have souveniors to purchase and more photos to take just like any other tourists would.


Athens is nice. Would've been nicer if it was Autumn or Spring. I hope to visit again, and maybe this time I'll agree to have coffee with that shy fella.

See all Athens photos.

Thursday 26 July 2007

I Have a Roster

Back from Athens about 3 hours ago I received my first roster in my 'office' mailbox located at the Crew Briefing Centre (CBC). Quite happy. No Singapore flights though... possibly swapping one of my Shanghai trip for SIN, if available. You can see my August roster here.

Plenty of pictures from Athens, guys... can't wait to share with all of you. I'm off next two days :)

Monday 23 July 2007

Some Viruses, Back-ups and Installations Later...

I'm finally back. Equipped with wireless broadband right in my own apartment, a cleaned out laptop and too many photos. I am ready to blog.

Let's see, back to training... SEP (Safety & Emergency Training) lasted two weeks. I would say they were the most emjoyable two weeks in training mostly cos I enjoyed the subject the most. Not to mention we had the best SEP trainers too.

Following SEP was a full day training on Security. Interesting insights to hi-jacking, bombing and procedures to tackling security issues onboard. We spent a good 2-hour restraining and throwing each other down on the floor too. So be good the next time you travel for if your behaviour becomes unacceptable we have the right to tie you up!

The week that follows entails Group Medical Training, of which we were qualified First Responders by the end. We were introduced to Medlink and SOS, and had to remember the use of medicines, tools and their locations in the aircraft. I can now perform CPR, bandage a broken limb, treat burns, detect seizures, differenciate heart attack from Angina, help pax with asthma, etc. I could inject Epipen in severe allergic cases. I hope I will never have to deal with any case of death or childbirth onboard... it would be horrifying preparing the body bag or cord clamping (former for the dead, of course).

Last but not least there's the Service Training. I have been looking forward to this. It is the final two weeks at the training college where we learn all about the diverse cultures and background of our colleagues and passengers (hey we even had to learn some basic Arabic), drinks and mixing how-to, serving, 5-step/6-step/9-step services onboard, professional image, the company's frequent flyer programme and other owned properties and businesses, etc. Then there are the memorising tasks: abbreviations of special meals and all the destination codes, items stored in the respective containers in different aircraft galleys. By the end of the 2 weeks we were drained. We were speaking in broken Arabic and abbreviations. We were constantly monitored on our grooming from the hair to the lipstick to the bags and the shoes. And as expected, we had exams.



At the end of the two weeks we had talks and revisions of the whole training modules. We're all excited about going online and somewhat sad as we will be going more or less, separate ways. There are nearly 9,000 crew to-date, what are the chances of us flying with each other?

Thursday 19 July 2007

Even Quicker Note

PCs are fragile things. Mine got virused, reset and restored. Now a new clean machine, it will soon get fed back data from my stuffed iPod which served as a backup. I'm going for my first operational flight today to Riyahd and tomorrow's a rest day. I will blog it all out then. Thank you for your patience.

Wednesday 11 July 2007

A Quick Note

I am on dial-up. It's painful. And I am logging off soon. My back is hurting from using the comp in bed too. I have so much to update in this blog on a daily basis unfortunately time and technology does not allow. However I am really working to get the technology part fixed. As for time, well, looks like I'll be enjoying a handful since I'll be graduating on 12th July.

Once broadband is here I will back-blog and blog.

Love you all!