Recurrent 2008

Last year I did everything perfect.

This year I barely passed.

What was the problem? I didn't study enough. Actually, I didn't PRACTICE enough. I knew my prepared cabin announcement and I did fairly well on the final exam. (I missed 3 out of 50 questions). I even answered my scinero question perfectly.

But when it came time to go through the entire thing one on one with my instructor??? I flopped.

We had to prepare the cabin for a water landing on the CRJ 900 as the forward flight attendant. I stumbled through the NTSBO (which is basically the briefing from the captain when there is an emergency and we have time to prepare for an evacuation).
Then I stumbled through the first half of my duties. I redeemed myself for the rest of it and managed to pass this portion of the test. However, he called it "weak".

The second portion was an unplanned water evacuation on the CRJ 900 (my most highly qualified aircraft). I kept forgetting to turn on my emergency lights, I couldn't get the commands right and it didn't even occur to me to check the lav.
I failed.

He told me to come back the next morning early for one more chance.

My friend, Savanna failed the same portion. We felt pretty low as we drove back to David's house (that's where Savanna rents a room and I used to rent it with her when I was based here in Fresno right after new hire training 2 years ago).

So what did we do?

What every girl does to lift her spirits. We went shopping. I was also feeling pretty brave and decided to eat half a candy bar. Wow, I didn't get sick. Maybe dairy again someday?

After that we all went out to pizza (no, I wasn't THAT brave!) When I say "we all" I mean everyone who pretty much lives at David's house....Matt (a pilot) and his girlfriend (Jasmine), David, Savanna and I. Of course I don't live there anymore. There was one person missing...another pilot named Rob.

Once back home, David made us practice the unplanned water evac until we had it down pat! I was exhuasted! He kept saying..."That was good, Okay, do it again".

The next morning we both aced it!

We spent the rest of the morning going over CRM (crew resource management), evacs and security with the pilots. Then it was all over.
I was happy to have passed. Next year I will be more prepared.

Savanna and I treated ourselves to a nice lunch at a Japanese restaurant where the cook your food in front of you. Then we stopped over at a friends house (another flight attendant who was in our recurrent class) to talk and hang out.