Life Outside the Square

Whilst cleaning her car both inside and out this morning, Sploogal found twice as many cd's as she had thought were in her glovebox and on her back seat, one dollar and seventy cents in change, and one Gnome hair (used condition).

I'll post more when I get home and can type with both hands instead of just one finger, but I thought I'd do a quick one while I'm waiting to get a little but more tired so that I can sleep...

I was dreading coming to Canberra - I freaking hate this city - but it's actually not too bad. We're staying with my Uncle Greg and Aunty Helen (the good Helen, there are two of them) and it's so funny to see my dad reminiscing with his big brother and mum and Helen just jumping in every now and then to attack or defend their respective husbands as it becomes necessary.

Also, I found out that I've not been giving my cousin Alison enough Awesome Points. When she was about seven, she sang that song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show that goes "t-t-t-touch me, I wanna feel dirty!" and one of the naughtier Monty Python ones to our super-conservative Grandmother!!!

I think I shall sleep now. Gotta be nice and rested for Geandma's 70th tomorrow - I forgot that there will be no booze (they don't approve of alcohol) and so did my mum. Dad and Greg remembered, but I think that Greg might be planning to sneak some in with their other brother, Andrew. The party will be a disaster if somebody doesn't bring some booze...

I freaking hate writing up performance reviews/development plans for work. I have to find about 6 different ways to say "I just want to do my job" without sounding sarcastic. At SGIO I didn't even bother about censoring my sarcasm, but here I actually give a damn about my job. Bloody corporate bullshit...

/minirant.

The Vagina, According To Britt:

It's a horrible word. It rhymes with angina. Which isn't a pleasant thing, as far as I can gather. Yeah, it was a man who came up with that word. A woman wouldn't have called her part that. I'm going to use as many adjectives as I can to avoid saying it.

Who comes up with these words anyway? Was it the scientists? Do you know? Seriously, we ought to hunt these people down and ask them what the hell were you on that day?!

At least breast is a nice word. It's nice to say and it's a nice thing. Why can't vagina be a nice thing to say? They wonder why people make up nicknames for them. The word has no possible relation to the thing it represents.

I don't get it. I'm not a prude. I just don't like the name and I don't like saying it because it's harsh and horrible. And I could gladly go through my whole lifetime without ever relearning that word. I won't even write that word. I will write every single obsentity in the English language, but I will not write that word.


The Vagina, According To Jayde:

I think it's an awesome word. You have only to say it slightly loudly in a public place to get weird looks. And if you whisper it on a crowded bus or train, the people around you become uncomfortable. Nevermind whispering it repeatedly!

I only wish that people could be more comfortable with vagina. Saying vagina, especially in public, makes people panic. You walk down a nice friendly little street and say "vagina" and then people everywhere start screaming and running around in circles and the federal police parachute in and start firing automatic weapons in every direction and then the government makes a mass grave and spends millions of taxpayer dollars to cover it up, all so that nobody has to hear the word 'vagina'.

On the other side of the fence, if you say 'penis', nobody bats an eyelid. Is the penis less scary? Less threatening? If the wife of the president of the world wants something changed, does she simply have to brandish her vagina and shout "vagina vagina vagina!!!" at him in order to have him do her bidding? You know what I think of that? Penis!

We received an invitation to my Grandma's 70th birthday today from my dad's big sister Helen. She has written that we are "surprise guests". Without getting too far into the politics of my extended family, suffice to say that she is not my favourite aunt. She has not phoned my dad, let alone the rest of us, in over 20 years. Dad still makes an effort to phone her from time to time despite her attitude that we don't exist. My grandparents are much the same, but at least Grandma has phoned a few times even if she usually does forget my dad's birthday.

Rhys and I decided to go to Sydney next week to see some other family members, and mum and dad decided to tag along since dad had found out (probably through one of his other sisters or brothers) that Grandmas was having a big party for her 70th. I suppose it must have gotten back to the less desirable elements of my extended family that we would be around that weekend, thus the after-thought of an invitation. It's like she's gone "oh shit, they're coming anyway, so we better pretend we want them here".

To make matters worse, at the bottom of the 'invitation' is a request to bring along a 'special memory and/or photograph' for some wanky birthday box or some such thing. The thing is, I don't have any positive memories of my grandma. She wasn't here at any of the important times of my life. She has never been present for a birthday, christmas, easter, anything. Ok, maybe it's a bit much to expect that she would be here all the time when she lives on the other side of the country, but she could have phoned! Rhys and I were never even invited to the annual trips where she and Grandpa used to take all the grandkids out to some farmstay place. Granted, my cousins hated going, and mum and dad probably wouldn't have sent us over there every year, but it would have been nice to know that they at least considered us family.

I have one or two photos where I'm standing with my grandparents, posing and miserable about it because they're such horrible people but mum and dad had insisted on taking a photo because it was such a rare event to actually have any contact with them. These aren't exactly what I would call 'special memories'. What the fuck am I supposed to bring? I know she's not proud of me. When dad told her that I was going to study engineering, her reply was "can women do that?". She has never asked to speak to me before when dad has called her. In the annual newsletter that they do where they give updates on what all the kids and grandkids are up to, Rhys and I often aren't mentioned, and the couple of times we have been mentioned they've gotten the facts completely wrong.

I could overlook all of this if it weren't for her ignoring and/or forgetting my dad. He's done nothing to deserve the way she treats him, and as much as he would never admit it I know that it hurts him. She doesn't deserve him.

*deep breath*

I have a lot of negativity towards certain parts of my family...

/rant

Dad: Hey wanna hear a joke?
Me: Not really.
Dad: Did you know that if an astronaut farts in space, it doesn't make any noise?
Me: *dryly* haha.
Dad: Is that an astronaut or an arse retort?
Me: *sighgroan*
Dad: That's funny you know!
Me: Where do you get these?
Dad: Why? Do you want some too?
Me: No, I want to blow them up.
Dad (to Mum): She's not laughing at my funnies!
Me: Because they're not funny!

Mum: Do you eat salmon?
Me: *raised eyebrow* No.
Mum: Why not?
Me: Because they're people.
Mum: Fish?
Me: Are still people.
Mum: I was going to make salmon surprise.
Me: I was going to make salad.
Mum: *stare*

Went out and did circuits with Leith for 1.2hrs before packing it in for the day as it was becoming nearly impossible to land. There was a crosswind and it was gusty and a bit turbulent and getting worse the longer we were out.

We started on runway 25 but switched to 07 after one circuit because it was just silly trying to land from that direction. 07 wasn't much better, but at least I got in a couple of landings without being blown off the runway line.

On my second last circuit, a huge gust blew us off to the left of the runway when we were close to touching down, so we had to go around.

Coming in for my final landing, on the base leg, we hit a huge pocket of turbulence which caused the plane to suddenly roll about 30 degrees to the right. I pushed the stick nearly all the way left to get us level again, but we were only doing 60 knots since we were already on base so the plane was a bit slow to respond and that part of the circuit ended up being more wavy than straight.

Also cut a corner a little turning from crosswind to downwind one time as there were two eagles refusing to give way to us. We flew within less than 100 feet of them, slightly above and to the right, and they were beautiful!

I'm not too upset about not going solo today since I still had a challenging lesson. And the eagles were awesome! I've seen two eagles flying a bit further away the last couple of times I've been out, and I think they might be the same pair. Eagles don't usually live close to one and other I don't think... Any thoughts Gnomey?

I'm further consoled by Rhys telling me that his first solo got postponed three times due to weather. :) Also, he has the new Mario game on the Wii and we played two-player mode and it was awesome fun! Brought back a lot of childhood memories of him giving me continues because I kept on dying lol.

That is all. Not to imply that it's not much... Cos it fucking is!!! Solo tomorrow!!! Yes!!!!!

*performs traditional Sploogarian WootWoot dance*

Mum and Dad are back from France. Among other more fun pressies, which I shall detail later, Mum decided to bring back a little bottle of water from Lourdes - one each for Rhys and I. I know that Mum still considers herself Catholic, but she disagrees with a lot of the Catholic views and won't talk about what she does and doesn't believe. I know that Our Lady of Lourdes is important to her because I remember her telling me about her as a child and she made a point of buying me one of those little figure things of her.

Mum said that even though she knows Rhys and I aren't religious, she wanted us to have this water and thought we could keep it in our houses or something. I don't understand. It doesn't hold any special meaning or value for me other than that Mum gave it to me and it means something to her. I can understand if she wants one herself since she attaches religious value to it, but she knows that I don't so why would she want me to have it? I don't think that she believes that I'm any more blessed or protected because I have some religious token, and I can't think of any other reason that it would be important to her that I have this little bottle of water.

So, I have set myself another impossible challenge.  I took my night pills about half an hour ago, so I'm pretty much guaranteed to be out cold within an hour or so.  Before then, I must burn a playlist that will last at least as long as the four or more hours of driving I will be doing tomorrow, hang out two loads of washing, clean up my painting stuff, pack my breakfast-like-food (for eating around 6am when I am hopefully halfway to Bunbury), and watch an episode of Bones.

Unless I warp time, I think I lose.

*is sleepy*

Also, I keep on getting little bursts of excitement-related adrenaline as my mind keeps on wandering back to the thought that I will finally be flying again tomorrow.  It's a very bazaar feeling being in a drug-induced half-sleep state and having these excitement pangs going through me at the same time.  Normally, this would be keeping me wide awake until well past midnight, but I can already feel myself slipping towards sleep-land.  I think it's probably a good sign for my mental state that I'm actually able to feel the effects of these pills now, as opposed to a month or two ago when I would take them and still be wide awake and jittery.  :)

My hayfever is running wild right now.  Rather than the usual pattern of both eyes getting itchy and puffy and red though, my right eye seems to have developed some sort of immunity this season and is completely unaffected even by my cat.  I hope to learn my right eye's secret so as to apply it to the rest of my general nasal-aural-throatical-facial area.

I drew a flower to emphasise my frustration.


It reads: "I am the Creepy Flower.  Are you creeped out?  Like, totally?  Do you feel the need to curl up in bed with a security blanket to suck you thumb and cry?  Or sneeze?"

Spoke to Leith at the Aero Club yesterday.  He confirmed that the hours I've already logged as GA (general aviation) training can be completely transferred to RA (recreational aviation) and then back again after I get my medical approved, hopefully in six months.  This is good because I was worried about it possibly not transferring from RA back to GA.

In order to go solo in RA I only have to be well enough to legally drive (which I am lol) and satisfy my instructors that I'm both capable of piloting a plane solo (which was never an issue in question since they've been wanting to get me solo for weeks now) and responsible enough to simply not fly if I'm unwell/anxious/whatever.  Leith asked a few questions about how my anxiety and depression effect me (ie. if they come on suddenly/unexpectedly) and that sort of thing, and he says he's happy to send me solo even knowing that my GA medical hasn't been approved.  So yay!  

Despite delays and setbacks, Sploogal Enterprises is still taking to the skies!!!!!

Fucking wankers rejected my medical, stating that my depression/anxiety only recently became stable. Fuck them. What the fuck do they know. I read my medical report so I know my psych made it clear that my anxiety wasn't interferring with my flying and in fact the flying was making it better. And my GP commented that she was more than happy for my to fly. So FUCK YOU you pompous fucking twits. Go stick your heads back up your arses where they belong.

This morning's flying lesson was on precautionary search and landing. Basically if you need to land in a hurry (ie medical emergency, low fuel, problem with plane, poor visibility etc.) this is what you do. You pick a field, fly over at 500 feet, fly over at 200 feet, fly over at 50 feet, and land. (The fly-overs are so you can get a better look at the field and check for obstacles, ditches, trees, powerlines, livestock etc. before you're committed to actually landing in it.)

So Ross demonstrated one first, narrating as we went around and around and around. There were tall trees quite close on both sides of the strip which were a little intimidating since your instincts scream Stay Away From The Smashy Things. He only did two passes and then did a go-around without actually landing as we were somewhat short on time. Then he pointed out another field for me to try it in.

The field had a narrow dirt strip on it and a wind sock, so I guessed that they use it for this quite often. Even having realised that, it was still a little unnerving knowing that I was going to land there as it was a fairly narrow field with trees on one side of the strip and s lake/dam on the other. And that was mostly surrounded by bushland and a huge pine plantation, so flying around it at low level meant plenty of bumps and sink.

I wasn't sure whether Ross would let me land on my first try - he said "we'll see how it goes", so when I got set up on final and was half expecting to go-around and he said "ok let's land it now", I had a lovely rush of adrenaline and was all *happy*!

I put the plane down nice and gently and kept the nose right up so we wouldn't get bogged. Ross taxied us around and back to the end of the field so I could takeoff again, after which he informed me that I'd done a nice soft-field takeoff - which was awesome since he hadn't actually told me how to do that and I was just doing what seemed to be common sense. :D

So yes, today I landed in a field. For next time, Ross mentioned he's going to have me land in a paddock! Eep!!!

I stumbled upon an old picture which I drew in year 12!



It reads:
What really happens when you get abducted...
"You will read my books obsessively!"
Hypno Harry
(He gets us all)

To get from the lifts to the office area at my work, there are two glass doors you can go through. One of them was broken by a trady last week so they put a big wooden panel over until it can be fixed because it's a security risk.

In the meantime, the other door has been propped open to facilitate people moving in and out of the office with ease and without the scanny-key-thing. WTF?! *headdesk*

Did my lesson on steep turns, which included Ross demonstrating a couple of limit turns.  OMFG.  They're so awesome!!!

FYI, a climbing turn is done with an angle of bank of 15 degrees, descending turn is 20 degrees and level turn is 30 degrees.  These are good for when you have passengers who get airsick and for when you want to do things safely as they are well within the limits of what the plane is capable of taking and also don't involve any noticible  G-load so they're gentle on the people in the plane as well.

A steep turn is 45 degrees.  You have to apply back pressure (ie. pull back on the stick to point the nose higher) in order to stay level in any turn, and the higher the angle of bank the more back pressure you need.  When you apply back pressure during a turn it gives you a G force (which has a really cool diagramatic explanation) that you feel 'in the seat of your pants'.  You don't notice it on more gentle turns, but once you get to 45 degrees you're feeling 2 G's, which is 2 times the normal force of gravity.  So your arms feel really heavy and it's weird moving them to use the controls, and you're also not getting as much blood to your brain (as I understand it, though I need to read that chapter again).  It's pretty disorienting at first, but you get used to it and then it's heaps of fun!

A limit turn is exactly that - the angle of bank is at the limit of what the plane is capable of withstanding.  In the little Tecnams we fly, I think the technical limit is something like 70 degrees before you crash and burn, but we do limit turns at 60 degrees to be safe.  :)  I don't get to do those myself until later on, but Ross demonstrated a couple for me because a) he knew I would've asked anyway and b) he's an aerobatics pilot and totally understands why I think they're so much fun!  I'm not sure exactly what the G-load is at 60 degrees (yep, gotta read that chapter too), but it would be around 3 to 4 Gs I think.  It feels really bazaar and I can't wait to try it for myself!!!

I also learned how to get out of a descending spiral as it took me a while to get the back pressure right and I put us into descending spirals a few times...  hehe.  :D

Just came down from doing circuits - the windsock said that the wind was ok, but it really really wasn't! There's heaps of wind sheer at the end of the runway which is making it really hard to land, and a really strong crosswind is messing up our approaches and in turn making landings even harder again! My first two circuits were so bad that Ross demonstrated The third time around. After that he was much more understanding as he realised that it was largely the conditions that were making things so messy.

In all, I did 7 circuits. Out of those, three of my approaches were so bad I didn't even try to touch down, I just went around. One was working right up until literally the last second when we got blown off to the right and would've ended up crashing on the grass, so Ross and I both pushed the throttle in at the same time and got the hell away from the ground! In all, I managed three landings, and only my last one was anything approaching what you'd call gentle.

I was feeling a little disappointed as I taxied in from the runway, but after I'd shut down the plane and we were walking back up to the clubroom, we bumped into another student that we'd been following around the circuit. She looked pretty stressed out and asked if we'd been having trouble with our landings as well, to which we both replied an emphatic yes! We were stopped by another pilot who'd just watched somebody take off and said they'd nearly lost their wing twice! And talking to Ellen once we made it inside (she was flying with the other student) we found that she also feels betrayed by the windsock.

I should point out here (since you can't tell by my tone of voice and/or body language) that I'm actually quite cheerful and excited by all this. I had an awesome time!

Ross is putting up a briefing for steep turns now, which I'm going to do for my other lesson since there's not much point in trying to do more circuits. This will be awesome! I've been looking forward to this lesson for ages...

I want to spend the rest of my life in the sky.  Flying feels like such a completely natural way of moving around on this world - certainly more so than any other means of movement we have.

Today, I did more emergency circuits (in which Ross presented me with surprise engine failures at random intervals but thankfully didn't feel the need to break out the post-it notes again) and practiced forced landings (which, as always, were awesome fun).  Did a fantastically smooth landing on a glide approach as well as a flapless approach, which I'm reasonably certain I can duplicate tomorrow.

Let me say that when landing, you're supposed to try and round out over the beginning of the runway and touch down just after the 'piano keys' (the stripes painted a little way down).  I've previously been touching down before the piano keys and Ross pulled me up on that today.  So the next time around, determined to get it right, I rounded out perfectly and held off until I was able to touch down almost exactly at the end of the piano keys.

Ross didn't comment straight away as he normally does, so I looked over at him thinking I might have done something wrong that I missed, but he said it was great and to do that again.  So I did it again the next time around, only smirking a little as I put it down.  Ross informed me that I was just showing off at that point, so I grinned and did it again!  It feels so good to land like that and know that it wasn't a fluke!

I also learned to side-slip today!  That's where you use left rudder with right aileron (or vice versa) so that you keep flying in the same direction but lose altitude.  It's really helpful when you're practicing a forced landing (ie. simulating engine failure and emergency landing in field) and you're coming in too low to do another circle or to make it to another field, but too high to land in the field you chose.  Another fun way of dropping altitude in this situation is to do some S-turns.  Which is just what it sounds like.  You roll the plane from side to side with the ailerons to extend your path a little and create extra drag.  I love forced landings!

Tomorrow I will try and remember to get the sunscreen I bought especially for flying out of my bag and bring it with me.  It will probably be more useful on my face than in the bottle...

I think I may be physically incapable of holding my eyelids open much longer...  zzz...

Peace out dudes!

CASA finally sent me my Aviation ID thing (with a freaking awful photo on it...) along with my Student Pilot License!  Yay!

Now all that I'm waiting on before I go solo is for CASA to approve my medical.  Today, I posted the medical report from my psych (which cost a disgusting, non-rebatable, non-refundable $440, so I'll phone CASA next week to check that they've received it and cross my fingers that everything is in order.  I think I still have to pay them a processing fee as well, and get my GP to re-fax some form that was supposed to go along with my medical that has somehow gone missing.

All up, getting my medical is going to cost me nearly $1000, and none of that can be claimed through medicare or tax or anything!  it's disgusting that it's so expensive...  And if it weren't for my depression/anxiety, it would've been less that half the price.  And I'll have to go through the same crap to get it renewed next year too.  *sigh*

Nevertheless, it'll be totally worth it to have the sky to myself!

Flying at 8.30-12.30 and 1.00-5.00 tomorrow.  That's going to be fantastically exhausting!

Also, the Triple J Hottest 100 Of All Time is out on cd.  I didn't know that, so I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across it before leaving Perth this arvo.  I listened to it on the way down to Bunbury and I have to say, it's the most awesome thing ever!  It sounds like what you'd get if you put all of my cds/downloads into one big huge playlist and hit shuffle!  I'm especially in love with certain songs that I haven't heard in a few years, particularly Wonderwall (Oasis), Prisoner of Society (The Living End) and Into My Arms (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds).  There are other really excellent tracks of course, but those ones just bring back a lot of memories/feelings for me.  :)