6 weeks of tears & laughters...

That's right.

I finally graduated from the Emirates Aviation College on Thursday, 25 October 2007. Being a cabin crew isn't just about coffee, tea (or me). It's about being able to take care of your passengers from take-off to landing and ensuring they are comfortable throughout the flight.

When they have diarrhoea, what medication should be administered; how to treat asthma, angina, heart attack; even how to deliver a baby (yeah, cutting the placenta and all); first aid - bandages and all. Cabin crew are actually authorized to give more medications than a nurse! But of course we have medical backups on the ground to back us up, so don't worry about us killing you by accicent (doesn't sound very assuring, does it? hahaha).

And there's General Safety. Even opening the fucking aircraft door has a 4-step procedure! When to open a door and when not to...procedures of opening doors during an evacuation...safety features on the door. GOD...I never knew there are sooooooooo many ways to open a damn door! And emergency drills, there are 8 cabin doors on an Airbus and we gotta know the drill and the equipment to take during an emergency for each door by heart.

Training wasn't hard but there was definitely a lot of things to memorize and I think I killed a considerable amount of cells in my little brain. But thank God I'm still quite good at memorizing things haha.

Ooooh, and we also have to restrain pax if they behave strangely. How's that for the stereotyped airhead softie cabin crew image?

And even though we have graduated, it doesn't mean the end. Before every flight, there'll be a briefing and the Purser (senior cabin crew in charge of the whole aircraft) will ask each crew member on duty either a safety, first aid, security or service question. If you fail to answer it correctly, it's in the Purser's discretion on whether or not to give you a second chance. If you fail again, then you'll be offloaded from the flight and it's a big deal. It delays your promotion and everything else, bad record for your file too.


Batchmates
By the way, I didn't shed much tears during training. I feel so inhuman. Most of us cried either because of stress, homesick or things like that. The only times I felt like crying were when I was so frustrated because the stupid taxi drivers couldn't understand my bloody directions or the management didn't process my documents right. See, I'm a weirdo who cries for the tiniest and silliest things but major things just don't seem to bother me...I dunno why. Sometimes I feel so stupid about the things that get my eyes and nose sore.

Oh and the culture shock I experienced was tremendous! In a good way, though. I enjoy observing the antics of others during parties. Believe me you, there's so much to see and I do feel like a psychotic stalker. It's not something you get to see very often among Asian cultures *wink wink*. I feel extremely fortunate to be among this group of people. As one of my trainers said, we are a privileged lot living in our own bubble. However, I hope I won't get too carried away cos I still need to go back to the real world someday.

I was lucky cos my classmates (I didn't say batchmates cos I think batch means all 3 groups and I only wanna focus on my group) were a fun bunch and all the trainers for our group were nice and kind. Which is why most of us didn't repeat and we were the biggest Abinitio group at the graduation, I suppose ^_^

Following the graduation, most of us will be on our own. Cabin crew is a lonely job because of the vastly different schedules you might have from your friends. Moreover, we are in a foreign country and not all (if not none) of our close friends are here.

I'd be expecting to see less of my batchmates, which is really sad cos I miss their company so much. I might not even see or fly with them at all in the future, what with over 8000 crew (and still counting) in Emirates. There are a few of them whom I'm really fond of but I'm not sure if we'll see each other again.

Anyway, check out my pix on http://www.friendster.com/tallibeth