It was really nice to see everyone, and hang out. I was on my feet and talking to people most of the day. Later one of my students said she'd wanted to talk to me but I was always either talking to someone, or had someone in queue waiting to talk to me. So I did good fulfilling my hostess socialization role. :D Later that evening, she and I spent several hours just sitting at a table and talking about life, past, present and future. She told me something that I thought was pretty neat. She's an introvert, shy, awkward. She had told me she didn't want to fly with me, because she'd heard I was "somebody" and she was afraid that I'd think she was an idiot. She got sick before she flew for like a month, she was so nervous about it. She said "You told me a long time ago that flying was going to change my life. You were right. Meeting you has changed my life, changed who I am." She said that if she hadn't met me, she'd be sitting quietly and sadly at another airport, too afraid to meet people or do things, having a hard time making decisions. But because she and I are a lot alike in personality, she could see that if I could become confident and talented and accepted, that she could too. She could feel the change in her over the year, making decisions, being in charge of the airplane and of her choices in life, etc. That made me feel pretty good. I always love watching a nervous, uncertain young person flip the switch and become a self-confident decision maker and good pilot.
Both she and one (two actually) of my former students are going to Purdue this Fall. She and he were talking about it, and a couple folks were talking about her showing him up at flight school. I piped up with "Hey, he's pretty good". I said she's pretty good too. They both looked funny so I said "You guys know me well enough to know by now I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. You DO do a good job". They were both like "that means a lot coming from you", and I felt almost bad that they didn't already know I felt that way. Those two picked up things very quickly. He's a little further along than she is, though I didn't say that part, but they're both good Private pilots and will be good professional pilots too. It's interesting to note a difference you can make in someone's life with a word or comment. The instructor I remember the most, I can't even remember his name off-hand. Hayes, I think. I was getting into the plane with him, and this idiot student was yelling mean things over at me. His last name was Cole, I remember that. He was talking about how I should go home, didn't belong there, was a joke, something along those lines, not the first time he'd "informed" me of that kind of thing. My instructor ever so casually said "Oh, shut up Cole, this girl can fly circles around you." I was stunned. Nobody had ever said anything nice to me about my flying to that point, nobody had really been nice to me at all. They'd been polite, some of them I should say. Some were dismissive, some were cold, some were outright mean like Cole, some tried to sabotage me, some threatened me, some were just distantly polite and did their jobs, and of course one dated me and a lot of other students tried for awhile, but none of them had ever said anything like that to or about me. My face was bright red and my heart was pounding and I didn't know what to say, so when we finally got in the plane and I pulled out the checklist and I was getting ready to start up, and neither of us had said a word, I finally just looked straight ahead and said "Thanks". He nodded, and we never spoke about it again. Next year one other instructor, Grant, said, with a surprised tone of voice, after we got out of the plane on our first lesson together, Commercial I believe, "You fly pretty good. And I don't mean for a girl, I mean you just fly pretty good." I did not say "Well. I flew well. But thank you." :D Again I just said "Thanks". But they were drops of hope to someone who didn't have a clue how I was doing compared to other people, what the norm was, how this was supposed to look and go. I sort of assumed I sucked. I just kept my head down and kept going forward, but those words meant a lot to a student pilot. Long story to say I try to tell people when they're doing well and be positive with them if they are struggling. They're reaction to me saying that this time shows that I hadn't made that clear enough before, and that I'm going to be even more deliberate about it in the future.
Oh, something funny. The student that I did spins with in the Champ. She had showed her mom that video via text, and her mom sent a barf emoji and then told her to tell me that I was fired. She never passed that on to me, but I saw her mom at the Poker Run, and she informed me that she'd told her daughter to tell me I was fired. I laughed. She was half serious, she's horrified at the spins, but she's trying not to stand in her daughter's way of doing what she enjoys. I thought that was funny though. "You're fired, by the way". Lol
It was a good day. We didn't get home until like 10:30 pm, sat around, cleaned up, hung out, chatted, and eventually wandered home.
I think I'm going with Kaylee to get her fake nails removed today, and tomorrow I may be transporting a C-150 Texas Taildragger to Wisconsin because he can't find anyone local with that kind of airplane time, and I do have some. Memorial Day Weekend I may be moving the PT-26 down to Nashville for an event down there with the COO of the entire CAF main HQ organization, to save the day for something he needs help on, which will only serve to be a good thing for me too. And it's all expenses paid, so I don't have to worry about that, either. Steve could go with me as it's an overnight, but he can't go with me because it's an overnight. I do wish we had an option where we could both leave at the same time. But it is what it is!
Steve's off mowing the yard, I haven't heard from Kaylee yet, the internet is actually down right now while I type this, so I think I'll go take a shower and get ready for the day, do some laundry, you know, go do stuff. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment