Posts Tagged ‘student’
17 items.
We’re on our way to AERO in Friedrichshafen right now! We’ve really been looking forward to this, because it’s been ages since my brother and I have spent that much time together. And we also look very much forward to meet as many of you folks there as possible! If you’re planning to go, be sure to stop by and say hello to us at our table at the artist section (AEROkunst) in Foyer Ost!
As I’m writing this, I notice while looking at all my own sticky notes in front of me that I am a bit behind with my preparations … there’s just so much stuff to pack and prepare! So, hope to see you there!
7 Comments
Something like that would be a typical explanation we would get from our dad, whenever we asked him something. Actually I shouldn’t be using past tense, because we still keep this up and it seems to never get old.
I believe that trying to come up with stupid explanations to entertain each other was one of the many seeds planted in my childhood that helped me develop into a somewhat creative individual as an adult. So in the spirit of providing my children all the advantages I received as a kid, I will do my best to continue this honored family tradition of talking BS and watching how quickly they see through it. Right now it’s a bit too early though, because they take literally everything literally. Which can be fun. But you also have to watch what you say so as to not confuse the little humans.
It’s really entertaining to watch them develop a sense of humor. Theo first started out making up random words but with the melody and intonation of a joke. Now we’re at a stage where everything poop and pee related is the apex of comedy. Some people never leave that stage, but I’m confident Theo will progress from here. Little Johann is at the stage right now, where the funniest thing ever is stuffed animals falling down from somewhere and hitting their head. And since nothing is more entertaining than a contagious, hearty laugh of a child, I am having the time of my life cracking poop jokes and throwing teddy bears off of couches. Ah, parenthood! That stuff sure makes up for all the diapers, sleepless nights and responsibilities.
It’s been forever since I last took a multiple choice test. My recent experiences were all just survey questions. But man, to construct a decent survey seems to be an art in itself, because half of the time they leave me scratching my head bout how badly the available choices represent reality.
So I signed up with a new bank recently. They gave me a debit card with which I pay my business expenses, 85% of which are payments for postal charges of my local mail carrier. All was well for the first few months. Then, suddenly, they wanted me to verify my payments through an app on my phone. They don’t seem to have some intelligent pattern recognition in place, so now, even though I pay similar amounts to the same company all the time, they ask me every single time to login to my account on my phone and verify. Annoying. But what was even more annoying was that the verification didn’t even work! After a few failed attempts and workarounds, I finally had enough and contacted customer support, who told me I had to de-install and re-install the app. When I did that, my phone told me I didn’t have enough space to install the app. Anyway, long story short, I am now able to do what I was able to do before, albeit more slowly in a more complicated manner, and it only cost me about 2 hours of my life. Great service!
What does all that have to do with multiple choice questions? Well, a few days later, they sent me an invitation for a customer feedback form and boy, did I want to give them some feedback! But the survey was constructed in such a closed way that I couldn’t even express what happened to me. And they also did not have any way to enter any additional description. So I just gave up and didn’t submit it, because I’ve got more pressing things to do.
It’s a dilemma though. By not telling them how much they suck, they think that there are no problems and don’t improve their service. On the other hand, if I take 15 min of my precious time to tell them all my grievances, the message will most likely disappear in a company memory hole anyway.
Ah, the joys of dealing with faceless companies.
The only thing more annoying than an online test is a badly designed or buggy online test, where the website doesn’t recognize a correct answer as correct, freezes half an hour in, or crashes when you hit the final submit button. Fortunately, as a freelancer, I don’t have to deal with this a lot, but oh, the horror stories that circle the internet! I’m sure many of you have experienced something like that at one point or other.
Wait! I just thought of something even worse than an bad online test! My online income tax form! On a technical level it works flawlessly, but 95% of it are questions referring to some obscure paragraphs of various tax codes that I have no idea about. I know that 90% of those don’t apply to me, but the trick is to know which ones.
I’m sure many of you can relate to Jason here. I know I can, and I’m not even a pilot! But I sure know the feeling of concentrating so hard on something that at some point I start feeling the stitches and realize I probably stopped breathing a minute ago. Another, and actually more relevant risk for me is to concentrate on something work-related on the computer so intensely (usually when coding, not so much when drawing) that I forget to drink. I have a couple of bottles of mineral water besides my desk for emergency purposes, haha!
As somebody who is self employed and works alone in his office all day, I don’t have the benefit of having somebody giving me inspiring pep talks like Chuck does in this strip. Like everything in life, it’s a two-sided coin: I have only myself to rely on for motivation. Many people who are or were self employed too, mention this as one of the biggest challenges. And it definitely is! Especially in times of the internet, where endless entertainment is only a mouse click away. On the other hand, I don’t have a boss bossing me around or coworkers who distract me. There’s no office politics either. I can be as productive as I want to be and all potential benefits of hard work accrue to me.
As for motivation: It started slowly over the years, but I have grown more and more fond of motivational books. When I was young, I was scoffing and secretly smiling at people who read self help books. Imagine that. I was a teenager and young adult who thought he knew it all already. I’m sure I must have been the only one! Anyway, now I like to read the occasional book about how to be successful or on investment etc. and even though I don’t put 95% of what I read in practice, I always feel motivated and energized after reading something like that. That feeling alone, plus the one or two lessons I do take out of a book are more than worth the money.
Some examples of simple lessons would be: “Try to remember more people’s names and faces” (Dale Carnegie – How to Win Friends and Influence People). “Don’t try to beat the market, buy an index fund.” (Burton Malkiel – A Random Walk Down Wall Street). “Eat less sugar.” (Mark Sisson – Primal Blueprint). Etc. etc. Other books I enjoyed were the “Rich Dad – Poor Dad” series or “4 hour work week”.
The latest thing I read and now try to implement is parts of, dare I say my “colleague” Scott Adams (Dilbert), new book called “How to fail at almost everything and still win big.” The big point I took out of that book was to not focus on goals (e.g. I want to lose 10 pounds (which I don’t, my weight is fine, but just as an example)), but to create systems that take willpower out of the equation (e.g. remove all sugar crap from the house and replace it with healthy snacks like nuts, so, when you do get weak, you snack healthy stuff). That way, you don’t feel like “not reaching the goal yet” with one brief moment of satisfaction when you do, but more like successfully using a system every time you apply it.
Does anybody have suggestions for other self help / motivational books? Or do you think that is all bull crap anyway?
Being a flight instructor is a rather interesting job. You meet great people. They pay you to fly with them. You share the same passion, and often you find yourself hanging out with them after work or just bumming about the airport with them. You spend countless hours with them working towards the same goal. Yet … for some completely unexplainable reason … they randomly try to kill you every few hours. Why is that?
One thing is for sure, you can never let your guard down. I got in more trouble with more advanced students who I really like for that very reason. Any CFI’s in here have had similar experiences?
Let’s hear them!
Talking about forces … is anybody else counting the days to the premiere of the new Star Wars movie? Usually, when there’s a movie I look forward to, I try to watch as few trailers and gather as little information about it as possible. But what I have seen so far all looked pretty awesome to me! And the fact that Han Solo makes a reappearance is reason enough to see this one!
I wonder how many “rule number one”‘s there are out there. In aviation, this certainly is the most important one, of course! Unless you’re not on the controls, or a passenger …
Last weekend’s Vienna ComicCon was great, by the way! I have posted a couple of images in our Facebook Group. I later found out that the girl I’m posing with on one of the pictures is a real X-Wing pilot! I wish I had known, I would have asked her for flight lessons …
I have learned over the years that pilots, just like sailors, can be very superstitious people. I myself admit to it and have certain rituals I just don’t do well without. They’re not quite the same rituals that Chuck has, but then again, I have learned that there are as many ways of doing things as there are pilots.
Around the Cranes we do a lot of things we call “tribal knowledge” and some of these things may not have a scientific background and might be things pilots just started doing one day but we do them anyways.
A lot of people believe in what might be good luck and/or bad luck and I believe in not tempting faith either way. For example I have never heard of a Crane being renamed ever since I started with them even when it came out of the National Guard with a name that had no meaning to us because it is said to be bad luck renaming a vessel. And in good old Panaca Jane, nobody ever took out the fuzzy dice (maybe that is where the idea for this strip came from? wink, wink) once they were “installed”. After many years of wear and tear they finally fell apart and wouldn’t look like dice anymore so they were stashed in a little bag underneath the seat. But they were not taken out of the aircraft as long as I flew the thing 😉
Let’s hear/see some of your aviation (or other, for that matter) rituals!
