First 3 Weeks in Flying College

Here's a little deviation from the usual OBS journal for update about what i am currently doing since i entered the the flying school 3 weeks ago after coming back from the OBS. Otherwise, everything would have piled up by the end of my OBS journal i would not be able to recall them back.

In fact, the previous 2 weeks events were already quite blurry at this moment, so i might miss out some minor point here and there but oh well, never mind. The very week when i came back from the OBS, i have not actually received the photos taken in OBS and our beloved instructors said that they would pass it to us by the end of the week.

So, we planned a meet up and had some drinks together on Friday at Loofed (somewhere on top of a open roof building), in the City Hall area. Obviously, for those who knew me long before, that i was not really into drinking except for special occasions. Of course, this is one of them. We pooled up the money for the party taking 50 bucks from each person and we have 22 persons in total, that's about 1000+ bucks. A lot eh? and I was expecting that there will be some leftover money since there was no way we could spend everything on drinks in a single night. Heck, i was wrong. LOL! Now i finally knew that drinking wasn't cheap. There were jasmine tea, cokes, beers, more beers, some hard liquor and i took all of them moderately. Fuh, at the end of the day i could not even walk in a straight line, dam syok!

Beers, a certificate, and a love letter? Something is definitely wrong...

Oh, have i mentioned about the place that I'm going to stay in for the next 6 months? Well, if i haven't, i am so proud to announce that i had actually hit a jackpot by first, getting a 'proper' terrace house compared to other less fortunate people (those mentioned residents please refrain yourselves from killing me if you read this :P) who get a...ermm..how should i put it..a dormitory style house where 7-8 person is placed into a block consisting 3 rooms in a row and you take care of the distribution in each room. Secondly, my house is directly opposite and one of the closest house to the cookhouse where i'm going to have my free meals everyday. Lastly, and also the best of all, my house is fully equipped with air-conditioner(very rare) and 2 bathrooms with water heaters !!! Woohoo!

Left :Picture spoke a thousand words, AWESOMENESS! Right : Cookhouse cum dorm-style house (upper floor)

Next would be our classes, hmm..nothing much to say about the classes except that the subjects are quite interesting, of course, sometimes boring, most of the time sleepiness will take whatever that's left out of you. The instructors here are very strict but at the same time, friendly :) In every class, there is only a single rule applies whenever an instructor is giving a lecture, that is : 'i-look-at-you, you-look-at-me' rules. Defy that and you shall face the consequences, although nobody has tasted the wrath yet.

Ah, also, we have not received our cadet uniform yet since it took time for the clothes to be tailored according to our unique measurements. And even if we do have the uniform, we still weren't allowed to wear it according to the 'tradition' here which deprived the juniors of certain privileges and inability to wear a full uniform unless they get 'initiated'(formally) or 'mass-bullied'(informal) by the most senior batch before they were officially welcomed to be a part of the flying college's family, with their privileges restored. So, what are the privileges mentioned here? Good example would be the daily meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, juniors were to eat last (leftover :P), and the seniors will get to eat first. For example, if the dinner was to start at 5.30pm, we were expected to arrive only around 6.30pm when everyone else has filled up their stomach. Otherwise, we will be deemed disrespectful to the seniors, which i think was quite logical. According to some previous batches experiences, they weren't even allowed to use the toilet and the vending machines in the college. Luckily, our senior batch this time was understanding and civilized enough not to enforce this 'law' on us. Thank you! Oh, we also have to arrive the earliest every morning to do the opening of the college, and the last one to leave the college to do the closing.

Yeah, everything sounded pretty bad at first but it turned out quite alright actually. I think this so called tradition thingy is getting weaker and weaker with newer cadet batches coming in and it wasn't as punishing as it was once before. We were told that our initiation day would be held in the third week, and that would be the time when we were 'released'. The initiation day would be in the form of a party with some weird/ridiculous task passed to us to be done by and on that day. I think it was called 'ragging' in the past, but for us, it was actually a lot more fun than we expected :) Eating, drinking, running around the area and shouting/screaming at the same time, water bombing (we had to make 3000 water bombs entirely by ourselves :S), series of Q&A session(with penalty if answer as not satisfactory), and to memorize/sing the Kazakhstan national anthem with heavily modified lyrics.

Preparing water-bombs to kill ourselves

Hmm, very nice plan indeed. When come to the party day itself, we screwed up the song because none of us memorized the song, not a single rehearsal and we only relied on few sheets of printed lyrics using font size of proabbly 7 or 8 and each sheet shared by at least 3-4 persons. And just as we thought we will be bombed to death, the seniors actually started grabbing 4-5 bombs each and hurling them at one another, thus starting a massive war among themselves. Still not comprehending the situation, we only stared and laughed our ass off. Of course, it would be our turn later :P A lot of foods ordered! Yum! KFC, Pizzas, Nuggets! FUN! Finally, we do not have to be the last person to eat anymore!!

Preparation and awaiting guests & VIPs!

Finally, but not least, we have had an inter-batch street soccer competition just a few days ago. Even though i was not playing, but I still went for a watch just to cheer on my buddies(steady lar...) :D. I think they could have won the first place if it wasn't because of some disqualified case due to some dumb reason, but never mind that.