Class is back to the early shift, starting at 6:30am today. I went to bed at 9pm and slept soundly until 2am when someone was yelling outside. It’s times like these that it’s a good thing I don’t own a firearm. It took me a couple hours to get back to sleep.

Our systems instructor was unable to get to work today (it seems that he’s stuck on the east coast), so one of the training supervisors who talked to us last Monday gave us some books (see below) and spent the rest of the class period going through a pre-flight walk around. Yes, he spent 6 hours talking about it and showing us slides.

Things start in earnest tomorrow, I think. Our instructor today managed to drive me absolutely crazy by pronouncing the final t in the word pitot. Seriously.

Lunch is at 10am, at which point the “Burrito Express”, otherwise known as the “Taco Wagon”, or more affectionately, the “Roach Coach”, pulls up outside the building. It appears to be a bad/authentic Mexican restaurant inside a bus, with a proprietor that leans out the side in order to peddle some theoretically edible goods. I purchased a Mexican coke, and received a John Adams dollar in change. I didn’t know such a thing existed– it looks like even more of a disaster than the other previous dollar coins, being roughly the same size and weight as a quarter and only slightly golden colored. The cool feather is the pound-sterling-esque lettering on the side. (Took me a long time to find the mint date)

I’d planned to read through the CFM before class tomorrow, but that’s probably not even possible if I weren’t to sleep. And we got a systems manual as well, which is also the same size. Flying a plane involves a ton of paper.

We also got our seniority numbers. I’m currently the 4th least senior pilot in the company!