Mellow Me

Ah, irony. Remember back in school, after the holidays your first English assignment would almost definitely be " what did you do during the holiday" and how you'd let out a groan and really not want to write about it? Well here I am writing about my holiday.

To be honest, I wasn't even meant to be going home in December. I was focused and gearing up to finish off my Australian ATPL theory exams. Reminiscing about life back then ( i.e a month and a half ago, seems like AGES ago typing about it now) things were quite different. I was more highly strung than a pulled back bow, my room was a mess and I hated everything(and at times everyone). I felt like everything was out to get me, I was tripping on every vine hidden in the undergrowth of the forest called life and I was PISSED OFF.

So there I was, angry, mentally exhausted, messy, frustrated and worried. Life was a Cessna 152 Aerobat spiraling out of control and I was behind the controls disoriented and throwing up. Until one afternoon when I get a phone call from my sister. For reasons I don't really want to mention on my blog, I immediately knew I had to go home. The tickets were booked for the week after and relief began to set in. I was going home! Back to the land of Nasi Lemak, old friends and of course mum's cooking.

I know, this isn't a very interesting post, but my point is, somewhere between between going to Thailand for a holiday , hanging out with old friends, regular family feuds and finding the guts to confess feelings I've had for someone for a while now, I've become more mellow. Even in stress inducing situations, I seem to be able to calmly deescalate the problem.Everything seems so much easier.


Sure, I there will be times when I'll be down on my luck and I'll feel like giving up but now, deep down inside I know I'll come out smiling in the end. " Things always work out in the end. If they haven't yet, its not the end"- I forgot who said that. A thought that brings great comfort to me in times of adversity.

I'm not sure what it is or why it has happened but I am thankful for it. I feel one step closer to ' Finding out what I'm really made of', and even though I see almost impenetrable storms in the skies of my life, I know that bruised and battered as I may get I will eventually power through.





Something has definitely changed.

Standing up

Today, I am pissed off.. No.. That would be an understatement.. Imagine Satan taking an afternoon nap, which he probably deserves seeing as the bastard works so hard taking care of serial murderers, rapists, dictators and Walt Disney . Now imagine sneaking up next to him and setting an air horn off right next to his ear. That is how pissed off I am.

My drunken-ass father tells me today that he expects me to work as a salesman in his company and get my MBA part time... That is just retarded. Studying to get an MBA full time would take someone about 5 years. Imagine trying to do it part-time. I'd be stuck doing something I HATE for YEARS before I go on to doing something worthwhile. If I had better qualifications, I wouldn't have to be stuck doing grunt work. I mean we're not Bill Gates rich but I know that we can easily afford the full time course I planned to do.

He thinks he's so f*cking great... Granted, he achieved a lot but that doesn't give him the right to treat everyone at home(especially my poor mother) like sh!t. His idea of being a good father and husband is simply providing for his family. There's so much more to it, and even I know that! His ego is intolerable and he stumbles around parties intoxicated boasting his achievements. Frankly, I find it embarrassing to be around him most of the time. That night at the party, he drove me home drunk and the following day made jokes at my expense in front of his friends about how he was perfectly safe to drive and I was worrying for no reason. THE MAN COULDN'T EVEN WALK STRAIGHT.


That's it, no more of this bullshit. I've made my decision... I will blaze my own trail. I'll become a Commercial Pilot and finance my own further education. The further I get away from him the better it will be for me.

DUTY

DUTY, the social force that binds you to the courses of action demanded by that force.
Usage: "we must instill a sense of duty in our children".


This was my father's weapon of choice when he told me that the last 2 years of my life spent working towards a career as an Airline Pilot were so that I could "have my fun for a year or two but eventually get into business".


I've always known that I would become a Pilot. I have been obsessed with flying since I was 5 years old. 90% of my time outdoors was spent gazing into the wild blue spotting Airplanes wondering how high they were flying, how fast they were going and what the view was like from the cockpit. The fact that my mother did marketing for the aviation magazine "Flight International" and got free copies of the mags only fed my obsession.

Fast forward 14 years and there I was, fresh out of A-Levels( which I hated) and behind the controls of a Cessna 152. I mean sure it was no Concorde but it flew. From the minute the wheels left the ground I was hooked. I've never done any hard drugs before but I recognized addiction. Flying an aircraft all by yourself (after learning to overcome the airsickness) is one of the most beautiful experiences very few people get to experience.

Another 2 years fly by(no pun intended) and there I was, 2 stripes on each shoulder and a smile on my face, knocking off my ATPL exams and looking for a job. Everything seemed to be going according to the plan I had formed when I was 12, Until...


It's December the 14th and I am home for some of the Australian summer.(That's right people, television is a lie! December means winter for only the northern hemisphere while the southern hemisphere hits temperatures of up to 45 degress celcius! Santa on this side of the world is a strange man board shorts, thongs and a singlet who's sleigh is really a cart towed by kangaroos). I'm sitting with my dad after coming home and out of nowhere he goes, in Hindi, " What are you going to do as A pilot? There's not much money for a lot of years of your life..." I go on to tell him that it's been my dream for ages, which he already knows. That's when the word pops up. Duty." It is your DUTY to work for and maybe one day take over the company." He goes on to tell me the story about how Mukesh Ambani got called on by his father IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS MBA COURSE to come back and take charge of the family business. Mukesh Ambani went on to make about 10 times more than his then 2 billion.

Some things my father said in his drunken stupor really hit me though. The first being, " Son, as a Pilot, all you'll do is fly people around, and lose years of your life in the air(some people have total flying times of around 25000 hours, equivalent to about 3 years spent in the air, away from their families and friends) but work for and manage businesses and you employ people, and feed their families. You help economies grow and what you leave behind becomes your legacy." Now the reason this hit me is because about a year and a half ago, I had deecided that I somehow wanted to help Asia. I wanted to help it grow and make it a better place. I wanted to help bring out it's full potential and help as many people as possible because, god knows that the world we live in needs all the help it can get and if you have the ability to make a difference no matter how small, you shouldn't hold back. And the reason I want to help Asia in particular is simply because I am Asian.

The second thing my father said that really hit me was, " Don't you ever think you were meant for something bigger? Why build a hut when you're capable of a Taj Mahal?"(Yes, I know, he is extremely Indian, It's because of people like him that the word is an adjective as much as it is a nationality) Now this really got me thinking... I'm the kind of person who always pushes to see how far he can take something.(which, needless to say, has gotten me into heaps of shit but also won me quite a few things). Just like with life, in rock climbing when you encounter this one hold out of arm's reach and there's no other way to get to it but to leap? At that moment we have 2 choices. A, not leap, stay where we are, get fatigued and eventually fall off, Or B, leap and maybe accomplish something.

After typing all this out, I realize something. Not all weapons were designed for destruction. It also appears that I have come to a decision.

I can always fly recreationally, it's more fun than pushing buttons and monitoring systems in big jets. Looks likeI'm going to university!