Blog Name/Life Before Flying

Unless you are privy to the intimate details of my life, you're probably wondering, "What in the world is up with the name of this blog??" Well, the peculiar (or as I like to refer to it, delightfully creative) name comes from a couple different things. It is both a reference to my grandfather's nickname for me and a play on the fact that I was an English major in college. The English major part should be fairly straightforward. If you aren't familiar with various tenses, then it is likely that you didn't pass eleventh grade English and quite possible that you've been living under a rock for the duration of your life after infancy. You may also be one of those detestable individuals who can't seem to get a firm grasp on the proper grammatical use of 'your' and 'you're.' But I digress.

As for the reference to my nickname, that's a story in itself. My grandpa is famous for his nicknames. Nearly everyone in his life has one. Some are derivative of the person's name or interests, while others are the result of an elaborate back-story.When my mother was pregnant with me, her father asked what they were going to name me. Jokingly, she told him, "Hortense." So a few months later, along came adorable little me. And as legend has it, Grandpa said something along the lines of, "Baby Hortense. Well, that's kind of a mouthful. Better shorten it up a bit. So [my mother's nickname], what's it going to be? The first part of the name, or the last?" And I've been Baby Tense ever since.

I grew up on a farm in the Northeast, and stayed in New England for college. I've always thought being a flight attendant would be cool, but had never really thought of it in a realistic sense. It's kind of one of those things that people dream about but, for me, I never thought it to be a solid and/or attainable career plan. Then one February night during my senior year of college, I collapsed in a heap in the midst of applying to any and every job I thought might possibly hire me. As I lay on my hardwood living room floor watching Kirsten Dunst do her flight attendant thing in Elizabethtown, I thought to myself, "Hey, I could be a flight attendant." So naturally, I started Googling.

"How to become a flight attendant." "Airlines that are currently hiring flight attendants." "How hard is it to become a flight attendant?" What I found was not so encouraging. I found an article that said one airline recently had about 10,000 applicants for 1,000 positions. Yikes! I read horror stories about group interviews with 100 people competing for just a few spots, and about how tons of people fail their training tests and get let go before they even get to be a real F/A.

But I found a few airlines that were hiring, and once I sifted through those requiring that any applicant be fluent in English AND French, Japanese, Mandarin, Dutch, Russian, Swedish, Zulu, or Belarusian, I was left with two airlines. One of these would become my future employer. I'll post about my interview later. But clearly, I did reasonably well and got my first big-girl job. Yay!! So happy to be a productive member of society! I start training in a few weeks, and until then, I'll be busy graduating from college, packing up and moving out of an apartment that I love (and will miss terribly), and studying my F/A info so I won't flunk out of training on my first day.