I had my midpoint evaluation for my front room rendezvous officer training flow yesterday, so it was a pretty stressful day. Before every sim in the front room, I always have a brief moment of complete and utter panic — as in, I start sending Jose emails that say stuff like:
“I don’t want to do this.”
“I just want to be at home.”
“Ugh ugh ugh.”
And finally…
“Ok, I have to pull it together now”
Thankfully, so far I’ve always been able to do just that — pull it together. It’s very different from my experience in my previous training flows, where I had the safety of the backroom to fall back on. In the backroom, your decisions get funneled through someone else before they reach the flight director. In the front room, I control the funnel. And I get seriously freaked out each time I stop to actually consider that!
Anyway, all in all the sim went well. I got some good feedback on what I can improve, and everyone said I’m right where I need to be. That is exactly what a midpoint evaluation is for, so I’m relieved and happy.
