Reading about talking

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- I can't imagine doing primary training without living with a pilot!

One of the books in the reading room, I noticed the other night, is Say again, please. I set it on my bathroom counter so I'd see it in the morning, after work, in the evening... and wouldn't forget to start reading it. The book is about using the radio. It's about why we talk to each other and to controllers. It's about the information that's needed and relevant for different exchanges. It has examples for everything.

I read the first four chapters last night. So far it's easy to get through, but it is dense. There's no way I'll retain it all right now, but at least it's something practical I can add to the studying going on right now. Well, I haven't picked up my groundschool textbook in probably two weeks; it's getting to be like the kid who has to sit at the table until he finishes his green beans, sulking, checking out the curtains, memorizing the pattern on the ceiling plaster... Okay, it's not that bad yet, but I look at the book sitting there and even scrubbing the floors seems more appealing. It's just that it is sooo dry and a lot of it is "pass the knowledge exam" kind of reading, not stuff that's practical to my flights right now. Like Class A airspace boundaries and requirements. Or turbochargers.

I almost always have several books going at once, but I've been trying to discipline myself to get through the groundschool, not allowing any leisure reading until the textbook is done. This way, I'm still learning stuff that's relevant to my training, and it's very refreshing to have a book in the rotation now that's instructional but not painful to pick up. We'll see how that changes after a few more chapters. I'm into the chapters that are broken down by airspace, starting with G and moving backwards in the alphabet. When it gets to Alpha, and maybe even Bravo, we'll see how rapt it keeps me... :)

Anyway, several of you out there in interwebland have noted that I'm anal to the point of getting too keyed up. Yes, that's who I am about this training stuff. (That's not who I am with most other things, oddly.) Husband is being gracious enough to practice exchanges with me. Chuck and I hung around on the ground for a little while after the flight where I got the endorsement for landing solo at PHF to practice some different scenarios that might come up in talking with them, and also the importance of receiving and repeating clearances before enacting them. All of this prep makes me less anxious about going out and doing it. I don't care if I say something stupid, I'm used to looking like an idiot, but I don't want to say something or say it at the wrong time such that it causes problems for the controllers or other pilots.

And Husband's bookshelf is full of stuff that I'm sure is worth reading. There are a few Rod Machado books, Stick and Rudder, his instrument training books (not that I'll be cracking those babies open in the near future), leisure reading like The Cannibal Queen and Bandits over Baghdad, ... There are enough options there to enliven the reading rotation without feeling guilty, although I am going to have to crack down soon, finish up the studying and get the knowledge test out of the way.

Plus, I'm crossing my fingers for a few fiction books for Christmas, so the attention may further be divided...