I have the exact same one (but with the 407 winter colours – Ombre Eclat) and this.
I am now inside the makeup bubble. Luxury brands are so hard to resist because they produce such irresistible products. I went on a semi-shopping binge yesterday and got an eyebrow pencil from Helena Rubenstein, and an eyeshadow palette and concealer from Guerlain. I already adore Guerlain without trying it because everything they make is beautiful, and comes in soft velvet cases, which is so good because you don’t want to go around buying lovely new things and then have to put them in with all the other stuff to get scratched and grimy now do you? 
I still need a whole bunch of items – mascara, Shu Uemura underbase, tanning lotion, face moisturizer/tinted moisturizer, some nail colours, red lipstick, gloss. And.. I really need a haircut and a perfume or two.
Saw this on music chart show a few days ago in Brussels (where I went out for the famous mussels and chips, and cherry beer at a bar called Delirium Cafe). Ths song is average but I like the outfits in the video, and I want to use the hairstyle of the girl approx 35 seconds in for work! Marton Solveig reminds me of all the French expats dancing in Shanghai clubs.. and I’ve always liked Dragonette.
Saw a guy on Hamdan St tonight (the major street I walk along every day I’m home). A fat, balding Arab guy in his 30s riding along on one of those ‘Mall Cop’ two-wheeler vertical scooter things, carrying a huge KFC chicken bucket in a limp plastic bag. Bwahahahaha! How could he not realize how ridiculous he looked?!! Anyway, priceless sighting!
**
I’m going back in time!
That is, tomorrow, I go to a place in which the time zone is behind greenwich mean; zulu time. First time, and so correspondingly the first time to the American continent. A landmark for me! Surely the crew will organize a trip to Niagara Falls.. otherwise I can go alone, or use the 75 hours to see and do a bunch of things in the city. I made some quick notes for popular tourist stuff: lie face down on the glass at CN Tower, skate at Nathan Phillps Square, the Distillery district (Victorian industrial architecture!), Dundas Square, Yorkvills, Steam Whistle Brewery etc. I know a girl who lives there so maybe I can do something with her too? Weeeyahhh!!
**
Still 120 pounds, even though I’m going to the gym everyday for a minimum of an hour each time (with the 8th day as a rest day). I assume it’s just me gaining muscle mass? My shins are basically the consistency of stone now, and my shoulders are looking nicely toned etc 
I just need to get more controlon what I put in my body now, since it all goes hand in hand. I read that you replace the calories you burn after half-an-hour at the gym with one bottle of Gatorade.. so that helps put it in perpective.
Thank god for hotel gyms, a fresh environment really helps shake up what could become a fairly mundane routine.
**
This month I operated a flight with the new IS coral service for the first time (toilsome!), and worked in business for the first time on the way back – 22 pax instead of a few hundred, and you focus on one side, so really it’s only 11 pax. I estimate it’ll be another year before I’m moved up to Pearl, so it was good to get a taste of what it’s like ‘at the front’, heh. I was totally expecting a group of snarky cumbersome middle aged businessmen, but they were all wonderfully well-behaved, probably mostly because it was a night flight!
**
I discovered a new thrift shop the other day, right here in Abu Dhabi! On the photocopy with the address (between a Mosque and Hamdan St, behind Sun & Sand Sports at the Sandesh Sweets building) it says “just like your ukay ukay”, which the owners told me is the Filipino equivelent of a thrift store. In regards to the development of the city this is definetly a landmark. Forget Yas Island and superstar concerts etc.. before this I’d never seen anything not new. They have a nice little bookshelf at the back with about 80 or so English titles.
So.. I saw my roster for next month this morning.. pretty sweet, 5 flights only though (7 or 8 is ideal for me), thankfully no narrowbody sectors (319/320), and what will be my very first JFK! How long have I been waiting for this!? Hellls yah!
Then, I had changes to my roster this afternoon after training for the new coral economy service (that started yesterday on Paris and Brussels sectors) … They gave me a 75-hour Toronto..I’ve never been there either!! I had no idea we even had a layover there for that amount of time, pwoah. I’ll be a North American bandit. But really, I feel so lucky to have this, I’d requested Toronto maybe three times, and now they decide to give it to me when I can’t actually make requests. Ohmy! 
I like the feel of things right now – my roster, the new service at the back, plus the F1 is coming up this weekend. I get back from Manchester on the morning of the 1st. I assume England doesn’t celebrate Halloween that intensely but it’ll still be the weekend and I definitely intend to party and shop there at least! And though I’m not attending the F1, I hope I return to find complete madness, love the idea of an event completely taking over a city! I just saw a memo out for female crew that day to wear special F1 scarves that day. Nice touch.
Aiiight.. off to the gym.
Where is my goddamn roster, huh? It’s late coming out, and I’m offended. I can’t sleep even with a head this heavy.
**
So. The other day I flew with a Romanian guy who is leaving next year to become a magistrate (which I knew to be something judge-y and court-y, but had to look up to find out what it meant precisely). The spectrum of people in this job confound me, especially recently. Entrepeneurs and academics and business potentials. Who would’ve thought?! This job is to fuel the fire for them, or I should say, fund their fire. Crew I meet often have an endearing line of circumstances; a colourful life history at least. And me? I’m here only as a spacey uneducated white trash (brunette) bimbo, doing this job for it’s own sake. And I’m ok with that (kind of).
I also want to mention that I met a female First Officer on MUC. Australian too! She is just finishing her training flights now and moved to Dubai last week. Worked for Jetstar before. Putting aside the novelty of being a kick-ass girl in the flight deck, she also seems really cool. I want to jump back into a wishy-washy expat pool, maybe at Dubai Marina. I won’t even mind the yuppies and prams, I just need some Native English jokes.
Once you surpass the top 20 EY cabin crew questions, it gets good. Flight attendants rule in the anecdote world. Maybe that’s why I’m so miffed at my terrible attempts to tell any story, personal or parroted.
So anyway, my flight yesterday was on a 320, which means only myself and two other crew and working down the back. A Moroccan girl who exchanged an extended eye contact moment with Collin Farrell, and a guy from Turkmenistan. Of our 3000-odd crew, I’m told we have two from this country. Less than Kazakhstan then (..ha!). Turkmenistan is one of those Central Asian (read: obscure) countries, sharing borders with Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. It only became independent in ‘91. He said when he was 15, in school, boys were taught how to assemble, handle and fire guns. Combat preparedness type of thing in case of an invasion. He also said that at that age boys are expected to be able to be men.
There were also nuclear bunkers under each school. I want to say ‘neat!’ but it seems wrong.
This girl and this guy said they think ‘Europe is racist’. I didn’t know that was even a possible opinion to have? It sounded blundering and outrageous, you know Europe is a continent right.. is it allowed to have personality? I should put gaffaw in here somewhere.. They said the European Union has welcomed those (white) Eastern European countries.. so why not Turkey? That the people power (by population or vote?) of Turkey would outweigh the retiring Western dogs.
…….Eastern Europe is chock full of -ia and I wanna visit me some! Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Croatia.. Wanna see ia…..
On good old Wikipedia it said this:
Turkey would be the first Muslim-majority country to join the European Union, although Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are also Muslim-majority, and have been recognized as potential candidate countries.
And also this:
Public opinion in EU countries generally opposes Turkish membership, though with varying degrees of intensity. The Eurobarometer September-October 2006 survey shows that 59% of EU-27 citizens are against Turkey joining the EU, while only about 28% are in favour. Nearly all citizens (about 9 in 10) expressed concerns about human rights as the leading cause. In the earlier March-May 2006 Eurobarometer, citizens from the new member states were more in favour of Turkey joining (44% in favour) than the old EU-15 (38% in favour). At the time of the survey, the country whose population most strongly opposed Turkish membership was Austria (con: 81%), while Romania was most in favour of the accession (pro: 66%).
So interesting!
***
15 guaranteed EY cabin crew conversational questions/topics:
1. Where are you going?
2. How’s your roster?
3. Where do you stay?
4. Do you have a boyfriend?
5. Who are your flatmates?
6. What’s your staff number?
7. How long have you been here?
8. Do you know [insert name here]? or perhaps Have you flown with [insert name here]?
9. What were you doing before?
10. Sex
11. Relationships
12. Company gossip
12. Crew gossip
12. Bruno movie
13. Layover discussions
14. Sex and relationships
15. Anything, just said in a thick Indian accent.
Especially that last one.
Most-adored song of the moment. Favourite band in the world, too. If only the rest of the world danced on par with the lead singer of Friendly Fires.
Happyday stain. On the street today I saw a guy wearing a bright red turban and said to myself: ‘Hey there, thanks, you sure brighten this place up!’ A head-sized bright blot of colour on a sunny but still rather bleak, low-contrast street. Photoshop low levels (dust). It was 32C today. The weather isn’t formidable or overbearing or soul-crushing anymore! We have started to leave the windows open at home! Wonders!
**
In my recent abundant days off I went back to deliberating what I’m going to do with my life next. I’m continuing on here, absolutely. I at least want to try working in the premium zones, and could never leave before having layovers in Nagoya and Tokyo. It’s only that I like to try and organize some lilly pads on the pond ahead of me. To step on, see..?
What I like about it here: Free gym, free accommodation, no utility bills, tax-free salary, unadulterated year-round sunshine, layovers, bring paid to travel, being paid to sit on my bee-hind doing nothing (hotel or standby), shaken-and stirred irregular routine, constant flow of new people (pax and crew), the opportunity for promotion, people deliver groceries to you, personal development (helping me grow-up,or at least apply make-up better), free transport to and from the airport on a crazy swerving minibus, the Abu Dhabi 2030 plan, free medical insurance, ID50s, ID90s, ZED tickets, the lifestyle fits me, the uniform, a secret industry language above and beyond Alpha-Bravo-Charlie, access to terminals and aircraft and hangars and the password for crew bunks, free stays in hotels the world over, that I can remain an expatbaby, global in-person shopping (the internet cannot compete!), new destinations. All-round growth. In the airline, and in the city. Of course if I had it my way I would have new things launching all over the top of each other, break-neck, richocheting like stittles. But.. I do respect stability and security.
And you’re curious, and the answer is: yes. Yes, it’s well possible to go to London then Geneva then Munich (tomorrow) and achieve zilch. 
Someone installed a dimmer switch to the stars. It’s called having no money.
Private airlines / excecutive cabin crew. This is something I’ve looked into a few times haphazardly, mostly via PPRuNe or the websites of the companies.. e.g. Qatar Excecutive, Royal Jet, Amiri Flight, Kalair, NetJets. Some of them sound a little unstable. And in general, in the private airlines there’s no roster, it’s more like a perpeptual standby affair. As for the rest of it, I’m not really interested in hearsay; would much rather try it for myself. I like the idea of it, or seeing what it’d be like. A whole lot more personal, given that you’re only probably working with a few other crew on a small aircraft. Much more spontenous too, like if the Sheike’s wife decidedon a whim that she’d like to fly to LA or the Carribean or somewhere else for a little exotic sun or a spot of shopping. Glam glam!
Sad bear. Weight training. The day before yesterday I was sobbing, heavy heaving-like sobbing.. scrubbing my bathroom, especially the toilet, just so I had something to focus my hysterics on. Tettering on the edge of being completely incapacitated. I couldn’t cry for along time and then I finally did, and it was wonderfully cleansing. Like a great workout. And the whole guttural-theme of it is quite poetic, don’t you think? Like I said, it was a long time coming, and I know exactly what set me off. Today though, I feel whatever the next level up to superb is. Watch me while I found a new religion based on the wonders of physical exercise, or more specifically, exercise coupled with music. I am going to write a thank-you email or letter to management to let them know how much I appreciate the facilities they provide. Though, I probably won’t mention that the gym probably saved my mental health.
Also: blogging is therapy.
It makes me to giggle to see people continually checking themselves out in the mirrors. Forgot what you looked like for a minute there did you, you sweaty mess? But I dance on the treadmill.. sing (in silence), bop my head around and jiggle my fingers on the treadmill to beat of my BlackBerry. What’s worse then?
**
The lilly pad progressions of other people. Jon emailed a handful of people today, requesting that we send a postcard to a bunch of sixth-graders in Missouri, as they’re collecting cards from different countries. And he’s going home next week! The Asian persuasion has faltered. I couldn’t imagine him making such a sweet request like that a few years ago. People change, then (me saying that like the thought only came to me a moment ago). Melody is moving to Virginia in a few weeks, as far as I know (haven’t heard from her). Nourhan is taking her boyfriend to Egypt to meet the parents, which sounds straightforward enough, but there’s a whole lotta conversational debate behind this. Olivia wason my Geneva flight. She’s getting married in a few months to an American chap.
My ancestry. My uncle emailed me some scans a few weeks ago regarding my family history, which up until this point was a topic I knew nothing about, apart from some crypic stones comments from my Mum that my grandfather was maybe nuts, or a killer, or both. My ancestor, John Mayne, was an “idle youth” who arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1837.. “after he stole some potatoes, money and a watch” (the standard Australian convict, then). He received his Certificate of Freedom in 1845… “Since John and his wife were illiterate, the surnames of their children were registered as Mayne, Maine, Main and Mayon”. Greeeat. Where’s 23andme when you need it?
Paperweight. I need to mention the best book that’s crossed my path so far (as far as memory serves me), about the building of a medieval cathedral. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I’m disgustingly grateful that I found it (in terminal three, of all places) – a sizeable storybook that allowed to fall in lust with language and stories all over again. I don’t ever want to not be in the process of reading anything anymore. Every beautiful phrase or sentence or word-in-delicious-context in something you read, kind of lays a little tiny piece of character onto you.
Playing card. There’s one main thing on my mind that I won’t be mentioning because I’m silly and there’s too much about myself that’d cringeworthy! The plan is go out with Nour and Ilham in a few hours and and regain/lay some groundwork in normality by socialising in my city (this is my city). And wait for an sms and have a few drinks. Update: scrap that, they changed their minds. :\ Instead I’m going to sit on the couch and watch a movie. Hurrah. And fly to Munich tomorrow. And try to find a postcard, a stamp and a postbox for a bunch of kids I’ve never met.
Found a short review of a an ongoing comic book series called ‘Air‘ in my flatmate’s issue of Marie Claire – written by the same author as ‘Cairo’, a graphic novel I remember seeing in a store on Pitt Street (Sydney) last month. I’ve read some more reviews of the series online now and I’m looking forward to getting my mitts on at least the first issue. Comic books are something like sci-fi or fantasy novels for me – a category of reading material that I eventually expected to become more interested in.. only perhaps I haven’t had the right introduction to yet. For my next Sydney layover I’m going back to King’s Comics for Ender’s Game, and to maybe ask the guys who work there for a recommendation for a hardcover title to fondle over..
I’m drawn to Air. Firstly, the main character of Air is a flight attendant, based at Schipol, and I like finding references to flight attendants in everyday pop culture, where either someone is making a mockery of the job or over-glamorizing it; it’s normally one extreme interpretation or the other. And apparently this is the first ongoing Vertigo series with a female main character – Blythe. She’s not a brunette, but that’s ok.. in one issue Blythe visits a mythical country wedged between India and Pakistan, Narimar, that no longer exists on maps following the Partition of 1947. How awesome is that?! From the basics it only sounds better and better – the genre of the series is described as ‘magical realism’, a make-believe tree with roots in with real world, which appeals to me completely (I think I’d lose interest in any story that floated too far off the ground).
The concept behind “Air” came from Wilson’s own experiences after being grilled by a flight attendant in Amsterdam for the many visas in her passport. The airline staffer found it conspicuous that Wilson, an American, had traveled so much. “And by the fact that I was living in the Middle East,” Wilson told CBR News. “MK [Perker] claims that this was just an accident, and that the idea was clearly percolating in my mind beforehand, because ‘Air’ expands radically beyond simple airport hijinks. Who knows where stories come from, in the end? Living abroad (no matter where) will do one thing to you, guaranteed: destroy your ability to accept what you’re told without question.”
Indeed, “Air” pulls a lot of rugs out from under a lot of commonly accepted beliefs, “which was certainly my experience living in another culture,” Wilson remarked. “‘Air’ is political in a very different way than ‘Cairo’ was, and has a much broader focus. In ‘Air’ I’m pushing my own boundaries — I’m looking at the relationship between paganism and monotheism, which for a Muslim writer is just enough rope to hang oneself with; between politics, technology and symbolism, between maps and territory. But that’s awfully abstract. The meat and bones of ‘Air’ is a really fast-paced, surreal adventure with cliffhangers galore.” – G. Willow Wilson talks ‘Air’
Cover art of issues #1-13 here.
In the Air with Willow Wilson and M.K Parker : Vertigo Spotlight
