Woo Hoo! Stage Two Completed!

I passed my Stage 2 Check yesterday! I'm really glad it's over and done... though I know there are probably a few things I'll have to work on.

Why is it that you make mistakes you've never even come close to making when you take a check ride-- even just a stage check like this? I guess it's just human nature... but it sure is frustrating to know that you can totally nail something on a very consistent basis, and then, bam- miss it completely on the check ride.

In any case-- I think I did *okay*, though there were definitely better moments than others. I have realized over the past week or so that it is easy to get caught up in trying to do each maneuver and each process perfectly... when in real life, we are often far from perfect. On the one hand, we need to constantly strive for perfection-- the perfect shortfield landing, the perfect VOR fix, or the perfect time enroute calculation. On the other, if we are constantly caught up in not being perfect, then we will also be continually disappointed (and not satisfied) in our own performance. So-- I'm going to try and strive for perfection, yet accept and be happy with the best I can do (and hope it's enough to get my private ticket!).

BTW-- for those who are curious what my stage 2 consisted of:

Oral: Airspace, Light Signals, Flight Planning, Flight Watch, and Flight Following, Radios, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't remember because it got a little overwhelming!

Flying:
Soft-field takeoff
Hitting a few cross-country checkpoints by pilotage (and checking the time, etc.)
Calculating groundspeed based on time and mileage
Diverting to an airport (calculating direction, distance, time, and remaining fuel)
Hoodwork- VOR tuning and tracking
Turns, climbs, and descents under the hood
Attaining a certain altitude/airspeed under the hood
Recovering from unusual attitudes (under the hood)
Using the GPS and waypoints
Radio Calls
Shortfield Landing (which also turned out to be a crosswind landing!)
(And I was supposed to do a short field takeoff and a softwind landing... but winds were not cooperating)