1. Health - Increased radiation hazard due to closer proximity to the atmosphere/space boundary. Crazy sleep/wake time resulting in non-conformal sleep pattern =  panda eyes, lethargy and fatigue.

2. Travel - Double-edged sword here. One time you get to nice places, the other, I'm in shitholes. The other side-effect of travelling is that I see the good things implemented in these countries, but gets pissed off everytime when Malaysia refuses to adopt these practices. From carpooling to clearing your own tray after eating at McDonald's. In the end, I do like what I said before - I change myself, hoping others see what I'm doing and see it as a good conduct and try them out themselves.

Also, sometimes it is like what they sey, "Ignorance is bliss". If you dont know certain things you tend not to get riled up, worked up or annoyed at things that would not anger those who did not know these things. Unfortunately, as the result of my travels, I've seen lots of things, and these are very efficient, productive and beneficial things that are worthwhile being implemented and practiced, but since my non-travelling friends cannot relate to what I see, they dont get what I'm trying to convey, and look at me like I'm a weirdo.

3 - Social/Personal Life - My life is basically determined by the person who does my monthly roster every month. He say I fly Jeddah today, I go JEddah. He say I'm off tomorrow, then only I'm off. Once in a while you can "beat the system" by *cough,cough* calling in sick, but too often and they start suspecting abuse of benefit. I can apply leave for holidays, but that also is at the mercy of the rostering people, and to accomodate the company for extra flights or additional needs of manpower, we are denied leave or holidays, "for the good of the company". You guys get holidays on Hari Raya, CNY or Christmas, I have to fight for this with 2000+ other technical crews to get my slot, and sometimes I dont get the dates that I want for the leave.

The result of this? It is very very hard to have a working, healthy social life with those working 9 to 5, since my roster duty days are irregular. I off, they all working, and vice versa. I am grateful and lucky that the social circle I have right now are understanding and kept each other close in touch with each other, so they are as precious to me as the money in my bank or my other assets. MY circles of friends are not wide, but when I do make friends, I stick them through thick and thin.

Some has chosen my way, others stick to picking their circle of friends among their work peers. Cabin crew befriending cabin crews, technical crew among each others, you get what I mean. I chose not to. Reason being, more often than not, these folks tend to not "switch off" after work, and still talk about work even when they are relaxing in a club, or having teh tarik at mamak. I treat my work as what it is, just a job to do, and when I'm offduty, I'd like to have other things to do, or something else  to identify myself with. It is infinitely boring to be known or associated only with what you do, not who you are.

Me? I chosen more outsiders than insiders (outsider = those working outside the company, insider = MAS employees) because I want to widen my circle of friends beyond those I meet at work. They already have my company when I work with them on a 12,13,14 hours flight duty, I think it's only fair that I make some time with others outside of the work circle.