Flying the pattern

So I was planning on writing a really pouty post on how I can't land the airplane and how I suck.

I recently started flying the pattern with Mike. I've done it three times now. I think I wrote about it before - I take off (which I've now mastered), and when I reach 700 feet I turn left (or right, whatever the tower directs). When taking off, you take off into the wind, so the first turn is called the "cross wind". Then, at about 1100 feet, I level out the plane by pulling the power back, and make another left turn so that I'm parallel with the runway. This is my down wind. When I'm at the end of the runway, I pull the power back again and start a descent. I make another left turn ("base") and then another left into my final approach. See diagram below if you're confused:



Anyway, I did this on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, there were insane winds (I thought) and I had extreme difficulty doing ANYTHING right. Of course, Mike doesn't think that wind is a good excuse: "It looks the same whether it's windy or not!" he says. When landing, one has to gently pull the nose up, and cut the power simultaneously. I had major issues with this, because I didn't know when to cut the power, when to pull up harder, etc. etc. I porpoised the plane twice. This is when the front wheel comes down first (BAD) and the pilot pulls up the nose (reflex). Then the plane does this bouncing thing where the nose comes down again, bounces, and goes up again. Apparently after the 3rd time of this, the front wheel usually breaks off. Oops.
I left Saturday completely deflated, frustrated, and pissed at myself for not getting it.
Sunday was way different. I landed the plane well about 9 out of the 11 times. The other 2 times were "ugly" but "still safe" landings. Yay! I'm getting it. It seriously is a new thing that I have to teach my body. Practice is the only thing that will make it perfect. Speaking of, I'm going to Columbus this weekend (and part of next week) to visit my sister and my friends! I'm so excited, I can't wait to see them all. However, I already booked 3 flight lessons over there so that I can keep practicing. I think I'll be flying a bigger plane than the Tomahawk, so that should be interesting to see what it's like to fly something else...! My recruiter said that I can take the TBAS "as late as I want to" but I still need to get it in before June.
Speaking of, another thing that I'm doing over there is my initial Air Force physical. It's just an ear, eye, nose, throat thing to make sure I'm not some tremendously handicapped weirdo. However, they do test my eyes, which makes me nervous. I have to make sure I get up to date contacts and glasses, so that I don't fail for something stupid like depth perception. I will have to be at the medical facility from 6am to 12pm, which I am REALLY not looking forward to. But, I will do it, and fingers crossed, hopefully they won't find anything wrong with me...