Its been a little over two weeks since I have written and its probably because I had so much free time before I didn't know what to do with it. Things have changed now, time-wise,  and I'll get to that later on.
     Lets see, week 10 I flew once and it turned out to be a short flight. We got into area 2 and did a PPEL into evergreen after finishing up some high work. After about 2 bounces, I put up the flaps, and they didn't go up. My onwing tried to touch the lever and as soon as he touched it, big sparks flew out and would have burnt him if he didn't have his gloves on. He then took the controls and proceeded to call a real PEL, leaving the gear down due to the electrical problem. At this point I still didn't know what was going on. All I know is the flaps were stuck down, my onwing was cursing and we were in a real PEL. Pretty unnerving. Approaching the turn to final is when he told me what was up. After we landed, the fire truck came following us into the parking and they told us they smelled smoke and to shut down immediately. So I pulled the condition level to fuel cut off (I was told to leave the t-handle down), and we quickly jumped out. he fire men looked around the plane ready with the hoses and everything looked ok. They said they saw smoke trails coming out of the wing in the flap area. I looked at it and it did look like smoke. We spent the next 2 hours there and another IP flew a mechanic down and picked me up. They later determined it was just the lever and not the flap motor. The "smoke" was actually just a stain from something else. It was right to treat it as they did because it could have been the flap motor and its right next to one of the fuel cells. I didn't fly after that for the rest of the week and not until Wednesday of the next week. I finished FAM 10, came back, ate lunch with my onwing and went out to do FAM 11. My HAPLs were not that great but I was killing myself less and less. Nothing special happened on these two flights. FAM 12 was the next day and I was getting EPs left and right. The worst feeling in training yet was on this flight. I was told I had simulate streaming fuel and fumes in the cockpit. I had to put on my O2 mask (which on this flight was rented since someone accidentally took my bag), crank the landing gear down manually, AND maneuver the plane for the PPEL at Brewton. The mask didn't fit right and was shooting air into my eyes, I couldn't breathe because of the fit, I could hardly talk because the microphone was inside my mouth, and to top that off, the clutch for the manual gear extention wasn't going in. While doing this you also have to connect your O2 mask to the radio. You can imagine what my pattern looked like because of all this. I was just 3 miles SE of the runway at 5500 when it happened too. Funny thing is my ELP was so much better after that incident. I guess since that was almost impossible, it just seemed easy without the mask and manual gear thing.  The next day (last Friday) I had my checkride. I reviewed all my info for it and luckily I got hooked up with the easiest checkride pilot. I've heard horror stories from checkrides but my guy was the easiest in the whole squadron. Nothing happened in the run-up or anywhere on the ground. He didn't try any tricks at all even though I was ready and looking for them. Here is a list of dirty IP tricks on the ground:
     Moving your flaps, moving your condition lever back, taking away your 3 down and locked indication, putting on off flag in your RMI or attitude indicator, moving your RMI to a wrong heading (especially when lining up with the runway), getting your generator light to come on, turning the autoignition on, leaving the plane tied down, trying to remove the chalks from the right side, and I'm sure there are others that have happened to other people.
     We took off and headed to area 1 and one thing that I kept on drilling in my head the whole flight so that it wouldn't happen again is to do a PPEL to the left and the pattern to the right. Usually I fly area two which has a left pattern, go into area 1 doing a PPEL to the left also, and then I have a tendency to want to turn left for crosswind. Don't do that, it will fail you in your checkride. Then remember, even if you're in area 1, Saufley's pattern is to the left for 14 and 5 (same as Whiting). Anyway, so I remembered not to screw that up. We climbed up and did the spin and approach turn stall and then I did a HAPL into Summerdale, and a PPEL to Barin. After the PPEL, I went to do a regular bounce, but got simulated chip light so it turned into a PPEL(P). The next one turned into a LAPL(P). Remember to say you would use the closest runway in these two cases. We then did two normal bounces and heading out of the field, he gave me another simulated engine failure and I did a LAPL into a field from 700 feet. They all worked out better than normal and by this time I was wanting him to give me EPs. Going around and headed to Saufley, he gave me one more HAPL and I started to tell him what I was doing and he said that's good and gave me back my power. We then got to Saufley with the special 600 foot entries because NPA is using r/w 1/19. I did 3 to 4 bounces there, flap and no flap, then we headed home. I think to that point it was my best flight so far. He was happy, gave me happy grades and I was happy. It was then time to solo.
     The weather was deteriorating and I had to go to area 2 which I didn't want to go because there is nothing to look at there. I got my plane and started everything up, this time relaxed because there was no impatient gremlin in the back anymore took off and had to level at 4500 heading to area 2 because of the dark and gloomy overcast. There also seemed to be a 2500 broken layer. I had bank and dive a couple of times to avoid clouds. I headed over to Evergreen at 2000 and as soon as I was happy and set up on downwind, some stupid cessna comes mozying along and we were sent into the delta pattern. This was my first time in the delta and it just HAD to be solo. I just did what the guy in front of me did. The cessna took is time and I had done like 6 or 7 turns in the wide delta pattern and we were finally cleared down. I did my 4 bounces fine and headed off into the darkness (it was only 1500 though). I stayed low at about 2000 and just stayed east of texas field and went in circles most of the time, heading off to california field every now and then when I got bored of circling. It was really dark and hazy and I didn't want to get lost since this area only has like 3 landmarks. I was begging time to go faster. If you've soloed before, this is nothing exciting, unless maybe if you're in area 1 on a nice day. Then it would probably be cool. I headed back and everything went really well. I avoided all the USAF people so that I wouldn't get dunked in the water tank and that was the end of that. Aerobatics next week.