I AM HANDING a passenger a bottle of water. She popped into my galley to ask for one and I notice the guy sleeping soundly in the seat next to her.

I AM GIGGLING in the back galley with my flight attendant friends. It is early evening, the service complete, the cabin quiet. There are several hours left in the flight. We are bored.

I AM EATING whole fried crab in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, famous for, well, whole fried crab. I am intrigued. How do you fry a whole crab in the shell, and how do you eat it? I grew up here, eating Dungeness at every opportunity, but never fried.

I AM SNORKELING at a site in Palau called The Big Drop Off. I have snorkeled many amazing reefs around the world, from Ras Mohammed in the Red Sea to the barrier reef in Belize, but I have never seen anything quite like what I am gazing at today.

I AM SWAPPING for a trip on the swap board, a computer-based program where flight attendants pick up, drop or swap trips with other flight attendants or with open time, which is a posting of all trips with vacant positions needing coverage.

I AM CAREENING through the streets of Saigon, or should I say Ho Chi Minh City? It’ll always be Saigon to me, a leftover moniker from the war I watched every evening on TV as a young girl.

I AM DRINKING “jungle juice” in a bar in Osan, Korea with a group of American fighter pilots. I have no idea what this purplish concoction is, served in a large communal bowl with straws for everyone.

I AM INTERACTING with a group of Himba women at their village in northern Namibia. These girls are known for their elaborate hairstyles, long plaits like tidy dreadlocks wound with ribbons,

I AM ESCORTING a young boy to his seat. He boards first, before the other passengers, because he is an unaccompanied minor, traveling by himself, no parent with him on this flight.

I AM STANDING in front of a classroom of 15 Laotian teenagers in Phonsavan, Laos. I had read on the Internet that in this somewhat remote northern city, a bit off the typical tourist track, they love it if a native speaker pops in to teach an English class.