Asia

I passed my road test (in Philly) on July 23rd. I keep looking at my license. It feels surreal. But now that is starting to wear off. The feeling that replaces it is no longer amazement, it’s “damn I want a car”. Damn. I want. A. Car.

All it has to do is drive. It doesn’t need doors, or windows. It doesn’t even need a metal frame, cardboard will due. I am desperate. I don’t have to drive back to school until Sept. 1 but my friends are going to be leaving in the next few weeks. I want to be able to pile them all up in my car and drive to a midnight movie. Or get up early and be the first ones at Six Flags.

Everyday is a constant reminder I don’t have a car. I live in NYC, so it’s rather easy to get around but when I want to go through a drive-thru at 3am and have no vehicle with which to do so, I want that car. When my friends complain because another of their friends has driven them somewhere but now doesn’t want to bring them back, I want that car. So for the next few weeks, I am going to be the most annoying 20 year old ever. I am going to write notes on the fridge, tv, mirrors, radio, doors. I am going to answer every demand with “I would if I had a car.”

Haha. Seriously, I won’t go that far. Instead, I am just going to research well-priced, in working condition, pre-owned cars. But really, it doesn’t even have to have doors.

I could have jumped in the examiner’s lap the moment he told me I aced it but that probably would have been sexual assault…

I was so nervous and he was so chill. I mean, he didn’t let me speed or anything like that, he just talked to me. And when it came to parallel parking, he noticed on my permit that that is what caused me to fail the first time and he made sure to tell me all the things I could and couldn’t do. I noticed I was about to hit the curb and the days before, I practiced fixing parallel parkings gone wrong. And honestly, if I didn’t do it right, that wouldn’t have been a fail. But I was confident I would fix it but he told me that I wasn’t as close to the curb as I thought and that I could make it. So instead of using one of my abilities to reverse out, I fixed it. He was right. That was a good tip to have. I need to just trust myself a little more.

Everything else was perfect. I drove maybe a few mph below the speed limit and looked around when it wasn’t necessary but nothing that would result in points off. I took my photo, excepted the crazy grin that would be put on my license and left feeling like a million bucks. Make that a million and one.

My driver’s education did not end when I got my license. I plan on continuing to improve and to practice (on my own :-D) things that I’m still not comfortable with. Why? Because I owe it to myself and to those on the roads with me to be the best driver I can be.

Until next goal,
Asia G.

I failed once. June 24, 2008. I don’t plan on failing again. At least, I really don’t want to.

I had a lesson yesterday morning, for two hours, and getting behind the wheel again after not driving for 28 days was pretty damn scary. Some things, like checking my mirrors and putting on my seat belt, came naturally. Others, like remembering to put the car in drive to go forward, didn’t.

He told me to calm down and that was easy. He picked me up from my campus and the speed limit is 13mph so it’s pretty easy to get back into the rhythm of things. But as soon as I turned out onto the main roads, I was nervous as hell. I starting driving 5mph under the speed limit. He asked me if I had been driving at all during the month in between. I replied with a no. He told me, “you’re screwing yourself over.”

Clearly, if I had the means to go driving, I would. But I am not living with my family and if I was, the one person who has a car wouldn’t let me drive it. (We’ve been over this) My friend here has a car, but he drives a huge SUV. I drove it once and everything was different. I had to accelerate more, get more space before turning, brake a little harder. I didn’t want to get used to his car and then drive a totally different one for the road test.

So yeah, “screwing myself over” wasn’t what I had in mind but that’s what he said I was doing. And that kind of pissed me off. So there was no room for nervousness, I just wanted to prove to his ass that not driving for 28 days didn’t make me worse off. And I proved it. I drove very damn well yesterday.

But now I’m nervous again. I mean, I want this so bad. I go back to NY for the rest of the summer and it’s harder to get a license in NYC. And since I put in over $700 here in PA, money-wise, I can’t afford not to pass.

Aside from that, I really want to pass. Last road test, he was so busy rushing to get me to the site that I only drove for the last 10 minutes to the site before taking the test. Tomorrow, he’s taking me at 6:30am to go driving around the site. I am the first one to go, 8:30am, so I’ll just drive around until my test.

I really want this license. It means more than just the ability to drive alone. It means that even with no parents to let me drive to the store, no road practice before my first lesson that week of June, no idea of what the hell I am doing, that I can take on new things and excel. And this is one thing I really want to take on.

Wish me luck!