Detour – Driving (Part 1)

10/05/19

In life it is unlikely that anything would go perfectly as planned. And sometimes the detour that is taken is so huge that it completely destroys plans. The detour is expensive. And annoying. And painful.

I started learning driving. I was able to start sometime in February. But I decided that I will only start in march. Then it became April. And I kept delaying it. Finally, at the start of April I contacted a private driving instructor (PDI) that I deemed would be safe. First one. I got rejected. Next, I contacted another PDI introduced by a friend. Through WhatsApp and a few days later he replied and I went for a lesson which was arranged to be a week from the date of confirmation. Heh, to think that I should have suspected something was wrong.

On the day of the lesson, which was a one-hour lesson on a Sunday, it was pretty fun, I guess. and at the end of the lesson he asks about arranging the next lesson. I suggested the same time next week, to which he said that the slots next week were fully booked. He told me that he would text me later in the say to confirming the timing for the next lesson. I trusted him.

On hindsight I should not. I should have forced him to confirm a timing there and then. Or, barring that, assume that I was no longer his student. The rest of the day. No reply. The next day. No news. I texted him. No reply. One week later I texted him again. Still no reply. Meanwhile my time that I could have used to find another PDI or learning driving at a school was wasted. I waited for a total of at least three weeks waiting for him to respond. He ghosted me. Absolutely no response.

Again, I could have maybe identified some things I have done really wrong which caused him to decide that it would be better to ignore me forever. Firstly, I reset his odometer. Like, he was telling me to try the different buttons, and explain the purpose of each of the odometer A and B, like the A was for the distance in one trip and the B was for the total distance in a month to measure fuel efficiency or something. And he explained what a long press will reset it. And I did. And the record was gone. I think that made him pissed. But what the hell man.

In other words, I did nothing serious, or so I think. But whatever. He has ghosted me. I know that you should give chances of like two or three texts, but I have done so. Gone. I have wasted my time.

And so now I have decided to go the school route to learn driving. Cos, once bitten twice shy right? No more PDIs. And I am only just starting, when friends have already booked or even taken their test. Dog, forgive your useless offspring. Forgive me for being a waste of resources and a waste of time. Forgive me. And with the COE prices being so high in Singapore, of course the other factors involved in driving in Singapore is also very costly. Ok, maybe the price of only getting a driving license is on par with other countries, but still it is very expensive.

And I have to start university in late July. So, with the time I wasted, (I should have started learning in April if I went straight to the school and didn’t bother with random strangers on WhatsApp) I only have less than three months to learn and take the test instead of four months. If I am unable to finish learning driving before school starts, I will have to take lessons during semester. And maybe take the test. Hopefully I can arrange it during recess week. But that would be sometime in September. And that is a long time. I am afraid I will go out of practice.

But a thing is that my grandfather’s car is a stick shift. Surprise surprise, in Singapore in 2019 people still have stick shifts. Granted it was bought in 2006. I don’t know, I haven’t breached the topic of doing something as illegal as practicing driving when I don’t have a licence. But that’s cool.

So now I have started taking lessons at the driving school. I went to enrol on the last day of April. And went for the induction and began lessons on 2^nd May. How is it? well the counter lady told me that I would only be able to start booking sometime in 15^th of this month (May), and the slots would be for July. If I had despaired and waited till then to start booking, it would have been too late because I will surely not be able to complete the learning before school starts. But now I am also in a bind. For the next two weeks, I have lessons lined up on all consecutive weekdays. It will be tiring. So be it. I have read of people having two lessons on one day. I don’t think that will be a good idea, considering that just one lesson a day is enough to leave me rolling around in bed wishing for life to spare me. Hopefully I am able to complete enough lessons by the end of May to book the test sometime in July. Because now I’m in the strange dilemma of not knowing if I have enough time. Fuck.

The learning is slow going and panic inducing. Firstly, imagine a person playing Mario Kart, but who keeps reversing and starting and stopping, and falls off the edge of the universe so many times it is uncountable. And imagine someone who when playing Trauma Centre: Under the Knife, forgets to check the pulse meter and the patient goes into cardiac arrest so much they die. Or you have to do a defib, and this person has such bad reaction timing that they don’t press the defibrillator at the right timing and the patient dies. Or Team Fortress 2. She can’t handle having a gun and the ASDW controls and the scroll up and scroll down to pan view. And keeps dying. Or in Player Unknown Battlegrounds. She dies instantly. Kept bumping into walls and stuff and has to spend more than 10 seconds adjusting her position to go in front of the door to enter and another 10 seconds to close the door.

And now imagine this person trying to drive a car. With a stick shift. Double whammy! Oh ya, and this person is me. Also, someone who has all the power necessary to jump and carry 10-pound guns and run around and throw balls really far. But because she cannot control her limbs and her eyes in time and react and stuff, she can’t do any of those things. Sad. And sub-luxes her right shoulder whenever she plays frisbee, after it got quite badly fucked up when climbing a wall in 2013. The fact that she swam frequently doesn’t help this. Though that is probably another more serious thing related to Hypermobility and PoTS. And after pressing the accelerator and pressing the clutch for over an hour my ankles feel like their falling out.