I managed to pass my Final Theory Test last week on my first try and I was very impress with myself, it took me 2 tries to pass my Basic Theory, so I thought my Final Theory would probably take more than 2 tries because it's supposedly more difficult.
I guess it was sheer luck that I managed to pass, just like how I managed to snag a B3 for my Chinese O Level, that for sure is a fluke because my Chinese is horrible and I managed to score higher for my Chinese than I did for my English, makes absolutely no sense at all.
Anyways, I went for my Driving Practical Lesson yesterday and I guess my all my driving school luck was used up during my FTT because I got assigned a new and very unfriendly driving instructor.
The first thing he said to me was...
"WHAT?"
...when I was walking towards him to let him know I was his assigned student that day. Extremely rude but I didn't want to reply in kind , so I just told him nicely that I was his student that day, gave him my identification and showed him the necessary documents that I was his student that day, maybe dial down on the rudeness a bit because I am not an insurance agent on the street who's trying to hard sell insurance plans to you.
We both headed into the car and the first thing I did was try to start the engine, so I turned the ignition key really hard, but instead of hearing the "vroom" sound a car makes, I hear the instructor yelling at me...
"OI! OI! THE CAR STARTED ALREADY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? CAN YOU SEE THE DASHBOARD, THE CAR IS IN PARK!"
I admit, that was my fault. He then went on a rant about how I was damaging the car engine and what not, kept scolding me and throwing out rhetorical questions like..
"If the car spoils how? If spoil how? You know doing that will spoil the car engine."
I knew it was my fault so I just sat there and let him rain his scoldings on me as I kept apologizing, hoping that will make him stop. He did stop eventually and we drove around the circuit a few times, at this point, my mood was already ruined and I was feeling very very flustered and nervous because of his scoldings, so I just sat quietly in the car while he was at the passenger seat, probably quietly judging my abilities as a driver and also maybe worried about a potential accident that I might cause that would cost him his life.
When we finally drove out, he managed to calm down a bit and started talking to me a with a much more civil tone, telling me the amount of points I would have lost had this been a Traffic Police Test, and everything was fine and well for like 5 minutes, because 5 minutes later I had to do a jam brake on the car to stop myself from running an amber light. The look on his face when he realized what had happen was like the ultimate look of "I've had enough of this crap"
He then went on a rant about the dangers I have placed myself and on the other road users, blah blah blah, I apologized and he stayed angry for a while and at this point, I just found the whole situation hilarious because it's as if every time after he has calmed down a bit, I somehow manage to find a way to make a mistake to get him riled up again. the mistakes weren't as bad as the jam brake and "almost destroying the car engine" at the beginning of the lesson bad, just small things like not checking my blind spot or not signalling before turning. mistakes experience drivers always commit.
He was especially annoyed when I took my time to make a U-Turn at a busy road, this was my first lesson during peak hour, so I was very new to the heavy traffic environment. Every time he saw an opening for me to drive out, he goes....
"Okay, after the white van you think can?"
...and I would take a while to answer and by the time I did, he goes...
"Missed it, now need to wait again.... okay after the red car you think can?"
... and once again, I would take a while to access the situation....
"Miss again"
... and he just slumps back into his seat. I was at the U-Turn area for a very long time, I actually started to feel really bad for hogging because the cars behind me were starting to pile up, but thankfully, maybe because of a traffic lights, the roads managed to stay completely clear and I was able to make a proper U-Turn, the instructor wasn't happy with my progress so we repeated it a few times, it wasn't fun. The clock on the dashboard was set at a wrong time so I couldn't tell if the lesson was ending soon or not, which made it even worse.
I had a lot of problems as it turns out, never check blind spot, lane change was too abrupt, road hogging due to slow lane change among other life endangering problems. When the lesson finally ended, I was ecstatic, even though this instructor managed to pin point a lot of the problems I had with my driving, I really don't care much for his attitude, the reason why I think I was able to find his outburst funny was because I was in a good mood that day for managing to pass my FTT the week before. Had I been in a foul mood that day things would have gone very differently, I might just stop the lesson midway and ask him to drop me off at my house because I've had enough of his bullshit attitude.
I don't work well under pressure, as evident from me almost running the amber light, I've never made that mistake before. The other instructor that I complained about, despite having an attitude, he never really scolded me, probably because I gave him a look when he tried to, but this one was constantly picking out my mistakes and reprimanding me for it, which made me very flustered and when I am flustered, I can't focus.
Now I just hope for my next lesson, a friendly instructor.
I tried to look up the instructor's number on the BBDC website, but for some odd reason, he's not listed as one of the instructors, that and also the fact that his number has 5 digits, as opposed to the 4 digits all the other instructions have. Those with 5 digits are normally reserves, but even so, they still appear in the list, so I must have been one lucky bastard to get him that day.
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