Journal Entry 5

Chapters

Driving Lesson 1: Driving’s Pretty Fun…

Today (Saturday) was my first day of learning how to drive. I signed up for 5 driving classes that are each 90 minutes long, which cost three hundred dollars in total. I think this should definitely be enough to learn all the basics and pass my road test. Today I also found out that I unfortunately can’t schedule a road test until I’m 18 years old. You usually have to schedule them for a month later, which means I won’t be able to drive by myself until mid November.

I forgot to mention this in my last journal entry, but the biggest reason that I want to get my license ASAP is because I’m not dorming and need to commute by myself. For the time being, I don’t have a confirmed way of getting to school by myself.

My driving instructor is this relatively young guy who’s really chill. He first gave me a rundown on the basics of driving and how to operate the car with the steering wheel and the two pedals. Then he told me about how to switch between the driving modes which you can only do while pressing on the brake pedal.

There’s also a specific motion that you need to get down when turning the wheel that the driving test requires you to use. You have to alternate between your hands while turning the wheel. He had me practice turning the wheel for about 8 minutes before I finally got the motion down.

After that, we finally started driving. At first, it was just driving straight but without an early warning, he told me to make a turn which I was absolutely not prepared for. I fumbled a bit during that turn and the next few several turns. I wasn’t turning the wheel enough to make a turn and he had to keep helping me turn the wheel. For the 90 degree intersection turns, you’re supposed to make about one full rotation on the wheel to complete the turn. Instead of making one full rotation, I was only making half of a rotation the entire time which didn’t require me to switch my hands at all when I was supposed to alternate the hands one time for those turns.

I was also accelerating a lot “rougher” and my instructor kept reminding me to accelerate gentler. On top of that, I kept on steering the wheel a little to the right so the vehicle would often drift towards the right side of the road. It might’ve been because I was on 5 hours of sleep, but the wheel didn’t look straight to me. So I kept trying to readjust the wheel to make the Toyota logo on the center be directly centered which was what I was NOT supposed to do. The turns could definitely use some work though. I hope this won’t be for long, but while I was driving, I was so laser-focused on the road and my hands were a little shaky on the wheel. Overall, my driving experience today was alright, but I could definitely see myself enjoying driving a lot.

I went to eat Chipotle after because I was feeling it but oh my. That was genuinely one of my worst experiences at a Chipotle ever. First, the person who made my bowl was like a rookie. He kept on giving small portions and was actively measuring the portions. When it came to scooping my honey chicken, he initially had a big scoop and then dumped half of it out which annoyed me a lot. Then came the sour cream and I asked for a little but then he gave a literal 2D line of sour cream. Naturally, I asked him for a little more sour cream but apparently “a little more sour cream” means a fat gloop of sour cream. He DRENCHED that shit and transformed what was supposed to be a Chipotle bowl into a sour cream soup. Now when it came to actually eating the bowl, there was something really off about the honey chicken. When I first saw the chicken in line, it was glistening in sauce, so I thought it was gonna be really good. But when I ate it, that shit was SPICY. They definitely pourted some hot pepper glaze over that chicken because that bowl tasted so yucky. I don’t really know how to describe the taste exactly, but it kept on stinging my mouth.

Anyways, my next lesson is tomorrow so I’ll write about my experience right after it.

Driving Lesson 2: Turns And Some More Turns

I had my second driving lesson a few hours ago and it went pretty well. This time I had a good 8.5 hours of sleep and I definitely noticed that difference today. My hands were not nearly as shaky and I was a lot more relaxed.

We immediately got started on driving but my instructor had me do a lot of turns today. I forgot to stop twice at a regular stop sign which made my instructor angry because he told me when I left yesterday to remember what I learned and I clearly didn’t. I definitely forgot that I had to stop twice at a regular stop sign and not gonna lie, I was half asleep while he gave me that pep talk yesterday about stopping twice at a regular stop sign. During this session, I repeatedly got greedy and kept on waiting until the last few seconds to slow down at an upcoming stop sign and he was angry many times because of that. Because of that, he slowly conditioned me to deaccelerate earlier before a stop point.

He also had to remind me to drive on more towards the right side of the road. I found that kind of hard to do because I’m not really used to how big the car is, so I was often concerned about whether the right mirror would hit the parked cars.

The first new thing I learned today was the “K-Turn” or the “3-Point Turn”, which is basically a three-step turn to change the direction of the car. It’s really simple and easy, so I will definitely be able to master it quickly. The second thing I learned was about the wheel’s self-centering feature. This one isn’t specifically tested on the driver’s test but it’s supposedly really useful to make smoother turns. Basically, the more you accelerate while turning, the more the wheel will start rotating back to its original position. I started incorporating this self-centering feature into my turns and it’ll definitely take time to use it to its full potential. Right now, the biggest problem is that I haven’t found that sweet spot for when I accelerate during my turn. For my current turns, I’m going too slow while turning the wheel, so I complete the turn a little too early.

I’m starting to love driving a lot and I think I’ll be able to practice a lot sometime this week since my mom’s going to spend time with me in the car while I practice. I’m getting the hang of it and I’m already looking forward to the next lesson which is going to be about parallel parking. After this lesson, I should know all that I need to know about driving.

Photo(s) Of The Week

Finally got my own laptop! I’m really excited to be able to work on something that won’t die in two seconds.

Selfie that I took during my driving class.

A photo of me unboxing my Macbook. The photo quality is terrible because I took it while recording the whole thing.