The drive to strive drove me to drive

Apologies for the lack of updates. I know I promised an entry on my Epic Euro Escapade, but I was waylaid by the most awesome semester ever had in NUS.

Knowing that school was coming to an end made everyone realise how much university life meant to them. With the impending working world beckoning and hastening deadlines acting as a catalyst, friendships forged and bonds were quickly established.

Though I'm tempted to write a poignant and tear-jerking melodramatic post on the awesome people of the 08/09 Communications and New Media Honours programme, I shall reserve that tribute to another time.

Today I shall talk about how I used my uncanny cat like agility and precognitive situation awareness to totally own my driving test.

But before we begin on the recount of the fateful day where the traffic police department insisted that I have my class 3 licence, let me share with you why I decided to get the licence in the first place.

You see not too long ago, maybe a year or so, I rationalized to myself that perhaps not driving is a good thing. I save money, save the planet (a wee bit) and I generally am pretty happy with the public transportation system.

One particular event however, changed my perception. If you're guessing it involves an event of the female kind you are spot on! If you're guessing I learnt driving to get girls, then you are one shallow short-sighted asshole.

It happened on a day in October in Year 4 Semester 1 in NUS. I was having possibly one of the worst headaches of my life. You know those kind that hurts till you want to hurl and every sound seems echoey like it's bouncing off inside a dome?

Anyway it was mid class and I decided to skip it and head home. With the sun blazing overhead and the daunting task of having to choose between taking 95 or 96 (too many decisions here for my pounding head to compute), I decided to flag a cab.

Turns out the driver of this cab was a lady who looked to be in her late 30s. From the way she talked one could deduce that she's been working different jobs and have seen better days.

Anyway to cut to the chase she asked me if I drove. I said I didn't. She gave a very earnest and shocked response - 'How can a guy not know how to drive?' In fact I sensed a hint of disgust in her disbelieving voice.

So subtle and sinister this disgust, it spread like a snake's venom coursing through my veins. The poison of her words slowly took my mind, till a few days later I was disgusted at my inability to command a class 3 vehicle.

Thus I set a goal. Well two goals actually, at the beginning of my last semester at NUS. One was to channel my energies into getting a girlfriend and the other was to get my licence.

While most my friends witnessed my spectacularly pitiful attempt at getting a girl (judging from the fact that I used a pick up line on a lecturer and dirty danced in front of another) and along with that my very inadequate participation in academic matters (I'm so sorry my friends! I needed straight Cs to get my honours hur), they obviously did not witness my sheer cornering prowess and heightened sense of awareness on tar.

Normal humans (according to the counter staff at Comfort Driving Centre) need an average of 20-25 lessons to be ready for a Class 3 (Manual) licence. Yours truly, nailed the course in 15 lessons. A feat only possible, no not because of my incredulous talent, but due to the fact that my instructors (yes, 3 uncles) are the legendary SAN-NIN (3 ninjas in Japanese, read Naruto for the intertextual reference) of CDC. SAN-NIN means Super Angry No-Nonsense INstructors.

Here's a quick run-down of the SAN-NIN:
Instructor of car 11: He tolerates zero bullshit. Any road/driving behaviour I exhibit that is not according to the Advanced Theory Book (ATB, not to be confused with Ah Tiong Bu), he will ask me to stop by the roadside, whip out the ATB, tell me the page number before flipping open the book to that same page and demonstrate his demon abilities of having memorised every word of the ATB and the mistakes I made. The book's so crumpled that it'd be no surprise that he brings it into the toilet and does funny things with it. However because of him, I had no problem with my advanced theory test.

Instructor of car 12: He scares me. Not because he scolds people. Not because he's fierce. But because you never know if he actually watches the road. He keeps on talking and talking and talking, he gave me a lesson about pigeons and why don't they stay on trees (says it's too hot up there). He gets me to talk to him too. Explaining to him why NTUC won't renew his insurance, why his Nokia phone keeps running low on battery and why I think pigeons are always seen on the ground (because we hardly notice when they are on the trees). Anyway, he taught me how to do things other than drive while driving. Useful. And of course, I also learnt to count on myself while driving since I obviously could not count on him.

Instructor of car 14: He is the king of bad instructions. Not because he gives wrong instructions, but his delivery. In a mix of Mandarin, Hokkien, English and another jargon I have no idea in hell, he'd mumble everything. He is always damn happy to have taught me how to gauge my position in a lane. Taking his pointer and telling me to look at a little dot on the windscreen wiper, he took pride at how straight I was in the lane, mocking other cars in front of me. He'd literally hop up and down in his seat in anger when I didn't follow his incomprehensible instructions during the crank-course. It took me a good 5 tries through the crank course to decipher what he was trying to tell me. But seeing how he'd hop up and down in frustration, I figured I should just let him hop a few more times. That day, I didn't have such a smooth time on the crank course. Hurhur.

One more distinctive characteristic of the SAN-NIN - all their eyes point in freaking different directions! Whenever I talk to them, I have no clue which eye to look into because they are always off-centre. So my eyes darted left and right. I get real confused. I think they caught on after awhile and refused to look at me while they talked.

Finally on the test day we were ushered into this waiting room where the testers would come and call us one by one. When I stepped into that room, it was small with 2 columns of chairs, there was this young guy (around 20 perhaps? Judging from his inane comments which I will elaborate on later) talking across one column to the other with this aunty.

He went on and on about how his Dad bought him a new car and how 'under-powered' that car is. He talked about how slow the pick up of that car is and that once he gets his licence, he'd modify the engine on his own. Yes on his own. So full of himself. I guess he irked me because not only was he loud, it was pretty obvious that his cock-sure demeanour was actually just a very thin mask of his nerves. You could see he was fidgety, legs shaking, wringing his hands and the little twitch he'll have (like when someone poked you at the side of the ribs) whenever the door opened.

Bragging about how during the warm-up he drove with the right hand on the wheel and the left extending to the passenger-side headrest, one could feel at that moment that fate would not smile on this arrogant idiot.

I figured I should just compose myself, close my eyes, relax and take slow breaths. Wished I chatted up the girl next to me though, hot stuff. But alas, the mission today was to get a driver's licence, not a rejection.

Finally my name got called, my tester seemed friendly enough. At first. He told me he was there to help me anyway I can but ultimately it was up to me to convince him that I was not a road hazard.

The circuit which was my greatest fear, went by surprisingly smooth. The tester talked and gave instructions more than I had anticipated, which was comforting. I left the circuit feeling supremely confident.

Alas, you know what they say about over-confidence. When I checked my blind spot I did it too enthusiastically to the point that the tester had to grab the wheel. Luckily I turned back in time to look ahead at the road and also to look at the tester's furious eyes.

"YOU WANT TO DIE IS IT?!" "WHO TEACH YOU TO FILTER LIKE THAT?!". Spirit crushing really. I thought I had failed. Without much to retort, I drove quietly. He made me U-turn back to CDC even before the whole route was completed.

He brought me to the office and gave me a dressing down. Honestly at that point I thought I had failed and was wondering why is he ripping me such a harsh one. I figured that was it. Demoralised, I didn't find the strength to answer his questions with defiance. Questions like 'how come you drive liddat?', 'who taught you this way? Or you never learn?'. So sitting there quietly, looking at him slightly sad and slightly puzzled, I just said I was nervous.

Then, he gave a sigh of resignation and gave me a slip of paper that said I passed. Woohoo! 16 points bitch! He wrote additional notes on it stating that I was speeding and tailgating. But the glee from the narrow shave immediately washed away the sick feeling of desolation mere seconds before. I hopped out of my seat, thanked the tester and paraded out of the office with the slip of paper in hand.

I saw that arrogant 20 year old boy smoking, obviously no slip of paper in his hand, I smiled to myself and thought "I gotta blog about this idiot".

And that my friends, is how I am now officially part of the growing number of people in Singapore contributing to rush hour traffic!