{"id":1859,"date":"2008-12-15T08:29:48","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T00:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=1859"},"modified":"2008-12-15T08:29:48","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T00:29:48","slug":"learning-to-drive-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2008\/12\/15\/learning-to-drive-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Drive Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/blog-highway-code1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"271\" height=\"376\" \/>Ling took a cue from Ann the other day and blogged about her learning how to drive and also a bunch of driving tips too. So here&#8217;s my turn on it.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t done too much checking around, but I&#8217;m certain I&#8217;m one of the most experienced driving theory tests candidates around. After all, I took my basic theory test nine times (failed six times, missed twice, passed once); and the advanced theory three times, every one of which I failed. The damnest thing is that I <em>did<\/em> study.<\/p>\n<p>Thing is, none of what I was reading went into my head. And to top it off, I had absolutely no car sense. During the theory tests, I remembered there were questions like: &#8220;What gear do you engage if you wanted to reverse up slope?&#8221;, and I&#8217;d stupidly answer &#8220;1st gear&#8221;. Yep, I was that car dumb.<\/p>\n<p>Ann remarked that given my standards I should have aced it on the first go. However, that sort of theory only works if I&#8217;m actually interested in what I&#8217;m doing in the first place. And I was perfectly happy taking public transportation and never really felt the need to drive. So, without a need, there was no consequent interest. So, like any other person who has no interest in a subject area, I just didn&#8217;t put my mind into it.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, I had a change of heart when I left for Perth. I was going on a long trip, leaving many things behind, no attachments, no plans beyond completing the Ph.D first and then seeing where that took me. That I was at a major turning point in my life figured very large in my consciousness, so I figured that was as great a time as it was to make major resolutions. There were four resolutions: 1) Successfully finish my Ph.D; 2) Find the &#8216;right&#8217; person; 3) Learn how to cook; 4) Learn how to drive.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s funny to think of it now, since by the time I left Perth in Jan 2006 for good I&#8217;d accomplished all four of the above resolutions. I learnt driving in Perth, and my experience was&#8230; interesting, especially when I read about other experiences of learners in Singapore and compare them to mine.<\/p>\n<p>In any event, the actual story and recollection&#8217;s a long one, so more in the next post.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ling took a cue from Ann the other day and blogged about her learning how to drive and also a bunch of driving tips too. So here&#8217;s my turn on it. I haven&#8217;t done too much checking around, but I&#8217;m<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-read-more\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2008\/12\/15\/learning-to-drive-part-1\/\">Read More<span class=\"cleanwp-sr-only\">  Learning to Drive Part 1<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[147],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everything-else","tag-driving","wpcat-644-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}