When I left my job, I knew one of the priorities was getting my driving license but I took my own sweet time to attend the theory lessons and took the tests all over again. Until when I recently injured my hand that I felt it was time to start my practical since I'm can't do much filming either.
Cut the long story short, I had already attended 21 practical lessons with sch with 6 different instructors .Every instructor has their own way and style of teaching and driving. Some instructor focus on technique and some focus on safety while some others just wanted to get by and don't offer much feedback.
I researched and read blogs about people writing about their driving experience. I will not write much in details as you can researched online, there are many blogs out there that is very resourceful in my opinion. And like many of those blogs that I read, I too faced a very sianz period with the instructors during my early stage. I was not really excited about going to school and in fact I find it a drag. Had a brush with one of the instructors that I always get. The instructor had high expectations, will always remind me to book more lessons and find that my progress is too slow and sometimes when I make mistakes, instructor will face palm or shake her head. Though its deheartening its still nothing compared to my previous pdi. In school, they can't use profanity if not they might get complaint and it will affect their performance and perhaps even their bonus, so its a reputation issue.
First of all, I didn't know its good to book 2-3 lessons in a week as no one advised me on that until the instructor told me so which is kinda late because I have already book 2 months in advance for my slot. And moreover some of friends who got their license during ns, mentioned they can only do so once a week cause need to book in ma which I thought once a week is good enough. I was only advised not to have a big gap between each lesson as I might get rusty with my skills.
Secondly, can't expect that once the method is taught that the students can execute perfectly right? Students need to practice and we are there to make mistakes isn't it?
What got me irritated was when I was asked me why I decided to take manual instead of auto. And this instructor started talking about how fast I can get my license if I switched to auto and how easy it is to handle auto cars. Seriously! I don't understand why I was told all that but the impressions that I get is that I'm a lousy driver in the group and wanted me to switch to auto so I will be transfered to auto group. That is the reason why I don't really look forward to having lessons taught by this particular instructor during my early stage. The problem is you can't tell which instructors you are getting till the lesson starts.
Strangely after this incident, this instructor did not teach me for a short period of time and I got to experienced many different instructors and that is when I get to appriecate this instructor that I felt obnoxoius about. Because I felt that some instructors are worse. They don't give much feedback. I dont know what they are talking about sometimes. Can't connect with them. They keep quiet then wait for you to make mistakes then they start nagging and insist their right of way. Sometimes they ask me how I find other instructors and there was one that said, "No! that fellow method is wrong, the right way is blah blah blah!..."with his face so close to mine like gonna kiss me like that. The other instructor that I appreciated a lot was Mr L. After my 1st instructor stop taking me, Mr L started to take me for back to back lesson from time to time before I'm randomly threw to other instructor for 1 or 2 lessons and back to Mr L again. He know my weaknesses very well and constantly reminds me in the vehicle to do this and that. Overtime my reaction becomes faster and I realized I can multiple task quite abit. I must say he instilled a lot of confidence in me. Every time I get a new instructor for the first time I would always feel nervous but because of all the lessons and practice that I had with Mr L, despite the nervousness I'm still competent to handle the vehicle and then after maybe 20-30mins of warm-up, I will be fine. And over time I did improve, so the 1st instructor and Mr L will starts to casual chat with me when I get them for my lessons. Now I would always pray I will get the 2 instructors that I find favour with.
I'm a little over the halfway mark of obtaining my driving license I think, maybe even 2/3. Somehow I still do not have a lot of confident in my driving or maybe most of the instructors did not give me the assurance that I can drive like Mr L do.
Honestly I don't think I'm a lousy driver. I may be a slow learner and my progress is slow but I'm moving forward. I still stalled my vehicle at least 2 times in every lesson but I'm not a hopeless student or driver. That is something that I need to make clear to all the instructors out there. This is the time that I needed God's grace. Despite of how we fail, or miss the mark, Jesus will always catch us when we fall, such is the assurance and the hope. I always have this vision that one day I'm qualified driver on the road. I happen to know all the people driving around me. Person A driving beside me told me he failed his driving 5 times. Person B driving in front of me told me he failed his driving 3 times. Then comes Person C, saying he passed his driving on his first time. So the morale of story is this, it doesn't matter how many times we failed, because what matters now is we are all qualified drivers. Just persevere, no matter how many tp tests I will end up taking, somehow eventually you will get there.
This is the light I see. Sometimes I do get self condemn because of the things the instuctors said but it's also because that I lose focus on God's grace. Worry and fear begins to cloud my mind. I start to see my incompetence, my inability to improve things, which is all about "me me me". It is time to just give up and look up, for our Helper is waiting to help, but Help simply cannot get a hold of the situation while we are still holding tightly to it. This is what I have been struggling, sometimes and some areas seem more intense. Let not my heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. This is so difficult, God help me!
I'm about to go into stage 3 of my driving. I need to learn to keep moving forward
PS: This is my official post about my driving experience which was written late Oct last year
