Finally: Driving License

Okay, my wife already protested to me about my inactivity in my blogspot. Of course, that protest become an order for me to write in my blogspot.

Let's see, let's see... hhmm...

I have Easter, Good Friday, my works, my courses, my friends, my apartment, hmmm, oh yeah my driving license. Yeah, driving license it is.

Let's see, I've been wanting to get my driving license since my first month in USA, because that is one of the ID that accepted in USA, and it permit me to drive (I enjoy good driving). I only put my hope in Yudis, who promised me to guide me through to that process.

At first, he told me to get used to USA driving rules and conditions. For your information, USA drive in the wrong side of the street. After awhile, it turned out that we were busy. Well actually , he was more busy than me, heheheh. Because, I didn't practice often, and I didn't put a lot of time in to it, I just forget about the driving license.

Summer Break, I went back to my country.

Second semester had the same result. Of course, I was more relax because we have two legal driver, Yudi and Ardi. With their passion to drive, why I had to bother them by becoming another legal driver. Therefore, I had a good excuses not to drive. Although occasionally they let/forced me to drive, but I never forced them to take me to the driving test place.

Winter Break, we went to Atlanta and Florida. It was a road trip, and I have to drive, because there were only two of us (Yudi and I). To all of the people without driving license in the world, no driving license needed, if you don't break any law, or at least, if you don't get caught by the police.

Finally in the third semester, I urged Yudis to take me to driving license test, because he would return soon. I didn't know why we had a hard time to go to the Driving Test place, but we usually failed to kept our appointments. Finally, On Saturday we went to the driving license test, and have our (I and Ange) written test, but we couldn't take our road test, because it was already late. Again, we prolonged our appointments to take the road test, until Yudis left USA for Indonesia.

This situation was annoying for Ardi, because he was the only legal driver in our group. Of course, we (I and Ange) always abused this situation for our benefit, hahahahahha (except for several events like Indianapolis, damn).

Finally, with Ardi as our chaperone, we went for road test on Friday, 14th April 2006. It was a very clear morning, but when we were near to our schedule for the road test, the weather was cloudy and raining. Ange went before me, and she passed.

Well, I always feel anxiety whenever I took tests, all tests: this test was no exception. I have taken a lot of tests in my life, which were resulted in failures and successes. Therefore, I am expecting this feeling. When I'm expecting something, there is not much thrill in it. I suppose that is not a very good one, because I loose the excitement, but still I just can't help it. For this road test, I, of course, am feeling weary; well if I fail, I just have to try again until I succeed. This test was not a life-death decision. So, I read my favorite philosical book (Richard Rorty is my philosophical guru), chat with Ardi (He brought a novel with a Davinci Code-like theme), and tried to calm Ange (I envy her for all the anxiety , the excitement that she get when she took the road test. She couldn't even read the book that she brought to the road test, hahahhaha).

The woman, who tested me, was also testing Ange before. Well, the test was not that hard, you just have to be careful. I have to test all the function in my car. Then, I backed up from the parking lot, then started the road test. She told me to be careful (I think I didn't drive carefully at my first stop light). We're just driving, I didn't know where was the area, because I'm not familiar with the area. To cut a long story, it went smooth, except for one incident. I turned left at the red light, and I enter a one way street. So, according to the rules I have to take the left lane (It is a two lane street). After a while driving in the left, and I was thinking about something that I forget (maybe I look at the beautiful sky after the rain, or ngelamun**), I saw a car in front of me. The first thing that I said to myself, "ngentotbabianjingbangsatsialan*, I failed the test, because I'm driving in the left like what every decent country would do, except for some countries like USA, and there is a car in front of me." The road must turned to two way street sometime ago, or I misread the signed before I turned left. Suddenly the lady who tested me screamed, "What is the car doing in that side? She is crazy." The car in front of me drove by a woman. I was startled and I realized that I was not the one who was wrong, but the other car was. Again I said to my self, "ngentotbabianjingbangsatsialan*, why there was a person who was so stupid at my driving test day?" While my driving test went relatively smooth until I parked my car, during the time the lady who tested me keep talking about other cars mistakes, not only the car that drive in the wrong way, but also several cars after that. At the end she said that I passed, and I have to becareful when I drive. Yeahhh...

Maybe later I will put the picture of my driving license.

Thank You Ardi and Ange for the companion.

*the most common curse words in Indonesian language that I used for everyday life
**a state where I'm thinking, or not thinking, and I loose the senses to the surrounding. It is like I leave my physical body and wandering around without any consciousness of the environment in the surrounding of my physical body