season

Still on the topic of confidence.

Mr Nice Guy told my female owner last night to have more confidence in herself! Wahaha. Word in season. What happened was that a few of them went out for an impromptu dinner (Onli Fren says that my female owner is an impromptu magnet). Mr Nice Guy ended up buying takeaway ice-cream and in order to eat it, asked my female owner to drive his car.

My female owner was nervous about it coz she seldom drives a car when the owner is sitting in it. But anyway, she did it. And afterwards, Mr Nice Guy gave her the keys to drive again and when my female owner started to talk about her poor driving, he said those magic words. Seems like people believe more in her than herself.

oblivious

My female owner had her first car accident today as the driver. She says that it was an accident that shouldn’t even have happened. She was just trying to park her father’s car in a tight spot and paid so much attention to the back of her car (trying not to hit the taxi in the next lot) that she forgot to notice the diminishing space between the wall and the front of her car. She ended up scrapping the paint and denting the right bumper. But the best part was, she did not feel any impact with the wall and found out about the damage only long afterwards when she came back from one party and wanted to know the license plate number of her car in order to get security clearance for her next party.

I think she wins the award for the most oblivious driver who gets into a self-created accident.

Although it was a minor incident, my female owner kinda lost confidence in her decision-making ability and road-awareness. She never felt dumber for thinking that she would be able to squeeze her father’s car into such an awkward spot. The good part was, she made a conscious effort to reach home early to apologise to her father. So we got to see her early!

licence

My female owner realised that she was issued her permanent driving licence 6 years ago on this day (She passed in 2001 though).

Now, driving tests in Singapore are notoriously difficult to pass on the first try. Most people pass on their second or third try. My female owner, the daughter of a driving instructor, passed on her fourth try, after more than two years of learning. Indeed, she brought down the good name of her father. Many of her friends learnt from her father and some actually passed on their first try (e.g. Second Onli Fren).

As you know, my female owner has anxiety issues. And if she has to perform anything, her anxiety is exacerbated. So during her driving tests, the first one in particular, her left leg started to shake uncontrollably, which of course made it virtually impossible for her to maintain clutch control. Among many things, she “strike kerb” twice, which meant an immediate failure.

Her subsequent attempts improved (it has to, given that she almost killed the examiner in her first try. She described it as him looking at her with “murderous eyes”, after she crashed into a safety cone.). Her leg shook less but nonetheless, she would still “strike kerb” at least once. She always accumulated enough points to fail in the circuit and thus, not make it out to the main road. She tried visual imaginary to habituate herself to the stressful situation but that didn’t work, coz she would be scared off by her own visual imagination!

Come her fourth try.

Early into the test, she “strike kerb” again. One more strike and she would be out. Her examiner looked at her with sympathetic eyes and told her to “drive slowly, don’t strike kerb and you will pass”. Her Achilles’ heels? The crank course where she has to make four perpendicular turns starting from turning into the course and ending by turning out of the course (imagine a right-angled “Z”). And for some reason, the examiner chose to test her on the particular orientation where she has to make four left turns. Now, that is extremely difficult for her coz firstly, she is on the right side of the car, secondly, she hardly practiced this certain orientation coz its location in the circuit makes it less accessible.

Well, she kinda scrapped through without striking anything… miraculously. And got her licence. She didn’t even need to drive out into the main road!

lost

My female owner had a traumatic day which resulted in her procrastinating on her work, over-eating and over-sleeping. It started off with her anxious male client who told her that his GP had referred him to a specialist and as such, he would not be coming in until further notice. This is the second time an anxious client terminated on her and she wonders how much of it was due to her.

Anyway, more nerve-wrecking was that she was almost involved in a road accident today. She was driving her friend’s car, on the way to pick her up from a train station. As usual, the roads in Brisbane City confused her, with some junctions not allowing U-turns and other roads turning one-way suddenly.

While trying to work her way around, she realised that she had to make a U-turn to the other side of the street (there was no centre divider). Unfortunately, she failed to look behind her and u-turned just as cars were approaching behind her. The first car braked in time (otherwise she would have been hit on her side) and so did the rest of the cars behind. My female owner also managed to brake in time and reverse her car back to the side of the road. She tried to make another U-turn when the coast was clear and after making it, realised that it was a one-way road (with 4 lanes!). She ended making a full circle to face the right direction.

My female owner steeled herself to continue her search. She made a conscious effort to look at the directions of the road… and at one junction, turned wrongly into the bus lane. It was not a simple task of merely switching lanes (like Singapore) coz the next lane was for on-coming buses. And the bus lanes and vehicle lanes were separated by concrete dividers.

Gingerly, she turned at the next junction and continued her journey. She finally made it to the railway station, at the agreed time, only to realise that her friend’s train was running late. So she had to drive around unfamiliar grounds to find a legal place to park (without costing money). And while waiting, she realised that she had gone to the wrong railway station anyway. She thought that “South Bank” was the same as “South Brisbane”, coz the “South Brisbane” station was located at South Bank and her maps did not differentiate the two stations.

How cool is that?! She had not only narrowly escaped a road accident, driven on the wrong side of the road, driven in the wrong lane and had a short window of time to find her way to the right station which was not reflected on her 2000 street directory.

She was grateful for God's protection over her life. While my female owner was driving (before she started getting lost), she felt prompted to pray and pray she did. It was probably a split second miss. If she had been slightly faster in turning, or the car(s) were moving faster, there would have been a multiple collision.

anxiety

My female owner drives badly. I know, coz I've been a victim of her bad driving (I almost choked to death on water, when she drove me to the vet the other time).

Recently, my female owner's Brisbane host, lent her the car (coz the host was going for an extended business trip and didn't need the car). The only condition (besides not crashing the car) is that she has to pick up some people from the Gold Coast Airport in a few weeks' time (read: 1.5hrs, 105km away).

Having had the car for a few days already, my female owner, being indecisive, pondered about whether she should drive to her aikido class. The location is just a little behind the city, which is about 15mins drive (10 km) away. After struggling the whole day (between convenience - bus would take 1.5hrs to get home - and anxiety about driving/ not knowing her way around) and checking out the directions on whereis.com, she decided to go for it.

Everything was good, heading from school to the city...until she missed a turn (for being in the wrong lane). Then it was downhill all the way... coz she didn't know her way around the vicinity. What made it difficult for her to navigate around was the fact that many roads were uni-directional or lanes were suddenly reserved for buses only. Hence, she had to make turns and detours in order to get back. She managed to get back into the city, but had to leave it, because she ended up on a lane which brought her AWAY from the city, across the the Brisbane River, into another suburb.

After the oh-shit moment, she tried to turn back, but there was no U-turn in sight. So she had to drive on and on.... You can just imagine the anxiety within her, driving around in an unknown area, with a manual car and trying to find the city map in the street directory. Things in her car started tumbling down as she tried to juggle with a number of things. In the backdrop was the colours of the setting sun and believe it or not, a rainbow!

Somehow, in the confusion, she managed to find the right map and get herself sorted out (heavy traffic helped in this case - she had time to flip through the street directory) and managed to reach her class in the nick of time... after 50mins of driving (might as well take bus).

My female owner concluded that she still has high anxiety about driving and such experiences ain't helping her overcome them. Actually, at this rate she's going, I wonder if she will make it to Gold Coast...