Lesen Lembu!

Ok..it's 2 weeks. Made a mistake in the previous post but Stan has return after being connected to some high speed internet!..lol. Yup, pleased to announce that I've gotten my "L" license and equipped with some form of driving skill. Of course the ultimate one is the "P", but I'm happy to be able to initiate some basic operation..haha.

Let's recount what happened. So, I went to take my undang-undang (road sign + driving theory) test on April's fool day. Apparently, the computer testing centre is located at some other place and not at the driving circuit. While the computer test takes only like 20 minutes at most, the waiting time is attrocious. I sat my butt there for a good 3 hrs and I happened to be the last in the queue also. At first, I was glad to have some time to revise from the little booklet. But I got really bored after looking at it at 1 hr and the remaining time is spent at people watching. There were not only young fellas there but old housewives too. When it was my turn, I chose to answer the test in Bahasa Malaysia since I studied the entire manual using that language. Come to think of it, I'll feel weird answering it in English coz all the road signs and regulations are in Malay anyways. The results were tabulated instantly and I got 98%..haha.

The next stage was quite quick and it was the next day actually. It's time to go back to the driving circuit and this time, I had to sit for another class and listen to another lecture on the practical side of driving the car. The lecture was conducted by a retired Army man. Apparently, he's also a tester. It's 3 hrs from morning to afternoon but at least it's not as long as the 5hrs + undang-undang class. There was one old apek who was also in the class and he damn enthusiastic in asking questions..haha.

Well, I didn't expect to be thrust straight into my first experience in the wheel but in the late afternoon, that's what happened. The driving agent assigned me and one girl to a driving instructor. We waited for like 15 minutes while the driving instructor fill up some forms. Meanwhile, I had a chat with the girl and fortunately she knew how to converse in Cantonese. I let the girl go first since the instructor can only take one at a time. I was thinking at first that we no need to do any driving and just watch the instructor teach the technique since we still haven't get any license yet. But when I see the girl at the driving wheel, I thought, "It's on!". After 1.5 hrs at the sideline, it was my turn. And damn, I didn't even get a round-circuit-tutorial like the girl. I was thrown straight to the driver seat. One of the first things I realised during the first few minutes of driving is that the pedals are very sensitive. If your leg movement is not gradual, it's translated to jolts at the car. So my virgin legs at the pedals had to take some time to accustom how much to press the oil pedal and also controlling the clutch pedal. The clutch pedal is the most irritating one. If never press or lift correctly, the engine goes dead. Ahhh..the amount of times the engine went dead on me were numerous coz even a slight slip in estimation would stun the engine. There were three primary stationary stuffs that will be tested - Parallel parking, Three corners and the slope. The steps that were involved in going down the slope were kinda complicated and again the skill of estimation must be good there. After bout 1.5 hrs of practicing, my legs were kinda numb from pressing pedals.

I was told to wait for 1 whole week for JPJ to create my 'L' license. On one day while I was busy finalising Sergio Aguerro's transfer to Man Utd in Football Manager, the driving agent suddenly called to tell me that he would be picking me up to the driving circuit. At first I thought it's just to take the license since its already 4pm plus. But nope, they stay open beyond 5pm and the driving instructor ushered me into the car for my second practice. Woah, on the second time, I hardly put a foot wrong in the control of the pedals. No more dead engines and I could do it easily at parallel park, balancing on the hill and maybe only slight one or two problems at the three corners. No problem too in stopping and moving freely and I got really confident of steering through some sharp turns too. In fact, I got kinda confident that I got impatient with a car that got stuck at the top of the slope. It was a great practice and I can say I'm quite comfortable with the wheel now..lol. The driving agent passed me my "L" license afterthat :)

With so little time between now and university enrolment day, I really don't know where to go for my practice runs. It's too tight to make another trip back to Sungai Petani and I got less than 1.5 weeks in Taiping. In any case, the earliest that I can do a 'P' Test is 1 month later (regulation) and that means that there could be a possibility that I would do it in KL if I can find the lobang for it..haha. Right now, I just wanna savour my lembu :P