'Sekarang Cikgu Sudah Setengah Mati'

I think I've found my new calling - exasperating teachers to no end (my driving instructor in particular). ;)

It's been quite a hilarious day. Spent most of my morning waiting for my turn to learn how to drive for the first time in my life. (hahaha - i think i can hear my bro in Australia saying 'finally'! I can drive you and Vern around the next time you come over to Malaysia ;) ). While waiting, it was just good to be alone with my thoughts and with God. I also took a short opportunity to pray that I will have a good driving instructor.

He finally came just when I thought that they had totally forgotten that I was waiting(and this was like 2 hours after - good thing I'm a very patient person). I had to wait for him to finish his food first - which was a good thing cos I think he'd be in a worse humour otherwise. :p

I do not understand which part of 'I'm a NEW DRIVER' he did not understand. After a cursory minute of pointing out the accelerator, gear, clutch and brake pad; he immediately taught me to do parallel parking AND the three point turn (this was so unlike Rod's instructor who let him drive around the circuit to get used to the car for the first half an hour before getting him to do the stuff I was doing). I was seriously quite blur about what I was doing and was hoping that I'd remember all the instructions that he kept rapidly shooting at me. :P Immediately after going through those two things, he said 'sekarang kita akan naik bukit!'... *faint* And it was the beginning of his troubles with me (serves him right!!) and the beginning of my fun...

I managed to go up the hill after a couple of tries. I even managed to stop of the right spot most of the time. His headache was when I had to go downhill.. As a newbie, I was still getting used to the three pads at my feet and was a bit confused (who wouldn't be when one is feeling disorientated and haven't gotten used to the functions of the pad and had a talkative instructor who kept on giving instructions that one had to try to follow at the same time - it was rather disconcerting). I also wasn't used to the hand brake - kept on forgetting to pull it up first. And so you see my dilemma - my legs didn't know how to function and neither did my hands. I attempted first to concentrate on what my legs were doing and follow his instructions - which I did ok after a few tries. The problem was when it was time to release the hand brake, I totally forgot what my feet were doing. Me being me, I saw the humour in my situation, and kept on laughing at myself. It didn't help that my instructor kept on making funny comments about my hand and feet coordination either. So no surpriselaa - I went up and down a hill quite a fair bit of times without any success. There was a guy at the pondok(hut) at the top of the hill and after seeing my dilemma, was kind enough to tell me to calm down, and gave the instructions in a SLOW manner that I could follow and absorbed. It finally worked! My instructor, by then quite exasperated with me (with his humor still intact) joked about it and said 'tengoklaa, saya ajar awak tak dengar, dia ajar awak, awak boleh dapat'. :p I wisely kept quiet (I wanted to whack him at that point already). :p

Anyways, he finally got out of the car and sat at the pondok after a while. By then, I was beginning to get the hang of all the controls - so while the coming down wasn't perfect it was definitely getting better. My instructor kept on saying 'tengoklah, kalau saya tak ada dalam kereta, awak boleh dapat. Kalau saya ada dalam kereta, awak tak boleh dapat' :P Funny guy. He also kept on saying 'kalau naik bukit - markah boleh dapat 100%. Kalau turn bukit, markah juga turun jadi kosong'. :p It was exasperating and funny at the same time (reminded me of another teruk lecturer i know). I seriously couldn't stop laughing by then(it was a better option than crying). Rod, who was quite far away could even hear him yelling at me from the pondok 'jangan ketawalaaa!'. hahahaha. The next time I went up the hill, the instructor asked me 'awak suka baca komik punya ah? selalu ketawa-ketawa'. :P

And so this went on for two hours - and the time definitely flew for me. At the end of the class, he asked me, 'You betul-betul mula belajar hari ini ya? Tak ada memandu di taman ke?'. Duh - what on earth did he think that i was trying to tell him in the first hour? :P I told him I was a law abiding citizen and that one of my granddad used to be a policeman in Bukit Aman.

Anyways, he appeared to be quite happy with my progress (me too!) - I could more or less go up and down the hill without a hitch towards the end of the class. He cheekily told me that he was quite happy that I could finish it in 2 hours cos some people take more than a day to learn it well (contrast this with him telling me earlier that some people took 3 tries to learn it and i was taking more than half an hour to learn it. :p). At the end of the class, I thanked him for his instructions and help. He, being the funny guy that he was said 'Tak apa, sekarang cikgu sudah setengah mati!'.

I'm sooo looking forward to my next class on Friday. Can't wait to torment him again. :D