July 1
Driving on a rainy day during daytime. It was a short ride from the library to home so it was just a good taste for me to practice. Milestones, milestones. I would have liked to pushed it some more later that night driving another route from our place to my 8 pm class but with three odds against me, new route, rainy and night driving, I decided to opt out. I'll have to try one or two of them first before pushing my limit to three. My hubs gave me a ride and I watched him drive and took mental notes. I feel confident that my mental state should be ready on my next try.
What I remember is I can do 1st gear after I get out of the tunnel and start heading down to the next traffic light. Then, I can go back to D. So basically, gear 1 for the stronger engine break when going down or when it's a bit slippery. My guess. :( Let's see if I can manage to do that soon.
My worries about driving in the rain has been a bit eased up with my husbands car since it's an automatic. The lights and windshield wiper did it's job without me having to fiddle with it. I would better try it next time. Just an idea now, I'll train my hands to find the controls without looking. I need to be able to feel comfortable adjusting such without having to look for it while driving coz I know how even just a second would count that can be risky. On to my list!
July 2
For now, I've covered quite a bit this week. That's almost a wrap for June and it's time to set the new ones for this month of July. So what's for this coming months?
Let me see...quick recap and outline for the next ones.
April to May - driving school and license (license and parallel parking at the driving school center)
June - buddy driving, driving alone and bay parking (being more familiar with steering wheel angles and reversing)
July: blindfold panel training for rainy day driving, try new route (KTX area, my Sunday workplace alone), figure out parallel parking
Aug.: downtown driving, then maybe next town with a bit more traffic
Sept.:
Oct: try expressway (find out how to do the blinking lights, I think that is the emergency one I learned for the test) New route: folk town,
Nov -
Dec. - driving on a snowy day, during and after one
For this month, I really need to figure out parallel parking in a place where not only with box and a plant as cues. Then, also practice more of bayparking, timed. Right now, I can at least do three tries at best. What I have to take note is not all cars are parked parallel to the parking slot lines. I have to make an initial assessment of the left and right cars' parking and keep an eye on both side mirrors whenever I reverse back into any space.
On a list mode:
- parallel parking
- timed bay parking
- learn the controls blindfolded
How will do these objectives? (*teacher mode)
- check out youtube videos and TAKE DOWN NOTES!
- do mental test, before hands-on practice (stationary)
- do moving practice
- final one, real life goal
5PM: From home to the fake lake. Note: Piboho - cross safely when it's green for me, and the opposite oncoming lane is empty. Had the what-should-I-do-here moment before going in the parking lot.
July 3
I drove to Mc Do with my son today. I took the library- City hall route since the best approach to the store is from the right. The straight route would have saved me some distance and gas but I wasn't sure of a U turn in the 5-Intersection, plus I don't want to risk such uncharted route with my son on board. Going back home, it was almost also a new one for me behind the wheel but since it's a very familiar bus route for me, I felt that I can wing it. I got honk at once though when I hesitated before the right turn in subway station since there were a few big vehicles parked on the corner where I should obviously chance my turn even with the red light on.
I've also made some decent lane changes albeit a bit awkward. I'm slowly learning how to gauge other cars speed. Boy, if I had known driving was this fun here. It's a never ending challenge for my relatively moderate adrenaline rush existence. (yeah, right) I've got this feeling that it will totally be different driving experience in my own country.
I'm slowly gaining confidence to try the under-the-bridge route soon so that I can save on gas going uphill just to have a traffic light to use. The last time I tried that was with my husband and it wasn't that smooth. He had to direct me when the timing was right since I was still lost at gauging other car's speed as well as which mirror to check it. And boy, I had wanted to take my time and try to decide that on my own. Soon, I will try that. I might try to time the traffic lights at the top of the hill and figure out when the left turn heading inward my area are coming. That will be pretty tricky though so my best bet is perfecting the timing to join a motorway.
One weak point that I have to check myself also is making my mirror checking just a fraction of second. I have the tendency to lose sight of the front coz I get stuck checking out the center and far right side mirror. That is not healthy. Outright dangerous!
So that's about it for today. Thank God for another safe driving day.
~~~~~
June 30
Drove to O Station, parked for 2 hours which cost me 2900. I also almost hit the booth after taking the ticket because I forgot to turn my steering wheel to the opposite direction after pausing to get the ticket.
Then, brave enough to go to another Station to update my ACR. Then dropped by at a big mart. Parked at an outdoor parking lot and scraped a small Kia on my way out of the slot. Not that good day.
Note to self:
- straighten up the wheel after turning in a booth
- move about more than half of the car before turning and keep checking the side mirrors when pulling out
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