Driving Lessons

Today i witnessed the rebirth of hope.After facing the trauma of my last driving lesson more than 8 months back,i was convinced there was no way i could drive a manual car.My previous instructor,Mr Lau,had the temper of a fire-breathing dragon as he screamed and shouted every time i made a small mistake,and i had given up after one class with him-i didn't even bother to ask for my money back,because i just didn't want to see that bastard ever again,i wanted him to die-but today i was fortunate to be under the guidance of a different man,Mr Teo,because as Kak Linda (the driving school manager) told me in confidence,Mr Tan had received heaps of complaints about his temper problem and the final straw was when he lost his cool on some bigshot's daughter who of course told her dad,and finally he was given the axe.If there's one person in the world who deserves to be fired,it's him.There's nothing,absolutely nothing remotely funny about being cursed and shouted at for not understanding how to use the clutch on the first class-i learned almost nothing from that class,as every question asked was replied with a harsh comment about my incompetence.It was a traumatic experience that made me decide never to take up the license.But after considering the fact that most of those my age already have their licenses are are busy driving around town on their own (while i'm miserably left to depend on my family and taxi's for transport),i decided to give driving another try before finally calling it quits.And thankfully today's class wasn't bad at all,after an hour i had mastered the difficult (well,for me at least) art of balancing the clutch & accelerator,changing gears and using the hand break instead of gear 1-the only trouble i had was with ascending the car,aside from accidentally turning the wipers on instead of signals a couple times.But this is simply the tip of the iceberg,and there are bigger challenges waiting ahead.Plus it was a bloody kancil with very limited legspace,so for the whole two hours my legs were forcefully strained as to avoid accidentally stepping on the pedals below.The engine did die a couple of times,but half the time he didn't even notice because i was quick to restart the car.Mr Teo is one helluva heavy smoker,he must've smoked one whole packet during that whole time and the car was filled with smoke,but i restrained myself from coughing as to ensure his mouth was too occupied with the cigarette for any talking.And the last half an hour my instructor started talking on the phone jovially,oblivious to all the tiny mistakes i was making-those two hours were intense but when class finally ended i felt that i had survived some big storm and that i could actually do this,i could actually drive a manual car.And just like that,hope is restored.