Pepper Boy – Tbilisi, Georgia – 5:55pm
Flunking My Driving Theory Exam
I went for my theory exam today and flunked. It was disappointing, because I was on the second-last question and had already gotten three questions wrong. I had gotten one wrong that I hadn’t been expecting to get wrong, because the answer in the exam differed from the answer taught in the course. It was really frustrating, especially because I asked the teacher if there were any mistakes in translation for the last four chapters he told me to study and memorize by myself… The exam cut off after I got four wrong, but two of those answers were correct, just that the exam marked them wrong. There’s no arguing with the computer… It’s a stupid game where you have to just learn the faults in the system and hope luck is on your side on exam day.
So, I had to schedule another exam and pay another 41 gel which is annoying. It’s also a bit of a hassle to have to come out to Rustavi again, but I’m going out there for an extreme driving experience anyways. I’m taking a series of five defensive driving classes, so we’ll see how that goes. I hope I get to actually drive quickly. I want to have fun at the motorpark. The first extreme driving lesson is in two days, so I’ll report back then how that goes.
So, that was the disappointment. I wanted to complete the theory exam and no longer have to study for it or have it hovering on my mind, but now I’ll have to keep reviewing the course materials for another 9 days until I can retake the exam. It also pushes back the first day I can take the city exam. Maybe I’m a bit too optimistic to think I can pass the city exam the first time I take it though. I was hoping to be fully licensed before leaving Georgia in December, but I think the likelihood is that I’ll have to take my driving exam four or five times before passing. The waitress at Thai Curry had seen that I was studying for the driving theory exam and mentioned that she was about to take her city exam for the fifth time…
Hopefully it will all be worth it. I’m not looking forward to sinking more money into this, but if I can get my full driver’s license in the end, then I’ll be able to never worry about it again, because I’ll have it for life. Unless someone lied to me or gave me false information… Then I’ll have to deal with the driver’s licensing system again. Sigh.
Anyways, in terms of joy: I got to walk in a tiny slice of countryside for a bit, right outside of a prison. Haha. It was the last stop on the 102 route, and I actually could see the driver’s licensing center from the hill we stopped at. If there hadn’t been a fence in between the driving centre and me, maybe I could have walked there in 30 minutes. But, I didn’t want to test my luck. I took the bus back to the nearest place I could order a Bolt to (and no Bolt came; I was super lucky a Yandex car was able to pick me up). Even then, I only managed to slide into the center and make my way to the theoretical exam counter 15 minutes before my booked exam time. It was fairly efficient; I submitted my paperwork, and they told me to wait till I was called. I was called roughly ten minutes later, asked to switch off my phone and keep it in my pocket, scanned like at the airport, and led to a desk where I entered my ID number and began the test on a touchscreen computer.
What a detour. The point of that was: it was nice to be out in the sunny countryside even if only for twenty minutes. I even had a baby cow stalk me.
Speedreading
This is not quite a segue but–I had been reading a bit about speedreading last night. I did a quick little speedreading test and found out I was the average of average: I read at 250 wpm, and the average person reads between 200 and 300 wpm.
I thought it was a load of baloney when I saw that there were actually quantum speed-reading courses held at some universities that *guaranteed* students to be able to read 20, 000 words a minute. I call bullshit! There’s no way that’s possible. Like, you physically can’t even flip the pages that quickly! Even if you could physically lay your eyes on 20, 000 words, I highly doubt you would comprehend their meaning properly, let alone retain any of the pertinent information.
Then, I read another statistic that it only takes people 40 minutes to an hour to read 10, 000 words… That means a 10, 000-word novella that would take me a week to put together (maybe it would only take 4-6 hours to write a first draft if I focused, but then there are all the hours needed to edit and finalize the product) could be consumed in a little less than an hour. That’s kind of disheartening, ain’t it?
Anyway, it was interesting to find out a bit more about speedreading. I would love to get faster at speedreading — not to the point where my comprehension of the material tanks, but it would nevertheless be helpful as a busy author who wants to find time to both read and write.
How fast do you read? What is your desired reading speed?
Do you think we should aspire to read faster and faster, till our reading speed throws us off our own orbit?
And because Chris has been playing on my mind a lot lately, in honour and memory of this mega superstar:
3, 2, 1, Dream (I love you, Chris),
Alaska