I am NOT SWISS and I DON'T SOUND SWISS either!

feel a tiny bit stupid, sitting here on my own, jiggling about happily in my chair. but i guess i'd feel even more so if there were actually someone here to see it ;-)

i can't believe i'm allowed to drive a car on my own!



had to take a break there to do some extra bouncing :-) i'm probably going to end up with a headache from all this jerking my head from side to side... (i did mention i felt stupid doing it. i dunno, for some reason i just can't stop)

i passed i passed i passed!!!!!!!
:-D

so anyway, i did very well. i was convincingly confident. thank goodness the steering wheel's solid, i was clinging to it for dear life! and thank God i can pray without moving my lips ;-) was pretty much praying constantly. am very grateful to God for calming my nerves enough to stop my legs shaking or it would have been a very jerky ride...

and i didn't drive too fast (not for very long anyway, the expert never noticed and there weren't any cameras about).
i managed to drive backwards for about 20 meters and then go round a corner. for once i did it smoothly and without taking a quarter of an hour over it, thank goodness we practised that one last time before the exam :-) the first time we did it, irene told me i had to make sure i didn't drive too fast going backwards. she quickly realised that was the wrong thing to tell me, every time i drove backwards she'd pretty much fallen asleep by the end of it ;-) i've just realised! that was why it always made me go cross-eyed, no wonder! staring hard at a the corner of the break-lights, making sure they were always the same distance from the curb for all that time, and round a corner too! not surprising i couldn't see straight afterwards!!! but this last time it was fine, cause i wanted to do it properly and got on with it, so it was over before my eyes knew what had hit them ;-)

so anyway, the whole thing went great, i even managed to park on my own (something i was quite worried about, never having done it without instruction before).

there was one small blemish on the perfection of my wonderful exam (ooh, i survived the killer motorway sliproad too *g*) we got to the parking space at the Verkehrsamt (traffic department?) and the expert says 'right, secure the vehicle' (turn the car off and make sure it doesn't role away) and i take my foot off the clutch... the embarrassment!!! i said something about it not being the most elegant way to end and he laughed and agreed. then he asked me whether i thought i'd failed for that. can you imagine?! i'd have... i... i... my imagination fails me...
anyway, i'd turned the car off properly when i parked, so he'd seen that i can do it.

so i passed :-D
but what a way to end!!! *smacks forehead repeatedly* damn, i'm special!

Labels: driving, happy dance, i'm special

just passed!!! :-D
doing happy dances left right and center!
more later :-)

Labels: driving, happy dance

i'm a student, of course 9.15am is early morning! so naturally i felt an energy drink would be in order. i went to the migros to buy some of their cheap red bull knock-off (1.- a can and it tastes almost the same as red bull!) before the lesson. it's easy to find, it's the small 250ml cans with the migros budget pattern... can't miss it except now, now!!! they seem to have introduced a new product: energy cola. difference in packaging: on closer inspection (when the taste is completely different from what you expected, more different than can be blamed on the whopping great cold i've got) the writing is dark brown instead of black. how on earth did i not notice that?! i must be going blind!!! don't miss the sarcasm. and the top line still says 'energy'... how on earth are you supposed to tell them apart, especially half asleep?! i was proud of myself for avoiding the diet stuff (until i took the third mouthful (as i said, it was early in the morning, my brain was not up and running yet)). meh. managed to drink it after reminding myself that i really needed to wake up. but i'm not sure i can face drinking the second can... :-¦ maybe if i take it home and stick it in the fridge gabriela will drink it. she's always drinking any red bull or cider she finds in there. dad gets really annoyed cause she keeps opening his beer thinking it's cider and then puts it back when she finds it's not and of course it goes flat... ;-)

the driving lesson went well though. we did a mock exam and i did really well, inspite of the tricky little roads we went down where irene (my instructor) refused to give me any directions. there were lots of barely marked one way streets and i didn't go down any of them the wrong way :-) and we survived the killer motorway slip road (not kidding about it beinig killer, it's really short and at the end there's no hard shoulder to continue on if you can't get into the traffic. apparently one instructor can't drive anymore cause a lorry went into the back of them... eeek!)

in fact only two things went wrong. i stalled right at the end in the car park (moron me, i know). and the other thing was that i got confused: i thought we were somewhere else and when irene said we were heading for heuried i was convinced that was left. but when we came round the bend the signpost said right, so i was a tiny bit confused and my brain couldn't quite work out what the rules are if the lights are flashing but the barrier's not down yet at the level crossing... oopsy. so irene braked hard (i'm not a hundred percent sure my brain wouldn't have come to the right conclusion in time, i was going relatively slow) and i failed the exam... wooooopsy. thank goodness it wasn't the real exam. and i've learnt two things: never assume you know where you are, just follow the signs (these are guidelines for ME, obviously anyone with half a brain and maybe a bit more experience than me might well actually know where they are (and be right about it, too)), and i don't think i'll ever forget that i absolutely have to stop no matter what if the level crossing lights are flashing...

but anyway, apart from that it was fine, irene said i'd have passed if not for the level crossing, which is something i'd never have believed last night :) hurray, maybe i can actaully learn to drive ;-)

Labels: arrgghh, driving

hurrayyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no more exams at uni!!!!
ok, if i've failed i have to retake the last 7 of them, but i don't think i've failed since i only have to pass on average and all the grade i already know are above pass and out of the three i don't know i think only one went badly. really badly in fact, but as long as i actually did pass the other two i can afford to get a 1.25 so really there's absolutely nothing to worry about. of course i'm worried anyway ;-) hope i find out quickly. just checked: crap, the conference isn't until the 5th of october :-( buggrit.

well anyway, it's definitely something of a miracle i did so well (passing is doing well!) given that i studied for an average of a day and a half before each of the 5 exams, had the lecture a year ago (except compiler design, the one i did really badly in) and never paid attetion in the lectures (if i bothered to go)... before the last exam (yesterday) i didn't even start studying until 3 o'clock the afternoon before and then i went off to practice driving for two hours in the evening...

and the fact that i've found a great new link for online puzzles says a lot about my behaviour during stressful times... www.hitoriconquest.com
oh yes, and i'm up to 92 tangerines

had a driving lesson today. went on the motorway for the first time. scary!!! it's terrifying having to go that fast, just so that you can get on *shudders* but we (my instructor and i) survived :-)

Labels: driving, i'm special, links, uni

hurray, i've found a church group to join! on saturday we had a barbeque by the lake for all the twenty to thirty year olds (christine wanted to know how old tim is, cause he's still frantically trying to deny being twenty. poor tim, his girlfriend's nearly sixteen *g*)

so anyway, i finally managed to ask how one goes about joining a 'life group' (small group of people who meet once a week or every two weeks to talk about their lives and discuss things and stuff). i went along to one of the groups they suggested last night, and i was welcomed with open arms, they were really lovely! so i've joined them. as usual the whole experience was a lot easier than i dared hope, i'm such a wimp!

got my first proper driving lesson (with a proper instructor and all!!! *g*) tomorrow! really looking forward to it. and of course i'm also dreading it... ah well ;-)

Labels: churchy stuff, driving

had my first driving lesson in eight or nine months last night. it's absolutely terrifying! who in their right mind would give me the keys to this huge car (ok, it's the smaller of our two, but that's only cause my mum's mad about size and the other one's a removal van) and let me loose on the roads in it?!

am still quite traumatised from last time (yes, even though it was nearly a year ago) when i nearly hit a horse, swerved to avoid it and would have collided head-on with anything coming the other way... but this time there were no horses anywhere. phew!

dad insists that i drive pretty much at the speed limit (thank goodness we stuck to roads with limits of 60km/h or less, going 70km/h is horrible!!!). but there are too many things to concentrate on at once, so i need a safety margin or i keep accidentally going too fast. that would be typical, if i got a speeding ticket! me, who'd prefer to drive along at 30 (km/h!) or so all the time...

i wish i could just say, 'right, i'll ignore the speed for now, just concentrate on where i'm going' or 'i'll ignore rules that say who's got right of way and just concentrate on the rest' but no! there's a hundred and one things i'm supposed to be watching at once! help! i can't multitask properly! thank goodness our cars are automatics...

:-) the first time i made a right turn: completely forgot to indicate, dad's yelling 'indicate! indicate!' so i whack this lever on the right side of the steering wheel and the windscreen wipers go on! opsy! :-D turns out both the right and the left indicators are controlled by the lever on the left side... as i said, it's been a while ;-)

luckily we both survived and so did everything else along the way, although i think dad might have some more grey hair now and i scared some bollards half to death ;-) oh yes, there was a marten, which saw me coming and decided not to cross the road and a cat which thought it'd make for a good adrenalin rush if it darted across the road right in front of me. of course i panicked, lifted my feet and went 'aaaahhh! suicide cat!'... by the time i thought to brake there was no longer any point, the cat had made it safely to the other side. nasty, suicidal kitty!

Labels: driving, i'm special

it's ascension day tomorrow (40 days after easter, the day jesus ascended to heaven...) which is a bank holiday here in switzerland :-D oh no! i've just realised what i've done! i've made a date to go and work on the compiler course work tomorrow morning at 9! on a bank holiday! gah!

ah well. anyway today's yang's birthday, she's having a barbeque. we're starting in an hour and a half, having cake (she's got a chocolate icecream cake from sprüngli) and then we're having beer and wienerli :-) unusual order, but as she says 'it's my party...'

it's my grandmother's birthday as well today. wish i knew which one ;-) [not which grandmother, which birthday, ie how old is she now...] not too ashamed about it though, cause she always refuses to tell us and my dad (her son!) doesn't even knwo... i wonder if he remembered it was today ;-)

tim had his second driving exam yesterday. so far i haven't seen him since. hope he doesn't get too agressive over it. he kept getting soooooo angry whenever we said 'if tim passes his test on tuesday'... and now he hasn't... oh dear.

Labels: driving