I was walking back home and funny enough I noticed a steering wheel stuck in a narrow stream. It was such a coincidence because that’s exactly what I was thinking (read title). I was moderating one of my directories and also working on Twitter marketing until around 5am in the morning. Yesterday Mr. R told me that I’d have lessons at 1:15pm so I assumed it would be safe for me to sleep until the afternoon since I enjoy working at night and in the early hours of the morning.
But at 7:30am my phone started vibrating and it was my driving instructor telling me that one of his students cancelled his session so I can take his 8:30 if I was up for it. Half-asleep, I was really happy about the morning session. It means I get to use up this morning to do something useful (for example, clean the house and cook lunch). My mum is expected to return in the early hours of tomorrow morning so this place needs to be spic-and-span by the time she arrives or she will go ballistic.
So anyway, as I got up to get ready I already knew the lack of sleep would affect my driving. He picked me up at my house, and drove down to the roundabout area right at the entrance of Les Mamelles. That’s where I took over the driver seat. I did everything I should: check mirrors, wear seat belt, adjust seat, left foot on clutch, gear on first, handbrake down, and then I blew it. I accelerated without looking at the mirror and I was about to collide with the approaching car behind me. Thankfully Mr. R installed brake pedals on his side of the car. He braked quickly and scolded me saying “BIG mistake…that one was a BIG mistake”. I already felt like a failure. 
I just echoed his sentiments saying “yup…that was a big one…”.
That almost completely killed my morale. The Cascade route to the airport was tricky. Roads were extremely narrow and there were more cars on this particular route than yesterday, even if yesterday’s route had a lot of up and down direction. Mr. R told me that I was “all over the place today”. He controlled my steering wheel a lot and didn’t really give me the freedom to control it. That really bummed me out. From the airport, we returned to Roche Caiman via the highway and then we went round to repeat the Cascade route. This time he rearranging his time table and was writing a lot so I got the chance to independently handle the steering wheel. I honestly think I do okay with it. My biggest problem would be turning fast…I turn way too slow. It’s almost like one of those arcade games that tests your speed. At the Roche Caiman petrol station, I was exiting well and he said ‘yes, good!’ as I accelerated slowly out of the petrol station queue, but I really missed that narrow exit road and received a “where are you going?” from Mr. R.
Now that I think of it, I think I actually turned too much and was moving too slow (in the same sense of taking a U-turn). After my lesson, he told me we’ll go pick up someone in town and the person can drive me home. I said “no it’s okay, I’ll walk from here” and he admitted that he felt really guilty for switching times and waking me up really early. Perhaps he associated sleep with the mess I was today. I wonder if sleep deprivation affects driving even if you don’t really feel it much? I’m sure it affects alertness though, the stupidity of my not looking at my mirror before driving off on the main road was absolute carelessness. I will do my best to get a good night’s rest today so I can wake up fresh tomorrow for that driving lesson at 9:30am.
He said that my driving time will be 10am, but the person who will be driving at the time will come pick me up so I’m guessing they will do the La Misere road. That would be really interesting. As for me, I don’t think I’ll be carrying passengers any time soon. I really don’t want to put anyone in that kind of potential danger.
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WYSIWYG! I'm a simple person trying to live the simplest life possible - it seems to be the most difficult thing to achieve! I'm an internet enthusiast and I've been a webmaster since early 2007. I like: blogging, developing sites using open source software, social media, computer games, '80s music, comedy & horror, animals, crunching on M&Ms peanut and Smarties!
