TP 1st attempt - Failed

And accumulated a miserable 32 points. Can almost fail twice over in that.  Its mostly wobbling and insufficient acceleration.

Its going to be a 1st December retest.

The Calm Before the Storm

Tomorrow is a big day for me, because its my 2B TP test. I just came back from a morning of RR + RC and confidence is relatively high right now. If I can keep up with whatever I did today and show it tomorrow, it will be a cake walk.

That's not to say nothing bad will happen, right Murphy?

It's not that I don't want to jinx it. I don't believe in luck and fortune, much less voodoos. But I think when a person gets too confident aka cocky, things will turn for the negative and it shows. My sense for such tests is, the testers will manage expectations, because we are after all, riders with minimal and up to this point, guided experience in riding.

Anyone is liable to make mistakes. It does not matter if you have been riding for 1 month or 10 years. The fatalities show that to be true. So I guess I have to tell myself that, if I do make a mistake (and hopefully is not those immediate failure ones), I will recover confidently and show that I deserve it more than my demerit accumulates.

For now, I am really calm about it. Let's see how I sleep tonight.

New Toy

I have recently ordered a space grey iphone 6s plus. This a.m. it arrived via Singpost delivery.

iphone or iOS is not exactly new to me. My first smartphone was the iphone 3Gs and I used it for almost 2 years before a regrettable action rendered it broken and I was forced to change my phone. I turned to the Samsung Nexus S and never looked back. From then on, it has always been Nexus and Android. Not because I was one of those Apple bashers although iphone 3Gs did give some call related problems.

Samsung phones or even stock Androids had their share of problems too. But I am a big fan of Google and I agree with the design of Android more than iOS.

So after about 5 years and so many versions of iphone later, why do I decide to "come back" to iOS?

As I have said before, I am not someone who feels the need to side with any of them on this. Each has their merits and I want to experience iOS at its current form and perhaps see also how much I miss Android. 

And no, this is not how I see relationships with other humans. Not even close.

RR - Road Revision

In my weekly efforts to keep riding skills afresh before the test next Tuesday, I booked a RR session (19th Oct) to get a feel of how well I do also on the roads.

In a nutshell, not good.

I think it may be because my techniques are still easily rusty if I go without riding for more than a week. While I do not have major issues, the little ones are enough to kill the test off without even having to go into the actual circuit.

So now the dilemma, with only 1 week to go is, do I take up another RR (which is more expensive) or just load up on RCs and hope for the best on the public roads.

Courage

When we hear courage, we expect stories of people doing deeds no normal human being would do. Rescue babies from fire. Bungee jump without ruining your pants. Acting nonchalant when the phone dropped on the floor.

This weekend (17th Oct), I was part of the wedding of 2 very courageous people. Xu Xiuzhu and Christina Toh.

They are not fire fighters nor adventure seekers. And Xiuzhu probably doesn’t use his smartphone the way we do. So why do I use courageous to describe this 2 people? 

Christina comes from a family with disabilities. And despite this (or even because of this), her love and compassion for such people are especially strong and outwardly evident. She throws herself into working with people with needs and people around her are affected by it. She is doing things most Singaporeans would shun or just pay good money for someone else to do. She is courageous.

Xiuzhu is a Taiwanese who is legally blind. But his handicap didn’t stop him from living his life to the spiritual fullest. He is a vocalist in a band who travels the world and give performance towards salvation for Christ. He can’t see and enjoy the sights of these places he has been to but that doesn’t stop him from saying Yes to God. And he is going on an adventure with God as his travel guide. He uses his condition sometimes as a joke to break the ice between social awkwardness. Although he is mindful and sensitive to the people around him on his condition, it won’t stop him from going out to do some of the things normal people are still dreaming about doing. He is courageous.

And now courage is a team.

Praise God.

RC

After more than a week of not throttling on a 2 wheeler, I was back on it in a session 3 RC. Wanted to cancel because of a sleepless night and did not really want to risk myself getting into any rookie danger even though I should be more or less ready by now.

But it was too late and I could only "try sell" the session. And since it's an RC, I don't think anyone wants to "buy" that at the "last minute". So I sucked it up and went for it anyway.

It went surprisingly well overall despite the tiredness, haze and the fact that I haven't been on a bike for about 10 days. 

What's most fun at this session today was, looking at all the other learners at other subjects and thinking, "I was just like you guys, not too long ago.".

Time flies. I registered in May and now I am getting myself ready and psyched for the test.

The Martian

I think it is quite amazing that someone can write about an event that has not happened, make a movie out of it and still make it (probably) scientifically accurate. I wonder what kinda advisors did the producers get to make this one, coz everything seems legit and convincing for me to sit through almost 150 mins.

By the way, we did the gold class for this one so it was not that unpleasant.

I can see why this movie is so well received. It has the necessary thrills and comedic scenes to keep the movie going and the audience engaged, and not overdoing them. The cast are all convincing and like I said, the science are not too “cheem” and definitely easy for lay people like me to understand in a big screen setting. Maybe I will wait for the DVD/Streaming release and then google everything in there. Not.

Of course there will be people who is going to make youtube videos of all the “plot holes” of the movie and they will probably be right. But please just enjoy the movie you have just paid good money for and I can almost guarantee that you will for this one.

This movie is good for: People who loves adventure especially in space. Fans of Matt Damon.

Not good for: Matt Damon haters. People with backaches and/or can’t sit still for 2.5 hours. 

Coherence

noun

1. 1.

   the quality of being logical and consistent.

   "this raises further questions on the coherence of state policy"
2. 2.

   the quality of forming a unified whole.

   "the group began to lose coherence and the artists took separate directions"

from Google.

Purpose of consolidating all my posts I have written since 2008 is, it can be fun to see how things progressed since then and also to just maintain one writing board.

Silence of the Learn(ers)

Okay that was trying too hard to be clever with the title, but I am just going to leave that in for me to cringe at when I read this again in the future.

It won't be very soon when the next post about the lesson in BBDC comes up because I will be taking a break from riding. My next training is RC booked on 13th October which is a little more than a week away.

So this post is to "fill the silence"? Kind of.

I read something that's probably getting a bit old for people who has been using the internet and/or have seen how technology have progressed over the last 20 years. 

People are now emotionally less connected, because of internet.

Meaning, people nowadays are connected so fast and furious via social medias via smartphones that, we don't really bother talking to each other anymore on public context. So how is this related to riding or even BBDC? Ever been early to the BBDC waiting room before training?

Other than the instructors talking among themselves, the talkies blaring communications and the convo between the occasional pairs who are taking their 2Bs together as friends, you could hear the cricket chirps between the learners seated in rows together.

Before you break out the bug sprays, I think it is good that people start to just strike up a casual conversation with each other not to fill the silence because the room is lively enough, but to hone our social emotional skills. Its much easier in the BBDC waiting room context because all of us already have 1 thing in common; We are trying to get our 2B license.

"Repeat how many times already?"

"Which subject are you at now?"

"Your test date when?"

"Haze very bad hor? Got bring N95? No lah, not Nokia 95."

8.01

After a quick island holiday with friends in Bali, came back to itchy rusty hands for 8.01. However, it was a disaster to say the least. To give a quick summary, I have enough demerits to fail this subject twice over.

I (still) do not know if its because I was the first rider of the pack or simply because it was my first time and nerves got the better of me.

Whatever it is, I made so many mistakes that my confidence after was totally wiped. And it was a session 8 (30th Sep) which meant the lesson cost me a cool $60. I just wiped and flushed it but I guess I am that much wiser. 

Went back home, got a hold and told myself, "I am not that bad." I booked another one for 2 days after (2nd Oct), today.

Anyway, this subject is not just test route assessment but also an assessment on defensive riding with the public road route as the circuit. An instructor will follow you one on one and you don't need to stop at any "regrouping" points. He will then assess you based on 3 rounds. So even if you get a pass in TP evaluation, you will not pass this subject unless you can ride "defensively".

And I passed! But of course not without a few glaring mistakes. I have a feeling the instructor passed me out of compassion but I would like to think I was generally ok and those one-offs were plain bad luck and bad timing, which will happen when I ride for real anyway.

It is a bittersweet feeling. I know I have to do better but now I can sit back a little and not worry about having to meet that 2 weeks deadline to pass 8.01 before the TP test.

Incidentally, there was this guy who has repeated this for 3 times, in our same session. Turns out, you can just speak to the administration and they will grant you grace for 8.01. He was given 5 days before the TP test to pass 8.01. I guess the 2 weeks deadline was set to encourage learners to be more active in learning, which means more $$ for the school. 

However you want to look at this, it can only be good for you to brush up on the skills before the test and not waste time and/or money.

Skill = safety, in my opinion.