不合格 － Failure!
Well… the test has come and gone and I have failed. There are quite a few things that surprised me. First the testing track (closed course test) is small compared to what I had imagined. So that made it all the more surprising at how much craning your neck goes through: check all the mirrors, then behind you, oh make sure to look at that side steet there, okay turn to the other half of your lane…okay do all that neck stuff again now actually turn. Then there was “the crank.” An ultra narrow dog-leg piece of road…well more like sidewalk actually…There’s so much looking in the mirrors because the course is so short that it almost feels impossible to keep your mind straight.
The other surprising part was how nice my officer was. There were all these stories of no one ever really getting an explanation of what they did wrong and plus they had to drive this old black “Cedric” car that are quite large. Well my experience was a complete 180 from that. My officer first had me get in the back seat of some slightly-above-Civic-value Honda, he explained everything that was going to happen from the starting gate, and then he drove me around the course as an example “passing” run. However now that I’ve failed I’m a little worried that my second visit might not be so pleasant 
I’m not sure if I had points deducted for it, but I was a little bit angry when he said my manual shift was incorrect. He seemed to want me to stay in first gear just to get the car in forward motion and then go to second. I learned by listening to the motor and his method seems like a bad way to ruin a good motor. … and now I know why a lot of my taxi drivers lug the damn engine so much.
Now this week will prove to be interesting as today I failed my drivers’ test, 13 people from Maine have arrived for a 2 week home stay, and the new ALTs going to the neighboring town also arrived. Might be doing some driving on the sly after all…