Too Cool for School
If I were to think of a single word to describe me, “scholar” wouldn’t be it. Throughout my school years, studying mathematics or writing a long thesis would require a level of focus that, at the time, I never believed I possessed. Lectures would waff in through one ear and rocket out of the other like oxygen being sucked out through a hole in the space station. My classroom notes contained more drawings than words and I had so many zeros in the grade books that it was presumed that I was partially comatose.
Somehow, I managed to graduate.
I wasn’t completely brain dead, though. By the age of 15 I had discovered that subjects such as architecture, astronomy, computers, and business lit a fire inside of me. I started a web design business at 15, a software company at 18, and now do web development full time, which allowed me to move over here. I finished a book on LLC/Corporate law in a day and it was one of the best reads I’d had in a while. Who knew lawyers could be funny? I just had to find what interested me and go after it.
But nothing has prepared me for the level of hell I’ve stumbled into now. What could be another _canto_ in the Divine Comedy if it hadn’t given Dante such nightmares that it couldn’t be scribbled to paper is now my vacation spot within the inferno. You guessed it, I’m studying for my Italian driver’s license.
DUM DUM _DUUUUUUUUUM_
Not since sitting in Ol’ Lauderdale’s Algebra II class on exam day have I felt like such a moron. A foolish assumption that after having driven for a decade that learning the road laws over here would be a piece of cake, but I have been proven wrong. Compared to the US equivalent, the driving test here reads more like an entrance exam for MIT.
Allow me to elaborate with some examples of the more choice questions:
1) What _might_ a sign mean? Not what _does_ it mean, there is a huge difference.
2) What sign _might_ be accompanied with another sign?
3) Does one sign appear before or after another sign? For instance, does a yield sign appear before or after a railroad crossing sign at a track crossing?
And then there are the infamous intersection questions:
*Who goes first?*
*What’s on second?*
*I don’t know’s on third.*
Pray for me.
Comments (8)
too funny! best of luck on your exam, i’m sure you’ll do great.
I passed my driver’s license thanks to a miracle, so I guess somebody prayed for me behind my back. We will all do the same for you, uniting our brains and souls, holding our hands in a circle of power, calling for the All-knowing’s energy, asking to work magic for you and to set you free from this nightmare.
In the meanwhile,(just in case) you keep studying and exercising! Together we can do it!YES WE CAN!YES WE CAN!(forgive me for the sad joke!)
I’m glad you are suffering with the driver’s license test since it made you write again. You’re so funny!
I thought you’d abandon this site. It’s been so long you ought to call it your “cobweb” site. And I know, since your ‘manhood’ is at stake, Simo passing and all, you will perservere. And just so you won’t feel too dumb, I opened my dictionary to check the spelling of ‘perservere’ and it fell open to ‘moron’. Keep on choogling.
Well we all know who Simo wants to vote for!
Hah, yeah I switched all my focus to getting my money situation in order and stopped doing a lot of things, like writing in this blog. It’s hard writing again after not writing for so long!
Those intersection pix are crazy! I admire you for getting your license here. I’m still getting used to being a pedestrian in Naples!
We had several Spanish exchange students when I was younger. They all got an “international” driver’s license from the local driver’s license bureau and said that they were able to transfer it over in Europe w/out any consequences or problems. Could you do that instead?
Hi Ryan, no unfortunately not. There are only a few select countries outside of the EU where licenses can be converted and the US isn’t one of those. If you’re an American, you have to completely redo driving school.