By some form of divine intervention (or so my mum claims), I passed my driving test exactly 14 days ago. In those 14 days, I have had horrible/harrowing/shit-in-your pants experiences. I really thank God that despite having passed my Restricted test and being legal to drive on my own, I haven't been dumb enough to do so, and every time I freaked out in a bad situation there was someone beside me to calm me down.

BAD BAD Experiences
Although it is good, it really is hard as anything to drive in NZ. There are hills everywhere. Hills = Hillstart and screeching tyres and burning clutches. (I was made to learn in a manual car).

Bad experience 1. (Certainly not my first, but this will start my list)
This happened two days before I was going to take my test. Hans made me drive around in his car to practice and his car is very different from Jen's car (that I'm used to). To cut things short, I was stuck on a hill for TWO GREEN lights while I tried to do a hillstart. I thought I was going to reverse into the huge line of cars patiently waiting behind me and I was screaming in the car. Thank God for kind Kiwis who understand learner drivers. After that hill, there was ANOTHER hill to scale to park, and I was frazzled, the gear wasn't in place, and I basically burnt his clutch to a near crisp. There was a sick smell of rubber and a very white Jo after that.

Bad experience 2.
I was going to do a simple manoeuvre and repark Hans' car that was parked by the curb. Hans' car has a really really low body kit that was newly redone. In a nutshell, I gave it it's first scratch after it's virgin few days, and I made my boyfriend press his horrified face to the ground trying to examine the damage I had done. Boys and their toys, seriously. Since then, I have made a personal vow not to touch Hans' car till I can actually reverse properly.

Bad experience 3.
I was going round a bend when I stalled, so in the middle of a turn, the engine switched off. So I turned it back on, but it wouldn't start! I tried and tried, cars were zooming past me, and there was another car behind me. The car must be so tired of me and it must be crying why me. In the end, Hans (who has since become my hero/car fairy) had to push it a few feet to the side of the road while I steered it to safety. The car eventually started again, but shit man, can you imagine if I had been alone. I would have just cried and ran from the car.

Bad experience 4.
I live in a house with a very steep driveway. As in VERY steep driveway. 3 out of 5 times, my effort to go up and down ends up in me causing the tyres to screech and to leave black angry marks on the driveway. It is so embarrassing. My mum knows when I've driven home because she would feel her heart stop when she hears the car sputtering and screeching up the driveway.

All in all, I think that I am a very horrible driver, and that its going to take a bit more than divine intervention for me to pass the gruelling full licence test in a year's time. So for all those who complain about not be old enough to get their licence and that driving is peanuts, shut up and think about me. HAHAHAHAHA.