Personal Essay

I was in the tenth grade when I first began the adventure of driving. It was a scary but fun experience, my mother never knew that I used to take the car for a “spin”. My mother would drive with me, but she made me nervous each and every time. She would yell and say “ move over your too close to the damn cars”! I decided at that point I couldn’t take it anymore, I asked my cousin to take over where my mother left off. My cousin Kufi would take me for rides in our circle until I got a feel for the car. When I finally got the hang of it I took the car out on the main street. It didn’t take me very long to get a feel for the car, it came naturally, like I was born to drive. My mother was shocked that I was doing so well. “ How did you learn to drive this good that fast”? she asked in shock, “ I’m a pro I thought you knew that” I told her with a cocky attitude. Kufi was more relaxed, probably because he wasn’t that much older than me therefore I wasn’t as nervous with him like I was with my mother. Before I knew it I was driving with one hand and my mother stopped her yelling. I was finally ready for driving school after a couple of times on the road.

I thought driving school would be hard like TV portrays it to be. To my surprise it was nothing like the TV, I went to driving school with my friend, and we had loads of fun. I never thought we would be sitting in a classroom for about a month before we actually started driving. Now that I think about it, it does make more sense. Our class instructor was an older African American man, he was tall and skinny, very funny and “cool”. We had to watch videos that were funny because it was so phony, we also had discussions and tests. I never failed a test because some of the questions were basic common sense. When the class sessions were over it was time to take the car on the road. I was imagining driving the car in and out of those bright pointy orange cones that are so famous. Once again nothing like TV, I shared the car with another student. I felt great because I already had some driving experience, I wish I could say the same for the other student. He had no experience, personally I was scared driving in the back seat. When it was my turn to drive I felt like I had the upper hand, our instructor was once again a older African American man. He kept comparing me to the other student saying things like “ see how she looks before she turns… she always uses her turning signals and mirrors…”. I laughed because I was embarrassed for the poor boy. I did have everything down to a Tee except the one thing every first time drivers fear the most, parallel parking.

Trying to parallel park was the worst part of my driving experience. My instructor had me drive to a parking lot where It had those bright pointy cones set up for three point turning, stopping, making “U” turns and parallel parking. My heart started beating faster than normally, I had a new partner this time who also had driving experience. She went first, he told her to adjust the side mirrors to face the curb if she needed to. She got in the driver side buckled her seat belt and proceeded with the parking. Her first two tries were not that