First Week of Class

On Monday I was surprised as to the size of the class that I was in, five people. The first time that I went to a driving school, the class size was around 15 people. Of course this makes keeping a two to one student to instructor ratio a lot easier.

It turned out that I was the only person that had paid for the class on their own. Two of the guys got it paid by The Department of Jobs and Family Services, on a special contract that gets them out in two weeks by getting individual instruction during the driving portion of the class. The other two guys each had another governmental agency paying for their schooling, though I can not remember what they were now.

The reviewing was good for me, but by Tuesday I had finished all the required classroom testing and handed it in. Unfortunately I was not able to get into a truck at that time.

By Friday I was going a bit stir crazy, while the review was good for me, the slowness of some of the others was getting annoying. Most of it seemed to be a lack of reviewing outside of class. One person had to drop out of the class due to an eye difficulty, so now we are down to four. Everyone was supposed to go to the testing center to take their initial tests in order to be allowed to drive this week. Since they were just reviewing again, I went down and took my Hazardous Materials test, which I aced. When I got back they were still reviewing, so I took an early lunch, did a few walks around the building, basically tried to kill time.

At around 2:30 I was able to get into a truck for a while, I just practiced shifting and one of the tests, but I felt that I was remembering things fairly quickly. Hopefully I will be able to get a truck and just work on the skills again, since it seems likely that they will be short on instructors this seems entirely possible.

When we got back from the skills pad around 4 PM, two guys were still reviewing in the classroom. Hopefully they passed their first three tests on Saturday so they can get started in a truck Monday, well wishing them the best. Of course if either one fails, then I will definitely get a truck to myself again, since they were both there for the two week course.

This weekend I got my letter from the TSA declaring me not a threat to national security, which means I can now get my Haz-mat endorsement. I was wondering how long it would take to get it, you just never know when you are dealing with the government.

Time to get some sleep, I will have along day tomorrow on the skills pad.