I want to shout it from the mountaintops until it echoes from every abyss! I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST! AT LONG LAST! Okay, well, I just passed it on the second go, but it seemed like FOREVER to me. *griiin*

So now, I am legally qualified to drive you all crazy. ♥

(I kind of love that upon hearing that, two of my dearest friends in all the world told me, 'We were already crazy.' XD I told them so, and both of them then said something along the lines of how birds of a feather flock together, though they expressed it differently. Damn, no wonder I love them so much)

XD That aside, Kimi, the next time you come to visit, NO WAITING FOR BUSES FOR US XD I will be able to drive you WHEREVER! XDDD One of the biggest things that makes me really excited about driving is being able to drive people around and home! (Okay okay, one step at a time) It makes my mom happy because both my brothers are presently in the army and in camps on the OPPOSITE sides of the country, so it means that I can share the work of ferrying to and from camp. Man, I don't mind. ;)



The first time I flunked the test, I promised myself before the test that if I passed, I'd make an all-Asch LJ post, and then I WENT AND FAILED THE TEST, not intentionally, mind.

But yeah, I still can't believe I passed! (Two of my friends expressed variants of the "OH NOES TIME TO GET OFF THE ROAD" opinion. Thank you for your faith in me) Especially when I struck a kerb and got myself ten points in the first ten minutes of the test. Explanation's in order: the way tests are taken in this country is that you are given demerit points for every driving error you commit, and certain errors are immediate failures. You may not get a single immediate failure, but you can fail by racking up too many points.

You get 20 demerit points, and you fail.

In the first 10 minutes of the test, I was reversing on my directional change, and ... struck the kerb behind me. The tester noticed, and went, "You struck the kerb." Pointed at the rearview mirror. "See, you agree you struck the kerb?" (he's not doing this to be mean, it's just that usually this is quite hotly contested by the testee)

"Oh," I said. "Have I failed?"

"No," he answered. "Just 10 points."

... this is like being told, 10 minutes into a one-hour exam, that you've lost 40% of the marks. You can still pass, but your margin of error is shockingly narrow.

I think when he told me that, my mind's first instinct was to think, "Okay, that means no more mistakes," and then it flailed in panic, and then it said, "None of this nonsense." I did the next three items with a sense of OH CRAP OH CRAP, but after that a switch just went off in my head and I thought Well, if he's gonna fail me, he's gonna fail me and I went on and did the rest of the test in what I now realise was probably a state of preternatural calm.

And I passed.

Despite all attempts of the most EVIL and FEARLESS pedestrians to thwart me! I thought the young man strolling across the four-lane road with not a care in the world as to the traffic was bad enough, but after him came this caretaker pushing along an elderly lady in a wheelchair: across a four-lane road, DESPITE the fact that the lights were all GREEN and traffic was GO and ...

Basically, I'd say what my aunt says when her newly-adopted three-week old kitten deliberately lurks at the kitchen step to pounce on her two-year-old corgi.

"DO YOU NOT KNOW THE MEANING OF DEATH?"





After I passed, I had to sit through this educational video for newly qualified drivers. My heavens was that a trip. It began innocently enough, with this fresh-faced young driving instructor saying, "Now that you have finally obtained that coveted driving license, there are a few things you should know..."

And then we get this five/ten-minute montage of shocking traffic accidents, accident victims bleeding on the road, and traffic accident survivor accounts telling of how they lost their licenses, lost their loved ones, lost partial speech and mobility. They show us this video (on headphones) in the same room as they let people take a trial driving theory test, and I only hope I didn't startle the person next to me too much when the odd gruesome image or particularly tragic story made me react unconsciously.





BUT YEAH. It made me happy enough to go for my Evidence lecture (don't get me wrong, I love evidence, I just need to be working on my assignment now and I'd sooner throw over Evidence for it). Some students (like me) were disagreeing with the lecturer on what was more prejudicial, evidence of disposition or reputation, and when the teacher asked, quite clearly not intending that anyone should agree with him, "Who thinks it's disposition evidence?" I raised my hand and looked him in the eye, quite ready to argue with him.

"Oh," he said, looking at me in a way that I can only describe as affectionate or indulgent, and then he smiled, and said cheerfully to the class, "She's always doing that."

D: But I REALLY disagree with you D: and it PAINS me when you won't test your argument against MINE... sometimes there is nothing more annoying than when you WANT an argument and people don't GIVE you one. D: [But it was just as well, we barely ended on time as it was]



ALSO, today, I got to see risax again. *griiin* BEYOND HAPPY. Like #7. Because there are friends you'd die for.

Also, I think I've found out before that the harder I work the more the series I'm into rewards me for it (or maybe it's just that when I'm working I can't check LJ for rather longer periods of time): some pretty darn good Abyss fanfiction has turned up lately, so just a shout-out if you haven't discovered it yet! (You writers, you make me so happy! But argh, I need more time to leave you GOOD and DECENT comments that are truly commensurate with the level of HAPPY I get from the fic!) xD

fontech's writing some pretty darn good young!Luke and Guy: (in order) Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. My personal favourite is Guy teaching Luke to walk. (Spoilers for Guy's past, incidentally).

I'm really looking forward to her upcoming work! *grin* And I think you just might, too. >D

kimivalkyrie wrote Little Indulgences, a Dist/Guy fic. ♥ Anything involving Dist makes me happy, and anything involving Dist with anyone other than Jade makes me happier still. ♥

meimi wrote the fascinating Regained Chances, an AU Guy/Asch fic. The ending makes me grin from ear to ear. Damn, but I love Asch like that! There's also an equally intriguing explanation for events in Regained Chances.