Today, December 15, is the five-year anniversary of my move to England in 2001. I left a confused and emotional nation, still unsure of what action should be taken against its September 11 attackers. Who knew that the world would be so much worse off five years later? That's all I wanted to say about that. Changing subjects... I had my second driving class today. This time it was with a female instructor. She was a thousand times nicer than the guy I had before. She was helpful and only corrected things that really matter for the exam. My exam is on Monday. I will be driving the same exact car that I drove today and will have the same instructor next to me. The examiner (and probably another examinee) will be in the back seat. The exam lasts fifteen minutes. Let's see if I can get through 900 seconds without screwing up...
The main thing I learned today was that I need to stop more completely at stop signs. The correct technique is to stop right at the sign or line, if there is one, and then continue forward until you can see clearly if it's safe to continue. I was stopping, but only for a fraction of a second at the first place, and then really stopping at the second. She taught me to stop at the line, count to three in my head, advance to where I could see, stop, count to three, and then go (if it's safe, of course). The instructor talked me into taking another class right before the exam. It can't hurt, that's for sure.
Nothing else new of interest here.