Another Testing Day
Oct. 12th, 2005 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloAilz went to be tested this morning to see whether she's fit to hold a driving licence.
It was a day rather like yesterday- dread in contemplation, not half so bad as it turned out.
We rode the motorways real early, hoping to miss the rush hour traffic. We didn't. Hey, there's got to be a better way of running an economy than this daily sucking in and spewing out of cars by our big cities.
The test was at Wrightington. Ailz spent nine months there as a small child back in the day when it was an isolation hospital. (She had T.B.)
The tests were fun. She sat in a simulated Alfa Romeo and put her foot down hard and fast whenever the light flashed. Then she went for an hour long drive with an instructor through the back streets of Wigan.
Meanwhile I sat on a hard chair in the waiting room reading a badly-written thesis on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. This guy can't construct grammatical sentences, nor can he proof-read and yet he's a prof and he's in print; how are such things possible?
Ailz did fine. No worries. Her licence should be in the post.
This week, next week, sometime......
We came home and the door fell off the freezer. Omygodomygodomygod! Nevertheless, remembering my success with the bookcase, I laid myself down on on the kitchen floor in puddles of ice water and screwed it on again.
Go me!
It was a day rather like yesterday- dread in contemplation, not half so bad as it turned out.
We rode the motorways real early, hoping to miss the rush hour traffic. We didn't. Hey, there's got to be a better way of running an economy than this daily sucking in and spewing out of cars by our big cities.
The test was at Wrightington. Ailz spent nine months there as a small child back in the day when it was an isolation hospital. (She had T.B.)
The tests were fun. She sat in a simulated Alfa Romeo and put her foot down hard and fast whenever the light flashed. Then she went for an hour long drive with an instructor through the back streets of Wigan.
Meanwhile I sat on a hard chair in the waiting room reading a badly-written thesis on Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. This guy can't construct grammatical sentences, nor can he proof-read and yet he's a prof and he's in print; how are such things possible?
Ailz did fine. No worries. Her licence should be in the post.
This week, next week, sometime......
We came home and the door fell off the freezer. Omygodomygodomygod! Nevertheless, remembering my success with the bookcase, I laid myself down on on the kitchen floor in puddles of ice water and screwed it on again.
Go me!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 10:09 am (UTC)Congratulations to Ailz. I have never heard of a harder road test! Even when I was fourteen in Texas and therefore needed to be put through my paces, the test only lasted 20 minutes, tops.
I've had tests in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, and never did they last more than 20 minutes, and were mostly just driving up and back on the highway.
Perhaps she can take you to some wonderful countryside for a restful day of photography and exploration. You deserve it!
Go you!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 10:19 am (UTC)The countryside drive will have to wait now until after Ailz's exam. she's got lots of revision to do. Besides, it's raining hard.
But I know where I want to go. Yesterday when we were on our way to Catterick we passed through Richmond- a stunningly beautiful hillside town with a castle and all. I really want to return there and explore.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 10:27 am (UTC)I'm very happy for Ailz, because this is an indicator for her that her health is improved.
And it's also great that she is taking courses--I suppose she is all finished with Frankenstein now?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 01:46 am (UTC)Ungrammatical theses
Date: 2005-10-12 10:26 am (UTC)You are really being put through your paces, Mr Handyman! Good work on the freezer door! Hope you have now warmed up, after your ice-puddle adventure.
Re: Ungrammatical theses
Date: 2005-10-13 01:48 am (UTC)Who will teach the teachers, eh?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 01:48 am (UTC)And now I'd like to get out of touch with him again....
no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 06:29 pm (UTC)You know I am a secretary - they don't pay me enough to call me an Administrative Assistant! - for any number of professors. A few years ago I was responsible for sending a letter to Purdue from one of them. He had typed it, signed it and asked me to do an envelope and send it.
I scanned it, and was stopped cold by this:
"My wife and I are so happy to contribute are money for such a worthy cause."
I couldn't change it, I had to put it in the envelope with the check and send it. Purdue probably didn't care, they got money from him.
But I was horrified.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 02:13 am (UTC)Academics who can write (like the historian Simon Schama) can make an absolute killing from books and TV. There's a huge hunger for information out there
no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 12:26 pm (UTC)Ah, well, that's what editors and proof readers are for...