Retaking Subject 2

The first time I took Subject 2, neither of my two chances made it to the end. The first attempt failed at the right-angle turn, a section I hadn't actually worried much about normally; the second attempt reached the slope, where I stalled and then rolled backward. After the exam ended, I still felt a bit unwilling to accept it, and kept replaying it in my mind: if I had turned the wheel a little later at the right-angle turn, if I had controlled the clutch a little more steadily during the hill start, would the result have been different? Unfortunately, there are no what-ifs in an exam.

The day before the exam again

The day before my second exam, I went to the test site for a mock run, and wouldn't you know it, I crossed the line at the right-angle turn again.

In the past, I mostly relied on feel when going through the right-angle turn, without a particularly fixed reference point. The instructor told me to watch that line, wait until it disappeared from view, then go forward a bit more and immediately turn the wheel all the way. That afternoon, with the instructor's reminder, I finally completed it properly once.

But by evening, that line became clearer and clearer instead. I started worrying about what to do the next day without the instructor's reminder, worrying that I wouldn't align with the line, worrying that I would turn the wheel too early or too late, and I remembered that the first exam had also ended here.

As it happened, I didn't sleep well that night either. I was so sleepy by 8:30 that I could barely keep my eyes open, so I went to bed early, only to wake up at midnight. I had to go to the test site at 7 the next morning, and the more I reminded myself to hurry up and sleep, the more awake I became. Later, I even thought about the retake fee: if I failed again, wouldn't I have to pay all over again?

The exam hadn't even started yet, but in my bed in the early morning, I had already experienced failure in advance.

Waiting for dawn

Looking back now, anxiety is probably like this. It likes to grab onto an "if" that hasn't happened yet, and bit by bit fill in the whole story, until that imagined future seems more real than reality.

But the next day, once I actually sat in the exam car, I was actually less nervous than the first time.

I didn't think anymore about how many hours I had slept the night before, nor about the retake fee. I just watched the lines, controlled the clutch, turned the wheel, and drove forward one section after another.

That right-angle turn, which had made me worry over and over the day before, took only a few short seconds when I actually went through it.

Then I kept going forward.

In the end, I passed on the first try.

When I heard that I had passed, I wasn't as excited as I had imagined; I just felt that the thing that had been hanging over me for days had finally settled.

In closing

Last night I kept wanting to know:

Will I pass tomorrow or not?

But no matter how many times I thought about that question last night, there would be no answer.

Looking back now, those imagined crossings of the line, stalls, failures, and retake fees in the early morning—none of them happened in the end.

So I still want to write down this small thing. In the future, I will probably encounter many nights like this, lying awake for exams, competitions, or some more important things, and I still won't be able to help thinking about the worst outcome.

But at least this time it made me remember:

Anxiety is imagining the future, not predicting it

Some answers can't be figured out no matter how much you think tonight. Then wait for dawn, and when you truly hold the steering wheel, take the turn in front of you well.