Me first
It wasn't a gold at the Olympics, and it wasn't a PR. It wasn't even an age group win in a marathon or a triathlon. But today, after 2 long afternoons spent driving a motorcycle around the City College parking lot as part of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's training program, yours truly matriculated at the top of her class by having the fewest marks against her final score.
Hour after hour we learned and practiced new skills - swerving, cornering, stopping quickly, turning in tight places, accelerating, riding over obstacles - all culminating in a final evaluation done one at a time, while the others watched. And waited.
In the end, all but one of us passed. (Poor Alex was so unnerved by the evaluation that despite the obvious skills he demonstrated in the other 9 hours of the class, he came undone at test time.) And when our instructor, Wenona, called my name out as top scorer in the class, I was a little giddy.
Just 2 or 3 hours earlier we'd been working on a drill where we started in first, shifted to second, slowed, downshifted, looked to the side and initiated a turn. It was a lot of things to do in about 40 yards and when our other instructor M--- asked for our initial thoughts after practicing a few times, I said that it was a little overwhelming trying to remember and execute everything. I wasn't complaining; that was just my first thought. Several others agreed. He then made us all take off our helmets and asked if we needed a break because if we thought this was overwhelming then we had no business being out there. And then he sort of went on a tear about essential skills and these being the basics and how if we were overwhelmed here then we couldn't go on. And he said he could see we were lagging, that some of us looked tired, that we better figure out if we were too overwhelmed to continue. It wasn't angry, necessarily, but it was stern and it felt defeating. It was as if we'd been reprimanded. Just an hour after Wenona had said we'd done a great job the day before and she had total faith in us! And then he just left. As we made our way back to our bikes and started our engines we saw him leave on his motorcycle. Nothing more was said about it and I didn't venture to say anything about anything for the rest of the afternoon.
So from up to down to uncertainty to relief to surprise and lastly, elation. It felt great to know I'd passed and at the top of my class. Score one for women and for age!
Hour after hour we learned and practiced new skills - swerving, cornering, stopping quickly, turning in tight places, accelerating, riding over obstacles - all culminating in a final evaluation done one at a time, while the others watched. And waited.
In the end, all but one of us passed. (Poor Alex was so unnerved by the evaluation that despite the obvious skills he demonstrated in the other 9 hours of the class, he came undone at test time.) And when our instructor, Wenona, called my name out as top scorer in the class, I was a little giddy.
Just 2 or 3 hours earlier we'd been working on a drill where we started in first, shifted to second, slowed, downshifted, looked to the side and initiated a turn. It was a lot of things to do in about 40 yards and when our other instructor M--- asked for our initial thoughts after practicing a few times, I said that it was a little overwhelming trying to remember and execute everything. I wasn't complaining; that was just my first thought. Several others agreed. He then made us all take off our helmets and asked if we needed a break because if we thought this was overwhelming then we had no business being out there. And then he sort of went on a tear about essential skills and these being the basics and how if we were overwhelmed here then we couldn't go on. And he said he could see we were lagging, that some of us looked tired, that we better figure out if we were too overwhelmed to continue. It wasn't angry, necessarily, but it was stern and it felt defeating. It was as if we'd been reprimanded. Just an hour after Wenona had said we'd done a great job the day before and she had total faith in us! And then he just left. As we made our way back to our bikes and started our engines we saw him leave on his motorcycle. Nothing more was said about it and I didn't venture to say anything about anything for the rest of the afternoon.
So from up to down to uncertainty to relief to surprise and lastly, elation. It felt great to know I'd passed and at the top of my class. Score one for women and for age!
Comments
Congrats on being tops in your class! I'll be your "bitch on back" anyday! :-p