Tenebrific

Life trundles on. It seems like it has been a while since I have talked about what’s been going on with my life, the actual progression into becoming a better person, a Dan 2.0, that is the whole theme of this blog. So today I shall discuss just that, and a few other things too.
Firstly, there is news on my ongoing and seemingly endless mission to pass get my driving license. After I narrowly failed test number one a few weeks ago, I immediately proceeded to book another one. Unfortunately I had to wait until Christmas Eve, unless a cancellation came up. And, sure enough, a cancellation did come up so I took test number two on Thursday. It was a bit of a shock that it had come round again but my fingers were crossed that this would be the one.
Things went spectacularly well for the most part. I was the first to be called out of the dismal waiting room which helped my nerves and after a while of driving things felt pretty good. Last time I failed on the manoeuvre, because my dyspraxic mind struggles to cope with the concept of going backwards and inverted steering that requires. This time though I had a three-point turn, the one manoeuvre I can do with confidence and it went reasonably well. The route was really complicated, taking in pretty much every challenging area that it is possible to do on a driving test in the local area.
It was about three quarters of the way through the test where I messed up. I was stopped at some traffic lights and they began to change. I quickly began to get going but quickly realised that I couldn’t go as I was turning right and the green arrows were only lit for left and straight on. Obviously I stopped moving but it was too late. I’d messed it up and this was the only mark on an otherwise excellent test. More than enough to fail me, though.
119re0
The traffic lights were nearly as complicated as this
It is extremely frustrating. To be so close but fail on a momentary lapse. I’m still baffled at how I made such a silly mistake. If there had been a car in front of me at those lights I would have passed my test and would have been over the moon. The thought of being able to drive is pretty much the only thing I have to look forward to. It is yet another failure in the continual parade of failures that is my life. If only I could finally break out of that.
Life in general is not the best at the moment. It remains so empty. Two and a bit months into my new teaching assistant job and I find it very uninspiring. There’s nothing wrong with my job but it just doesn’t satisfy me, it’s not what I feel I should be doing. Now that I’ve had time to experience it properly, I realise I must begin to think about the future. It has become abundantly clear that this is not the sort of job people tend to stick with for many a year. I’m fairly sure that I don’t want to carry on working there in the next academic year but the big problem is, what do I do instead?
I think everyone goes through the time in their life where they have to decide how they going to spend the rest of it. It’s a huge decision and not one that can be made lightly. I’ve been through it, made the decision and then realised it was a massive mistake and find myself five years down the line having to make the decision again.
The big problem is my lack of skills. I am genuinely good at so few things. My dyspraxia immediately knocks out pretty much anything practical, because I’d be useless at it. It is abundantly clear that I am not a people person so anything service based, anything that involves talking to people a lot, is also out of the question. What on Earth does that leave? What am I actually capable of doing? It is a vicious circle of not being able to come up with any positive ideas that I could actually do. This is the big question for me that needs answering. If I can find my true calling, maybe my life will finally begin to improve.
In other news, I’ve been closely following the progress of the Rosetta mission recently. As you probably know, the European Space Agency have managed to land a robot on Comet 67P, the first time humanity has ever landed on a comet. It is a staggering achievement and something that really makes me proud to be human. The practicalities of doing such a thing are mind-blowing and despite all the challenges, the team succeeded. I talked about space travel in this post and this whole mission gives me hope for the future. Today- a comet. Tomorrow- the universe.
Rosetta_OSIRIS_NAC_comet_67P_20140803_1
Comet 67P- This image blows my mind
Well I have somehow managed to end that on a positive note. I always feel bad about writing about negative feelings. But that’s all I have at the moment so I’m afraid that’s what you’ve got to read. As I said at the start, the point of this blog is to chronicle my rise to something better and that was never going to be easy. At least things can only get better from here.

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