The First Day on the Road/ How I Once Again Found Myself Contemptlating Life in Wal-Mart

I initially wrote that I would have the number of barrels I destroyed whilst practicing my basic skills to report. And that number is... 0! As it turns out, the barrels are pretty hard to destroy, let alone even knock over. I did manage to bump into a few of them and scoot a smaller number than that.

However,

I did manage to completely destroy a flashlight.

So, if you've ever wondered, "Can a flashlight withstand being ran over by an eighteen-wheeler?" the answer is a resounding "NO"

Anyhow, we finally took these monsters out on the open road with traffic and all last night. The instructor drove our group through Memphis, TN over the Mississippi River, and into Arkansas where "the shifting pad" is located. In a small town called Jericho, Arkansas there's a 7 -mile stretch of surface road 'longside the highway that we practice shifting on. That was the main objective of last night, to learn how to shift.

Shifting a truck, at least the way the Federal Government wants you to in order to attain your CDL, is nothing like shifting your car. One has to do something called double-clutching in order to make it work. What that means, is that instead of just pushing in the clutch and holding it in while you take the car out of gear and shift to the next one; you have to push in the clutch to take the truck out of gear, let it out, and then push it back in while you put the truck into the next gear. And your timing has to be just right, or else you're likely to miss a gear and really mess things up. The trucks we're driving also have 10 gears, so thats something new as well. And downshifting... also a pain.

In conclusion, shifting gears in a tractor-trailer is nothing like shifting gears in a car.

But, after an hour and a half of driving, I've got it. At first I felt like something must have been wrong, because I picked up on it much faster than everyone else here said I would.

On that note, I've noticed that there are a lot of negative people within the trucking industry. Nay-sayers, pessamists, know-it-alls, people who love to argue, assholes, etc. There was a span of three-four days where I would try to reason with some of these people, or convince them that things aren't that bad but, when people refuse to see things positively on their own, they're not going to let somebody else help them.

Somebody here even told me that they were "going to lay you the fuck out" because I was trying to convince him that the test was graded this way, when he thought it was going to be graded another way. If he went on thinking that it was graded that certain way, he wouldn't make it. I tried reasoning with him, but it didn't work. He ended up failing his basic skills tests.

I tried, I really did.

I've resolved to just keep my mouth shut and not interfere with anyone's path here. It's best for me and it's best for them, I think.

It's very much against my nature, but I have to keep in mind that I'm not here to make friends. I already have great ones back home. I'm here to get my CDL, and then move on. It's tough to think that way, though.

And now, for an emotional aside:

I was standing in Wal-Mart, yet again, contemplaiting life the other night. I had walked there at around 1:00 AM to search for something to eat. I was standing in the soda section when the christmas tree song from A Charlie Brown Christmas started playing. As strong as I've felt lately, and as sure as I am that I'm doing the right thing, I realized that I was immensely lonely. I lost myself in thoughts of how many people I miss. And worsely I found myself thinking of the women of my past.

The most I'm willing to admit here is that none of them are interested in the least in what I'm doing and what I am feeling and thinking. I find it cruel that life/fate has an ironic way with contrasts. To be so important to someone, and to be so in tune with them, and to feel as though you would do anything for them-- and then its as though you've fallen off the face of the planet to them. As far as they're concerned, I think, I don't exist.

And that's all there is to that.

We go on the road again tonight. This time, we'll be in Memphis with a higher volume of traffic and more turns to make. In fact, I think tonight's focus will be learning how to turn correctly. Hopefully I'll get that as well as I did shifting gears.

7 days untill I'm done here.