Looking back now, the journey from that state to awakening to the joy of driving, eventually participating in a Porsche driving school in an MT car, was by no means quick or easy. It was definitely thanks to my husband\u2019s patient and persistent encouragement<\/strong> that I finally took the plunge.<\/p>\n I enthusiastically got my license (AT only) in my first year of university, but over the next 12 years, I drove only about five times. One of those times, I scraped the car on a parking ticket machine, which only reinforced my image that \u201cdriving is difficult and scary<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n At my first job after graduation, my colleagues and seniors drove to sales appointments, but my boss told me,<\/p>\n \u201cYou seem too risky based on how you act normally, so I can\u2019t let you drive.\u201d<\/p>\n So I was the only one who had to get around by train, bus, or on foot. (I also used taxis a lot.)<\/span><\/p>\n After moving out on my own, I chose places near stations, so all my commuting and outings were by train<\/strong>. I never felt inconvenienced; in fact, I found it efficient to work on my laptop during train rides. I thought I\u2019d never need to drive a car in my life.<\/p>\n Even after meeting my husband, who loves cars, I had zero interest in them. After we married, even when he said, \u201cIt\u2019s better if you can drive<\/strong>,\u201d I still refused to get behind the wheel.<\/p>\n Our cars back then<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n However, after I had been pregnant with our first child for a while, my husband started saying,<\/p>\n You really need to learn to drive soon. Our home is in the suburbs, so we have to drive everywhere. What if the child suddenly gets a fever and we need to go to the hospital? Will you call a taxi every time? You really have to be able to drive.<\/strong><\/p>\n I thought, \u201cWell, when you put it that way, it\u2019s true<\/strong>,\u201d and finally mustered the courage to start driving to the nearby supermarket on weekends. But I was so tense I was stiff as a board, and just 10 minutes of driving exhausted me, so I often had my husband drive us back.<\/p>\n Then one day, my husband sent me a message from work:<\/p>\n \u201cCome pick me up in Umeda (Osaka city center)<\/span> today.\u201d<\/p>\n I thought, \u201cAre you serious? I\u2019ve only driven 10 minutes to the local supermarket\u2014I can\u2019t do that.<\/strong>\u201d I probably replied that way, but I knew I couldn\u2019t keep avoiding it forever. So I steeled myself and decided to pick him up in his then-beloved Mercedes-Benz SLK.<\/p>\n Though I was extremely nervous on my first drive into Osaka city, maybe because I was driving a clearly sporty SLK, no one aggressively cut me off, and many drivers let me merge or change lanes. Somehow, I made it to Umeda.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a photo my husband took then.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wife came to pick me up in Umeda for the first time. Her first solo long drive.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Though, seriously, parking right in the middle of the road like this is a no-no (-_-). That\u2019s not good\u2026<\/p>\n Still, that experience gave me confidence, and I gradually started driving more often. Last year, I finally participated in a Porsche driving school in an MT Boxster. My husband posted on his social media,<\/p>\n I came to watch my wife at the driving school. When we met, she had zero interest in cars, and now she\u2019s mastered driving an MT car this well.<\/p>\n My husband never forced his car hobby on me, but every time we went for a drive together, he kept saying, \u201cTry driving, try driving<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Honestly, it was annoying (laughs), and every time he said that, I said hundreds of times, \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want to drive!\u201d But his belief that \u201cit\u2019s absolutely better to be able to drive<\/strong>\u201d never wavered. He also often said,<\/p>\n German cars are really different from Japanese ones. They\u2019re super stable on the highway, easy to drive, and you\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n Sometimes with tough love, he created opportunities for me to get behind the wheel.<\/p>\n Indeed, the first time I drove the SLK on the highway, I was amazed by its stability<\/strong>. Thanks to driving such a car, I gradually came to trust the car and got better at driving.<\/p>\n Still, I have to say, my husband\u2019s persistence in telling me to drive was impressive. You could say his years of \u201csales efforts\u201d really paid off.<\/p>\n When I once said, \u201cYou sure didn\u2019t give up on nagging me<\/strong>,\u201d he replied, \u201cOf course not, I was serious about it, haha<\/strong>.\u201d I doubt he ever imagined I\u2019d not only start driving but also end up writing a Porsche blog. (I didn\u2019t imagine it either, haha.)<\/span><\/p>\n Not just with car life, but going forward, I hope to keep my curiosity alive and keep opening new doors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 10 Years as a Paper Driver I\u2019m the type who acts quickly when I can intuitively feel excited about something and vividly imagine the future it will bring. But on the flip side, if I can\u2019t clearly picture the future, or if anxiety and hassle outweigh the excitement, I stubbornly refuse to do it no matter what. With that mindset, I long held a firm \u201cNO\u201d when it came to driving. For me, as...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/?p=19289"},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"The Road to Becoming an MT Driver<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IMG_8611.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IMG_8610.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.panamera-life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IMG_8616.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBuilt on German Engineering Trust<\/h3>\n