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April 2, 2005
good day! 
Okay, I am really pleased to note that today was a really good day, and maybe I am not sunk like a battleship. Today was the first long day of motorcycle training, so we started out at 7:30 getting to know our best friend for the next four hours, a 125cc street bike.
I was the only one who didn't bring a helmet. One guy was in full motorcycle gear, and another person in Harley leathers (it said Harley Davidson in the small of her back). I went in layers -- a long sleeve t-shirt, an old moth-eaten cashmere sweater that I can't bear to part with, and my new ORRC March Mudness fleece over jeans and leather hi-tops, as well as a pair of sunglasses.
The training was so much fun. I was pleased to see that the training was set up using scaffolding, a constructivist principle -- for you non-educators, that's taking small steps that almost garantee student success, and then building on them, so the student gains confidence and proficiency. So we started by talking about how to start the bikes, then starting the bikes, then shifting from neutral to first, then straddle-walking the bikes in first, then picking up our feet, then adding curves into the ride, then upshifting, then downshifting, then using both brakes, etc. The last exercise was slaloming between the orange cones--wuhoo!
I loved it. Which isn't to say that I'm where I want to be yet--getting better with the clutch has been happening, but it has to happen more. But after the first hour, I quit killing the bike on every take-off or stop.
After lunch was classroom time, which was rough. I was trying hard not to nod off, but... On our break, I went and wandered a bit around the shipyards, looking at the odd, decrepit things, and stairways down to the water, etc. After class, I went and took some pictures, and no one beat me up or arrested me, so that was good.
Posted at April 2, 2005
Comments
cool pictures.
Posted by: brent at April 4, 2005 9:48 PM