.........GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well today was the big day!! I started truck driving school at Fox Valley Tech! It was a good day considering it was orientation day. We met our lead instructors, got all our paperwork on the school campus, some basic info packet on the truck driving course (nothing that I didn't already read in the other literature), an pamphlet and form to fill out if we want the 3 month insurance plan (it is like $90 a month, but only covers you in the event that something happens while in school. Not really worth it to me, so I will not take it.). Then we went over to local medical clinic (Occupational Health) and took our physical and drug test. The physical was a total joke. As long as your not blind, and don't have high blood pressure you can easily pass the physical. I felt robbed after paying $110.50 for the physical and drug test, but nothing I can do about it, has to be done to get my Federal Medical Card, and my drug test clearance.

Then it was off to the campus book store to get my required books and materials for the course. The grand total for that came to $74.12. Thankfully, my Financial Aid was ready and I used that to pay for my books. Tomorrow I am going to check and see if I can get money from my Financial Aid account to reimburse the $500+ I had to pay out to start my course. Not sure if I can, but it is worth a try.

The rest of the day, was spent watching test prep videos for our CDL permit and getting to know one another. Pretty standard orientation day I guess.

I was surprised at the average age of the people in the class. There are 14 of us in the Class A Semi Truck and 4 in the Class B Straight Truck Course (Class B is only 4 weeks long). There is only 2 people in the class that are my approximate age, can't remember their names off the top of my head but one is under 21 (20 I am guessing or they wouldn't let him in the class) and the second, he is around 28-32. The remainder of the class is all over 35-40+ including the 2 women in the class. Everyone seems nice enough, with a few odd balls. One guy who is doing a 7 week refresher course upgrade to get training from Class B to Class A seems a little slow mentally. Maybe it is just the way he talks that gives me that impression, time will tell. Another "odd ball" in the class is a gentleman of Asian decent (not sure of his nationality and I have learned over the years many find it offensive if you guess wrong so I won't make that assumption and just leave it as "Asian decent".) who doesn't speak english very well and really keeps to himself and doesn't interact much with the others.

Well, I am looking forward to what tomorrow brings, but for now I have a little reading to do. Cya tomorrow!