by Ashlyn Swain| staff writer

After practicing  for hours and hours on the Tejeda parking lot with laundry bins setting up a course across the pavement, senior Connor Sorenson finally decides to go home. He needs his rest before his driver’s test tomorrow, after all.

“I actually wasn’t nervous at all, I practiced a lot before it and I really thought I was going to do well. As soon as I got in the seat, however, it was like a wave of anxiety just washed over me,”  Sorenson said.

The driver’s test did not go well for Sorenson his first time around, his score was just below passing and, while he wasn’t shocked, the disappointment of failing was still there.

“I had a feeling I wasn’t gonna pass after a few things happened. First off, I did great at parallel parking and I did it perfect… But then we got into the neighborhood and I went for a real nice right turn and I take it too hard, so I ended up hopping the curb.” Sorenson said. Then the speed limit went down to 20 so I ended up slowing down, going to around 20 miles per hour, but I’m trying to figure out how far away the DMV so I didn’t notice I’m going at around 23 mph. I pulled into the DMV and she just looked at me and I knew I failed. Of course, right after that she told me I had and it was a little disappointing.”

Retaking it was the only real option for Sorenson after failing and, after practicing again for months, he was finally ready.

“I actually only retook it once and then I finally passed. I was so happy,” Sorenson said.

Some people aren’t quite so lucky when it comes to driving however.

“I know that a lot of people fail but I am just the best at failing so they don’t have anything on me really,” junior Dylan Gonzales said. “I was honestly pretty surprised I passed because I didn’t think I was going to. The lady even said to me, ‘Let’s be honest, I feel bad that you failed so many times because I think you were just nervous,’ and then she passed me because of that and that my car battery had died.”