Got The Need For Speed

Lots of bloggable incidents happen in my life, but sometimes life goes too fast for me to pause and write down these things. Last week, on Thursday (10th February) I went go-carting. The place is situated in Ashulia...quite near Fantasy Kingdom. The event was not pre-planned. Usually Sundays and Thursdays are busy days for me. The office people literally goes crazy on those days. But that Thursday was different.

I have two bosses. Both of them went to a day long workshop on "Stress Management". When the returned, the time was 4:30 PM or something. I was anticipating a lot of activities from the bosses, as they weren't able to take care of business throughout the day. But strangely enough, our reporting boss told us to pack our stuff so that all of us can go to Star Cineplex and watch a movie. While some people started browsing their website (where all the movie schedules were up), some others started playing the lovecalc game...suddenly things became festive!

I am quite sure many of you have heard about this game. You put in nameA and nameB, and click a button to see the probability/percentage of love among them. We did this through SMS, whereby a GP subscriber has to send

lovecalc nameA nameB

to the SMS box number "2345". If it's 100%, you'll getta congatulations message. Anything other than that will "yield" another moderately encouraging phrase. I tried a few combinations myself (later on), and the highest I got was 92% :D

Anyways, sadly enough, we found out that there was no movie scheduled to be shown before 8:30 PM that day. So the cineplex plan had to be dropped rightaway. Instead, we decided to go to Ashulia. We had 3 cars with us, which would easily accomodate our whole department. We are 8 officers, 3 deputy managers (dm), 1 manager, 1 consultant and 1 deputy general manager (dgm). Our manager was the initiator of the whole journey thingy, and we proudly marched out of office at 5 PM (!!!!!) under his lead. The ladies didn't go, and one DM missed out. So the final crowd consisted of 10 people.

At the beginning, we thought we were going to Fantasy Kingdom. But enroute I found out that we were actually going to the go-carting resort near ashulia. I had a mixed feeling of thrill and fear. The fear was losing face in front of my colleagues, and the thrill, was obviously generated from the very chance of driving something on my own!

When I was a kid, I lived in Saudi Arabia. There was this "Mobile Amusement Park" that came in to our town, and I really, really wanted to ride the bumper cars. But as those crazy Saudi kids were bumping each others cars violently, my over-protective mom didn't allow me to ride any of them cute rides. See, I don't forget anything! I felt cheated, enraged and aggravated (I was 6 or 7 then), but there was nothing to do. I did get to ride Bumper cars in Gulshan Wonderland, but the cars were way too slow, and the place was crappy like hell.

After seeing the race track, I didn't feel that much encouraged. It was a relatively small track, and the cars didn't look nice either. I decided to wait and see some people going in first. Two of my colleagues started their journey, and you know what? Even a rickshaw puller would feel ashamed after seeing their driver. They drove too slow! Instantly, I decided that I'd drive myself, I'll drive alone and I'll drive faster.

It cost me 100 bucks for a 3 lap race. Expensive, eh? Yeah...cause it doesn't take more than 5-8 minutes to finish off the 3 laps. Tires were used for creating diversions and protective boundaries, which was all good. There was a small golf resort near the racing track. People who'd avail the race were allowed to play Golf in between. When I was busy getting inside the car (or cart?), others were busy seeing the 8 holes...or whatever. The helmet was awkwardly huge, and I didn't feel like using it. But the instructors didn't allow me to do so :@

There were two pedals...one for accelaration, and one for break. And there's this steering wheele. Pretty simple setup. No gears, no reverse driving, no nitro (lol) and or turbo. Yeah, I am kind of obsessed with NFS: Underground 1 and 2. When I pressed the accelration pedal, I had over 6 years experience of playing NFS and other racing games under my belt, and a lot of hope and courage!

"Vrooom" went my car, and I was surprised at the way the lil' thing accelarated. I had this feeling of satisfaction going through my spines, and that was the moment when I realized that driving can be one of the easiest things to do. I did a few small powerslides, and I didn't decelarate that much. It was a neat 3 laps for me.

After my effort, 4 of my colleagues did a race. Then I became one of the contestants, too. I was winning smoothly...I was way past my nearest opponent up to the 2nd lap. I even bumped hard on the rear end of another driver (6) , who happens to be the senior colleague of my unit. It was not planned, but all of us had our share of laughter regarding that incident.

However, I screwed up the whole thing in the 3rd lap. While trying a really sharp turn, I ended up hitting the tires. As there was no reset button nor any reverse driving, I had to remain there untill someone came in and untied me from that mess. I finished the race, and ended up being 4th. It was a sad, sad incident for me. I was always confident that I could win the race. I never like being defeated. It's leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I just don't like it. And it gets even bitter when I myself is responsible for the damage.

Colleagues condoled me later on, but I am grateful to them for not embarrassing me instantly. Previously, I didn't have a very positive attitude towards them. But as days are going by, I am getting more attached to them. Afterwards we went to Uttara Helvetia, where our manager treated us with Chicken Broast and Drinks. I really love this meal and the evening couldn't have ended in a better way.

When I entered home at around 10 PM, I had a refreshed mind, which helped my going through the hectic week that is going on right now! Today's Wednesday, and the week was full of activity, both online and offline. Hehe...so I just called my real life the off-line version of life. How about life version 2.0? Not a very appealing idea? Fine..

Looking forward to post 22nd February...