Car & Class Conundrum

We bought a car on Thursday evening. A Honda Civic LX automatic transmission from Livermore Honda. Then found we could not drive it home. Worse, that we cannot get auto insurance because (1) the lady agent I spoke with earlier was not around, (2) the agent who answered the phone refused to insure us after wasting nearly an hour of my time because our temporary licences were not yet in the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) database. Urgh!! Then our car dealer recommended an agent who was willing to insure us rightaway but gosh, the rates he quoted were like, extortion. So I politely said thanks but no thanks and good night to you sir.

So instead of just a couple of hours that we anticipated, we spent four hours at the dealership, committed to a car but probably not able to claim it till I get my driver's licence after the "behind the wheel" test on Sept 22. We had to rush to Ryan's school and were terribly late for back to school nite for parents. We did get to listen to Mrs Jeanette Brown, the music teacher and Ms Nora LaHive, the core teacher. Seems back to school nights are to let the teachers talk about their methods of teaching and share their expectations, etc., with parents. A different experience from Singapore. Ryan had insisted we had to listen to Mrs Brown and see the gym (which we missed) because they award extra credits for parents' attendance. We also got to see his tech teacher for a couple of mins. Could not get to see the science teacher even though we made it to the classroom because the vice principal was anxious to close up the school - it was past 9:00pm so we could understand.

Next day, I gave the car sales document to the credit union and was advised to take as much loan as possible to build the credit history. Getting the loan was not the problem - company is giving me much more than I need or want - but this is a strange society - encouraging people to take on unwanted debt. Then called up company recommended insurance agent and lo and behold, I got the auto insurance cover after spending only half an hour on the phone with me. And at a very lower rate than the "shark" of the previous day. So everything is in place. But, to my disappointment, no car because the credit union is waiting for the money from treasury to pass to the Honda dealer. So have to hold onto the rental SUV for a few days more. Seems the trick here is to take a large loan, pay the installments for a few months and then pay off the rest. Then the powers to be will say, oh, they paid these installments and then wipe out the whole debt. So they are credit worthy... Let's see if it is really going to work this way.

And I almost forgot to mention. We met George and his brother, Tim, on Wednesday night at the Marriott. They happened to be in SR after visiting their father who recently had a bad stroke. Tim is very outgoing and pretty funny. Handsome too. Had dinner with George at Uncle Yu's. We were planning to drive to his mom's house to see him this weekend but it appears his plans to go to Montana has been advanced two weeks. We'll plan the trip for a later time.

And today, Ryan went for Chinese class at Iron Horse Middle School but it looks like the highest class (equivalent to P3) is too low level for him. We may switch to another school in Pleasanton tomorrow to see if the level is closer to his P5 curriculum in Singapore. And we went to Ranch 99 at Fremont to pick up some Chinese groceries.