On a completely different note, I've been looking for a scooter recently. I am ready for a new level of independence in my life. I hope that I'm not putting too much stock in these two wheels. I looked at my first one today. It is an incredibly stress-filled experience for me. The bike that I'm currently looking at is not owned by someone I know. In fact, this afternoon's adventure involved an attempt to find the motorcycle shop during rush hour, in the rain, when the national school's were just letting out. Not good timing.
We got to the shop and I asked to see the bike. It wasn't there. Not a great sign. There is much discussion in Tagalog and two of the guys hop onto another scooter with an umbrella and go cruising down the road. Adios...I guess. Debi, Tim, and I just sat there staring at each other. Okay...I guess we'll wait. We stood around for 20 minutes or so when the two guys come back on two bikes. Here it is. We look it over and it looks pretty good for the most part but we don't know exactly what we're looking for. Tim took it for a little illegal spin up the road. He said it felt pretty good. We asked a bunch of questions...first owner? Any accidents? Stock parts? Hopefully tomorrow they'll bring the bike up to campus so that one of the school's mechanics can look it over and put it through it's paces. We're also hoping that they'll bring a police clearance with them to prove that it's not stolen.
This is a pretty big deal for me though. My stomach has been in knots for most of the past two days as I think over some of the implications of this new mode of transportation. One rather uneasy thing...I have seen far more motorcycle accidents since I made the decision to go ahead with getting a bike. I also want to make sure that I get a solid deal on this thing. I would rather not fork over cash for a dud.
And finally, rugby. Rugby took over Tim's life last week and a small part of mine. He played on the Philippine National Under 20 Rugby Team for a two game tournament against Guam. He was originally supposed to travel to Korea with them but that got cancelled when two of the teams backed out. So Guam came to the Philippines instead. We could have played the game "Which of these things is not like the other" when it came to photos of the team. See:
I was incredibly proud of the way that he played and the way that he stood up for his faith during the past couple of weeks. It had to be hard but he did it. My mom also survived. She was here in Manila for the final on Saturday. Tim went into this game knowing that his mom may put the kibosh on rugby altogether. It was intense! Some of the plays really made Mom nervous but I think she also saw how much he loved the game.
So now the Faith rugby season starts. I'm looking forward to Saturday tournaments and watching him play. I absolutely know how privileged I am to be sharing this part of his life with him. Who would've ever thought?
