Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

Flunked my motorcycle test – Memory failure to turn off the turn signals. Surely, in this day and age, they can figure out how to cancel motorbike turn signals! I am so happy that I make the corner without crashing or going into the wrong lane that I completely forget to turn the signal off. Now, I have to do it over again... groan. I am amazed that some people sign up for motorbike lessons because they actually WANT to ride a bike. I prefer a sports car myself. Yes, Biker Bill did pass. I might have to ride bitch if I can't pass the exam next time. My sister, Teresa was up in Kamloops this weekend for my parent's 60 th Wedding Anniversary party on May 22. When she left yesterday to return home, she began to cry. She reminded me that it was to be two years before we see each other again. I was unprepared to be saying good bye just yet and was a bit overcome by emotion. The time to leave is coming quickly now. Bill and I hiked for about two hours today. It was warm toda...

  My plan is to make a documentary of our experience in Sri Lanka. When I went to film school in September 2009, I was not yet privy to this intention. In fact, I didn't even know that I wanted to go to film school, much less make a documentary film of our work with CUSO in Sri Lanka.   My foray into film making was indeed a serendipitous occurrence. As you all know, I spent almost four years working on my PhD in social work from 2005 to April 2009. During that time, reading the newspaper was an unafforded luxury, in terms of time. So, there I was in June, now a doctor and for the first time in years, I read a page of the paper. I have no idea what else I read that day, but I can tell you what I did read that day. I spotted, or rather it leapt off the page, a small 3x5 article that announced a contest. The contest was simple: email in your entry and win a free or half price tuition to the Gulf Islands Film School, Intensive Media Course in either a screenplay or documentary...

    Yes, today, I learned that morons don't ride motorbikes. Today, Bill and I started the skills portion of our motorbike training course. As part of our preparation for our placement in Sri Lanka, Bill and I are required to become "comfortable" on a motorbike. We did attempt to fudge our way around taking the training, by letting the CUSO office know that we were licensed to ride a 50cc bike, with our current BC driver's license. However, that attempt to avoid taking the course failed when CUSO insisted that the motorbike course was mandatory as the program office in Sri Lanka required that I be skilled on a bike in order to navigate a 63km loop between hospitals, mental health offices and the universities.   So, we began our training last week, beginning with the theory course. Motorcycle theory involves vectors, force, inertia and gravity. Failure to understand these physics results in CRASH! One must learn T-Clock (acronym a pre-trip inspection) and FINE...

As most of you know, Bill and I, as part our CUSO/Sri Lanka experience, spent 50 days in exico. Perhaps we should explain why we spent so long in Mexico. Anticipating a February departure date, and lucky enough to secure a 2 year tenant for our home, we were all set for our Sri Lankan adventure. Our belongings, lock, stock and barrel were securely stowed at Los Rios Storage. We celebrated this feat, only to learn, that lo and behold, we were not leaving for Sril Lanka in February, but July! We were floored, to say the least, but rallied. By the next day we had gotten our heads around the fact that we were homeless and had to look for options for ourselves. We decided not to blow off the tenant, but instead, fly to Mexico to "kill time" and because we no longer had a roof over our head. So, what I really wanted to tell you about was that in Mexico, I had a foretaste of what it might be like for me in Sri Lanka. We had been in Mexico City for five days and had become familiar w...