It's been awhile since I actually blogged what I did. So.. here goes..

Sunday

Sunday morning I woke up rather abruptly from my alarm. Yeah that's right.. no more waking up automatically at 7:30 anymore. I was able to defeat this habit by sleeping really really late every night..

Picked up Elsa and went to church. Some people asked me about whether I was still a morning greeter. I asked to be part of this ministry about a year ago and never really committed to it. They're starting something new -- greeters rotate as ushers too. I think it's a great idea, you get to know the people and begin to recognize faces. Anyway, yes I know -- but I still have to think about it.

After service I bumped into Mel. I hadn't really spoken to her in close to a year so we kinda caught up and I invited her to small group.

[aside] the small group has gone well so far. but it's getting really big. bless the Lord for granting us the numbers and consistent attendance, but Lord -- help us now with ways to handle this large group. we have nearly 35 people split between 2 groups and i have a feeling there are more people who need to be reached..[/aside]

Raptors vs. Spurs

After service, Kenric, Kevin, Eric and I headed over to the Air Canada Centre to watch the Raptors game. I drove Kenric and Jacqueline back to my place so we could take the subway down.

[aside]J is starting to remind me more and more of her mom, not personality but just "the look". i dunno what is, but when i saw her from behind i thought it was her mom. weird. i guess as we age we all start looking more and more like our parents..[/aside]

The subway was packed on the way down because of the Santa Claus Parade. We joked about how funny it would be if one of us announced to the hundreds of children that Santa wasn't real.. would've been pretty ugly I bet

The game was pretty bad for the first 3 quarters. We were getting mashed by the Spurs, they were killing us.. on the boards, the backcourt, on defense. They were out-hustling us. They were even out-fast-breaking us, and that my friends, is sad considering they are a very methodical, slow team.

In the 4th quarter, something changed. Some people had left the stadium because we were losing so badly. We were down about 19 when Matt Bonner had a key offensive rebound and we scored. Then we had a couple of 3s in a row, and all of a sudden, we were only down 12 points. It's crazy but for some reason the fans started to believe we could pull this thing off. MoPete waved his arms to get us all going, and Bosh pointed to the crowd.

Being down 12 points is NOT a sign of a team who is making a comeback, but you could just feel like something had changed, the momentum had shifted somehow and everyone in ACC could feel something was about to happen.

Every contested shot, every rebound, we got louder and louder. The place erupted after every made shot, and every defensive rebound. It was just so crazy..

When the shot was made where we took the lead, I jumped up with my arms raised, pumped my fists, and found that I was so happy that I had started to cry! Tears of joy and satisfaction, like redemption (earlier in the game the Spurs were getting some pretty questionable calls).

Anyway, suffice to say it was probably the most exciting game I have ever been to!

Vince Carter [this is not necessarily a post about sports]

Vince Carter looks like a different man on the court from what we saw earlier in his career. Heck even last year, he was a different man than what we see today.

I hate to see the fans boo him. He has poured his heart and soul into this team and because a few bad games and untimely comments he has made, the entire city has turned on him. This is an American, from Orlando, who has constantly encouraged fellow Americans to sign with our team. A guy who does a lot for the community and until this past summer, was the superstar in the history of the NBA who actually wanted to play for us.

He is also a guy who after getting married, despite rumors he already wanted to be traded, looked into how his wife could get work in Canada. Think about this guys. He could easily have been drafted by Toronto, and just played, picked up his pay cheques, and then move on to another team. He stuck his neck out when he didn't have to.

What bothers me most is that when you see him out there he looks a bit lost, as though he feels like he doesn't belong there anymore. He's lost a ton of confidence. He refuses to dunk any more. Dunking takes guts, it's not just jumping up and slamming it down. It's just about ability, it takes a lot of courage to go out there and stuff it in, because afterwards teams are out to get you, to prevent you from doing it again. Take a page out of Yao Ming's book, and how he believes dunking is disrespectful.

He looks like he's even second guessing himself. You look at players who have slumped, usually they come back, but some don't. And it's a lot of pressure. Carlos Delgado went through a pretty bad hitting slump and he didn't catch 0.001% of the flack that Vince has gotten.

It's tough. I'm not saying don't trade him, but think for a second, at least, what it is like to be in his shoes. Don't give me "but he's making millions of dollars" -- no amount of money would convince any of us to stay at a job where you are constantly second-guessed, verbally abused, insulted and ridiculed.

Give the guy a break.

Jamming

After the game we all went home, and in the evening we jammed. We had a new face -- bigjon made his debut @ PB&J. Drew, Duncan, Nancy and Eric came. Elsa came by a little later on.

I find that I'm very critical when it comes to music. If something doesn't sound right I'm totally thrown off by it. I know there are people just like me out there. We're freaks. I have trouble worshipping when it doesn't sound right. I've been doing a lot of praying on this to get me to focus on what's the point of worship is rather than the quality of its sound.

But music itself I find can be very uplifting. I can have a huge mood swing from one song to another.

I really, really, really enjoy Chris Tomlin's cd Arriving.