solid weekend
[good weekend packed with loads of fun, laughs with friends, and definitely lots of food. (ooh alliteration)]

the fun:
friday after work, i went over to sharons place and we talked for a bit and watched my big fat greek wedding (again). haha that movie is hIlarious! woe to me. hahaah too great. then i went home, got dinner, then went to church. the bible study wrap-up thing was good, and we got to share a bit and it was nice to hear ppl share about some of the issues they wanted to deal with in their lives. after that, we hung around for a while and went home. good fun.
saturday morning, woke up early to help my dad clean the pool, which isnt really fun, but oh well! :) it was fun letting the dirty water run into my neighbour's backyard! mooohaha (shhh) anyways after that we had an exhibition game at 11am against tcac united. that was fun, as we had a small team so we got to hit a lot. their team is way spirited, and very fun to play with.
sunday, church was really good, colin came to speak about unity, and i really liked how he used an unfamiliar old testament passage and bought some good points out of it (TOTALLY UNLIKE B.W.) afterwards we went to eat, then to fairview, hung around for a bit (sharon and james bought some massif $3 pillows) and then went to the park to ump, didnt ump cuz the teams didnt show, so we played hacky sack for a while (a long while). at 4 we finally umped a game, meh, the teams had like no cheers and the cheers we did hear were really bad (teehee) so after that we went to the lumas/salvation game @ 6 and that was fun cuz we were all rowdy and causing a ruckus but then maybe too much of a ruckus so we quieted down a bit. anyways, then for the big fun of the weekend, got a call from dave and found out that lions had beaten the not so mighty miracles. which was fantastic cuz it was great to see the lions were doing well, but also cuz its the miracles.. i digress. anyways after the game us oracles went to grab some food, then went to vida's house to hang out. thanks V! good times. got home before 12, went str8 2 bed.

the friends:
always look forward to fridays now, not just cuz its the end of the wk but also cuz i get to hang out with sharon for a bit (even tho monday is our hangout day, we still take friday too). at night, saw the usual et crowd, which is always great. i think we're starting to slowly get closer. im not too sure about this bonding between like 40-50 ppl at softball games, its good and all, but i still preferthe intimate talks you can have with someone 1 on 1.
saturday, the usual softball crowd again, but at our game against united also ran into di, good to talk to her again, and also this guy irvin who we played with on a worship team a while ago. that was nice too. oh yeah, and boy midget from tc worship too. har har, good times. afternoon, got to hang out with joanne (yay), i'll explain later in the 'food' section :) at night, saw jliu who came by to pick up jonnyfranchise, great seeing him again.
sunday, picked up our friend wilson (from hk, goes to school in london) to go to church, good to hang out with him for a bit of the day. we're going to see badboys2 on tuesday (methinks) which should be good too. he goes back to hk on thursday.. at softball we also saw gizzy who just got back from her all inclusive (har) france trip, good to see her again and hang out just like old times. then we saw jliu again, great times (great mickeyd sundaes) and we met his two friends shaggy (sp?) and ada (methinks again) and got to see gdon which was nice. it really seemed like it was just like last year with all of us there hanging out at a park, fun stuff. he'll be heading back in a couple of weeks, but then hes gonna be working at cne (jux) so it'll be good, at least we can hang out at night after work.
today, got an unexpected e-card from jenbo, i was like, whaa, its not my bday! but then it was jux, it had this pig that you could make talk, haha good times. good talking pig times. thanks buddy!

the food:
i'll go straight to saturday: after our softball exhibition, dave, jon and i went to joanne's house to meet sharon and stella, and bman came later, and we all embarked on the cooking extravaganza of a lifetime (or somethign like that) thats right. 7 hours. 16 dollars. 13 dishes. oh baby oh baby oh baby. joanne taught us how to cook so much stuff. like silky chicken, chicken and beef terriyaki, 4 kinds of pasta (oh baby pasta), and pastry stuff like pizza and deserts and all this jazz. oh man. oh man. so yummy. so much fun cooking. i actually feel comfortable cooking for myself next year. and the food was like hero food. tasted so good. and pretty easy to make. oh man. such a fun day. i never knew cooking could be so fun. some of the lions came over after their game and we cooked for them, and that was fun too! and stella and sharon made tarts for church on sunday. ooh those were some good tarts, ppl were eating em up. mmm. okay now im all hungry. crap. oh well. i suppose i should get back to work and wait til lunch.

later days :)

one thing

so lately i spose i've had a full plate, tons of things to do, lots on my mind, not really putting my all into any one thing specifically, but kinda getting my feet wet everywhere, trying to satisfy everyone. i guess i kinda came to the realization that this just wasnt real, that it seemed that most of it was going through the motions rather than anything with true substance. so as i sat thinking, this concept of one thing came into my mind. if you remember, mary and martha had jesus over at their house, and martha was scrambling around trying to make preparations and get everything ready. mary, on the other hand, was doing nothing, simply sitting at jesus' feet - so martha (slightly annoyed) tells jesus to reprimand her sister. jesus simply replies, you're worried about so many things, but only one thing is needed (or necessary).
so thus, there is perhaps a time when we will come to realize that the secret to life is one thing. not trying to scramble around and balancing the different areas of your life, but rather, one thing. what is that thing? simply Jesus. all of him, and always him. nothing is more important than sitting at the feet of Jesus.

the ninety and nine

There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold.
But one was out on the hills away,
Far off from the gates of gold.
Away on the mountains wild and bare.
Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.

“Lord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine;
Are they not enough for Thee?”
But the Shepherd made answer: “This of Mine
Has wandered away from Me;
And although the road be rough and steep,
I go to the desert to find My sheep."

But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed;
Nor how dark was the night the Lord passed through
Ere He found His sheep that was lost.
Out in the desert He heard its cry,
Sick and helpless and ready to die.

“Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way
That mark out the mountain’s track?”
“They were shed for one who had gone astray
Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.”
“Lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torn?”
“They are pierced tonight by many a thorn."

And all through the mountains, thunder riven
And up from the rocky steep,
There arose a glad cry to the gate of heaven,
“Rejoice! I have found My sheep!”
And the angels echoed around the throne,
“Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!"


thank you Jesus, for coming to rescue this one.

wknd:
fri - i actually felt like working for once (great!) and kept myself busy most of the day. got off at noon and went home, then went over to sharons to hang out for a bit. got back home around 5:30, ate dinner, went to fellowship. bible study was very good - norm's a really good leader. then went to micky d's with everyone, then home (considerably) early. gamed with little liu til 2:30. :P
sat - woke up early (i can never sleep in anymore) and bummed around til softball. softball was fun, first game was a shutout, 2nd we won by 1 run (very intense) thanks to all who came out to cheer us on, luckily the rain held off long enough for us to play. afterwards, went to eat at metro food court. we saw this girl playing piano and singing, and her name was moulann. so we're on the top balcony watching her, and all of a sudden dan leans over and yells 'you're not mulan! mulan's a cartoon!' really really loud. oh man. quite hilarious, but quite embarassing. good times. we hung around metro for a while, then we all went back to our place to hang around, and of course, played some mafia. mafia was pretty mellow this time, mainly cuz us moderators played a little trick on them (teehee) which was quite enjoyable. everyone left around 12:00, good! :)
sun - church! alex came today (but i gave him really bad directions so he was late) and service was pretty good, tim had a good sermon, made me think (always good). then after church alex and i went to surprise josh at his church (and to coax him into coming out to lunch with us), and we saw a bunch of old ncac ppl again (mindy, peetah) and even our friend jen from hamilton. so we went out to eat with josh and ppl and it was good to see him again. after that alex and i went to the lions game to hang out and play some hacky sack (and uhm, watch the game) so we did that for a while, then alex left, and sharon and i were leaving when we saw rani (great seeing her again) which was nice. then we went to the lumas game at hunstmill and again sacked (and err watched the game) and hung around there for a while. sharon went home after the first game, and i forgot to get my wallet and cough candy from her. argh! so after the game we went to dinner and i had to get moneys from james and other ppl. we went to pho and saw rani and andy (again) and after pho, went back home for another early night's sleep. greeeeeeeat.
overall - fun, tiring, good to see old friends again, and build relationships with newer ones.

Aside: time well spent

this past week i've gotten the chance to have some great talks with some great friends:
sharon, josh, alex, jenbo, leo, jliu - i thank God for all of you. may i return the friendship you've shown towards me.

In 1991, Derek Redmond, Great Britain's best runner in the Men's 400 Meter event broke his own record (set in 1987) by 1/100th of a second. It was a National record that he held going into the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. Derek's life goal was to win a Gold Medal in these games. The day came for the semi-finals in the 400 meters and Derek knew this would be the race of his life. Up against the world's best runners, he knew that he had to do his best.

When the gun sounded Derek got off to a great start. Then tragically, the right hamstring tore in his leg, sending him tumbling to the track surface before a packed stadium and a worldwide audience watching on television. Paramedics rushed to assist him as he lay writhing in pain on the ground. For most runners the race would have ended there. But not for Derek Redmond. Derek, in agony struggled to his feet and immediately felt the pain of the torn muscled surge through his body. Then, unexpectedly he began hopping crazily toward the finish line. As the paramedics approached him, he waved them off, grimacing in tears. The stunned crowd could not believe what they were seeing.

Then the drama took a new twist. A man in a cap and t-shirt bound out of the stands. Security guards tried to stop him, but the large man flung them out of his way. He went straight for Derek. Approaching his son, Jim Redmond put his arm around the hoping runner and said, "Son, you don't have to do this!" "Yes, I do, Dad," Derek replied, fighting through the tears and agony.

"Then we'll finish this thing together," the father said.

And that's what the two men did. "Keep me in Lane 5!" Derek shouted, as the crowd rose to its feet. Derek's father did just that. With Derek's head buried in his father's shoulder, the two men made it to the finish line. The audience cheered and cried as they gave them a standing ovation.


Similarly, the Christian life is a race, and there will be times when you fall down. if you are determined to get back on your feet, know that your heavenly father will be there to wrap his arms around you and help you finish the race, together.

so i guess it's that time of the week when i should blog again. this last week has been fairly busy - maybe not intense stuff everyday, but keeping busy day to day. let's see, where to start...

07.04: got off work at 12:30, the usual for a friday. went back uptown and while i was on the bus, ran into an old chum from high school. it was nice to see hes doing well and enjoying his university experience as well. james picked me up at warden & steeles, then we went to go run some errands (aka fix the big bubble on our tire) unfortunately, we didnt have all the right papers with us so the mechanic sent us away (big surprise) *tangent: i dont think there's any occupation that i disrespect any more than mechanics. this is a generalized biased comment, based mostly on personal experiences with mechanics, so please, if you're aspiring to be a mechanic, let me know. i'd love to meet one good honest mechanic before i die.* anyways, then we went to markville so james could get some softball socks, and we walked around looking for other stuff, but there wasnt much there. so we left to go buy potatoes (only $.99 per bag) and went over to sharons house to make mashed potatoes for pot luck at fellowship that night. welps, we started playing mario tennis and didnt really end up doing much about the potatoes. we DID wash, peel, and cut them, if that counts for anything. but then auntie rose took over and did the rest for us. haha cuz we're so lame :) but oh well, mario tennis is too much fun to pass over. i love waluigi. but he cant do the cheap quickie serve like yoshi or any of the other faster characters. haha so great. so we were playing that for a while (try 4 hrs) and then alli and bri came over to pick us all up to go to church. i was sposed to play for prayer meeting and i got there like 3 minutes late and they'd already sorta started (an overhead was up) but then norm saw me and was like, oh good, we can do real songs now! har har. so i played for that (pretty poorly i must say) *tangent2: my guitar skills have deteriorated so badly these past few months. more on this later* and then all us uni kids went to b's house for the pot luck, which was fun. lots of good food, followed by a few of arnold's catch lines from kindergarten cop (im a cop you idiot!), then karaoke in the basement (sharon and jo with a 95 rating), then some of us went to dunk on b's lowered net (brian had a nasty jacknife dunk - just sick), then back in for karaoke and a rousing rendition of old man river from b. all in all a fun night, though very tiring.

07.05: didnt go to basketball in the morning - just too tired. couldnt sleep much that night either, too pumped for softball. anyways killed time in the morning (forgot what i did) then went to softball at 1 for a doubleheader from 2-6. it was pretty fun, i didnt play too poorly, so that was good. i did my first devo about God stretching us to see if he can trust us or not, citing Abraham as an example. the games were fun - especially against the messengers.. those peeps are very fun and encouraging. thanks to all the fans for coming to cheer us on. after the game we all went to pho (like 25 of us) and then loitered in the parking lot for about 45 mins, before finally deciding to go to eugene's. we got there, then some of us (older kiddos) decided why not get a couple of brewskys. so we went to the beer store with some of the guys - a truly hilarious ride. got backto euge's house, hung around and ended up playing mafia, very fun (i didnt play though, moderated). i could see a lot of barriers and walls being broken and the fellowship amongst the teams was starting to grow. made me really happy. again, got home quite late.

07.06: church nice and early, especially cuz i was on worship team. in keeping with my personal goal of getting better at electric, i played elec instead of the usual acoustic. it started out okay, but got pretty bad. by the response song after the message, i was so unbelievably out of tune *tangent2b: again, i really need to stop playing from now on. its just getting ugly out there* anyways, after church i signed this petition against the same-sex marriage thing.. perhaps more thoughts on this later too. oh, and signed up for summer conference as well (james and i took the last two spots) then james and i had to jet for lunch with our grandparents. and that was simply a blessing for us. it was a great time, just getting to sit down with them and talk to them, but more importantly, listen. great time. so after that we dropped them back off, and met up with everyone else at scarbtown where they were eating. some of them went to go buy stuff for the bbq later, while edmund, carter, jin and i hung around and walked around various shops and had some ice cream. fun time just hanging out. we met back up with them later and went to glamorgan (i think) to watch the lumas play their game. we could only manage 1 inning before we left, however, for our own 6 o clock game with the paladins at wigmore. that was definitely a learning experience. hard fought game, and they came away with the win. definitely a good team, but more importantly we learned a lot about ourselves as a team. hard to say, but im glad we lost - and learned. anyways, after that we bbq'd it up at wigmore, resulting in a run-in with a fire truck and a police car. oh the joys of softball :) anyways tim and jo also showed up, which i thought was very good, just to encourage the unity amongst everyone there and the church as a whole. got home not too late that night, also good.

07.07: work, nothing much to do on mondays around here. but that was okay, managed to find SOME stuff to do at least. after work, bussed back and had james get me again, went home to dinner with bri, jo, and alli. then i went to get sharon for our weekly monday date and we had a great time at chapters just sitting on the floor in the kids section reading books. her with harry potter, me with my zits comic. great times. very relaxing, just a welcome change from all the craziness of softball that weekend. very fun. then we went back to my place to meet up with everyone else (plus will) and watched for love or money. the ending was a bit dissapointing i must say, he picked the wrong girl, she screwed him over by picking the money, then screwed herself over by betting it all again. even more dissapointing, however, is the fact that i will most likely, similarly to sharon, be sucked into watching the next however many episodes. ai ya. please, tsn, global, anybody, save me from this show.

07.08: work work, early in the morning. lots of stuff to do yesterday, kept pretty busy, which is good. after work, went home for not even two minutes, just to change into softball gear, and then out the door to softball! lotta people showed yesterday (again from all 3 etcbc teams), and even jordan! (he even made a hero diving catch during this drill we were doing) it was good to see so many ppl out there. afterwards, most of them went out to see a movie, but i didnt really wanna get home so late so i went home a little early. pegs drove me home, and i commented how it was the first time i think shes ever driven me home, and how she was growing up. then i kinda realized we all were (and are). got home, gave sharon a ring, ate soem dinner, watched a bit of tv, took a nice shower, and went to sleep. great.

07.09: work again, here i am, got in at 7:50(ish) and now its 10:00, still haven't done any real work. i know if i finish it i'll run out of stuff to do, so im taking my sweet time. doesnt seem like anyone really cares either, many ppl have walked by and seen my blogging or surfing. haha :) good times. anyways, thats about it for now. things im looking forward to the rest of the week? a. seeing sharon on friday b. softball on saturday c. chilling with alex on sunday d. perhaps another blog from rani?!? (thanks for finally blogging, its about time!)

thanks for reading, til next time!

things i like:

tennis
tennessee
tendonitis
the three tenors
tenrens
tenderloin

ten, dix, diez, zehn, dieci, no matter how you say it, its been a great 10 months with you.

ahhh, the joys of extended weekends. welps, camping was definitely an enjoyable time - got a chance to get to know some ppl a lot better, experience lots of laughs as well as lots of genuine fellowship. i think we've got a very special group of ppl there, and who knows, God just may have some amazing things in store for us.

anyways, heres a quick run-down of my top 5 camp moments:

5. campfire sharing

4. football

3. ken's (multiple) crappers.

2. fellowshipping under the trees, at the beach, etc.

1. dancing, sliding, and singing in the rain.

tuesday we had a fun day as well, starting with softball with our fellow etcbc'ers, followed by football/frisbee and a bbq at eugene's house. i truly believe that the entire softball ministry only works on fellowship, and usually fellowship outside of softball. the game itself, practises, mixers, even devos - these truly don't make the ministry work. the only way it will be effective is if you fellowship with your team outside of the game. just my two cents.

today, im back at work. it actually isnt so bad. ive been doing a lot of work (kept quite busy), but obviously i still have time to read up on my espn page 2 articles and definitely to catch the latest strongbad. yippee :P as 'fun' as work is right now, i still can't wait for the weekend. our season starts with 3 games this weekend, 2 home ones. oi vey. i've *sorta* got my devos ready, so it'll be okay.

lastly, some quick prayer items (probably more for me to remember than for you):

- sharon starts her new job today. i know she'll be fine, but still, prayer never hurt.
- leo on missions, left yesterday.
- all the people i got sick at camp :)