Mixed Bag of Thoughts

First of all, Ramazan is here. It's the month when Muslims don't eat from sunup to sundown. This really doesn't affect me a whole lot. For starters, there are a lot of people that don't keep the fast here. All the cafes and restaurants are still open during the day and no one really thinks a whole lot about a foreigner chowing down. It's fairly obvious I'm not a local (see the Hawaiian shirt picture). The only pooper is that at night, if you go out, there will be people at the restaurants waiting for the go ahead to eat. It kind of forces you to wait too. So even though it's only an hour or so later than I'd normally eat, it is a little bit of a hassle.

On the positive side, I'm hoping that this month of heightened spirituality will spawn more discussions about sin and the need for repentance. That's what I'm praying for anyhow. There are a handful of people here that I have had the pleasure to spend significant amounts of time with and, therefore, share significant portions of the Gospel with them. It's really nice to hand someone a Bible who has more than likely never even seen one. It's also really humbling to know that without a miraculous work of the Spirit, they won't receive a word it says as truth. So I'm hoping the Spirit of the Lord will be moving in this place over the next few weeks and that I'll be faithful in my preaching of the gospel of the grace of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

I jammed my finger pretty good playing basketball this morning. It's already swelling and turning colors. I've avoided major injury since I've been here, and for that I'm very thankful. In fact, with the exception of Stevo going through the window, our whole team has been spared serious bodily harm over the past year. We've been sick and had colds, but no one has really gotten hurt. Praise God for that and pray for those that have been given a different cup to drink from.

It's nice to be in decent shape physically. I say decent because I have a long ways to go before I'm in "good" shape. I'm starting back up at the gym and hopefully getting on a running schedule soon. I want to be in good condition for life in general, but specifically for an ultimate tournament I've been invited to at the end of the month! I met some guys and gals from Istanbul that are taking a team to Germany to play in an ultimate tournament and I've been invited to join them. Not only is it going to be a great weekend to play some ultimate and hang out, it's really inspired me to try and get a game going here in town. Maybe the next time there's a tournament close by, I can take my own team.

And speaking of teams... HOW BOUT THEM TIGERS!?! 2-0 with two pretty solid performances. We dominated FSU in the first half and the defense stood strong to preserve the win for us in the end. Last week was a long scrimmage against University of Louisiana Monroe. Our offense was clicking a little better while our defense showed signs of fatigue and lack of emotion. This weeks opponent provides us with the same problems, and one that I never thought I'd see.

We're playing 1AA (I refuse to use the new names) Furman University. Furman is a wonderful little school that is only maybe 45 minutes from Clemson. It's really hard not to like them. Yeah, they're stuck up rich kids for the most part, but it's a Baptist college. It's hard to hate a school with a mascot like the Paladins, mainly because no one knows what a Paladin is. Plus, they've always kind of been like Clemson's younger brother. They're a solid 1AA team, and because of that, they have the support of most the state. But they're just not on the same level with us, and have always, and will always, take a backseat to us. I'm sure the defense will hold their own, but I would not be surprised if we come a little flat again. I don't see Furman being able to hang with us in the long run though. We will win, and win soundly, somewhere in the 55-20 range.

But the thing that really hurts my heart, that I never thought I'd have to worry about, ever, is this... there is a chance that both teams could come out in purple today. That's right, a few years ago the boys started mixing in purple jerseys and purple pants into the uniform rotation. It was, for the most part, bearable. However, last year, with GameDay on campus, on primetime ESPN, hoping to make a statement, we came out in this:


Now picture that on the field with these guys:


And what you have is the recipe for a full fledged technicolor disaster! But hopefully we'll be up big by the second half and we can get some of our backups some reps in a real, live game setting.