Today was amazing for a bunch of reasons. First and foremost would have to be that a non-Christian gospel choir member came to church today for the first time, and became a Christian after the service. Absolutely amazing. It wasn't a "special Sunday service." The only thing that made it "special" was that we had communion today. But in Japanese Christian churches, communion is almost always done on the first Sunday of the month. It's a regular, calculated time. Amazing. That's really all I can say.
So, after everything... I come back to my apartment, turn on the computer, get AIM running, and almost immediately I get three people IM'ing me about Cal football. Hey, it's the beginning of the college football season. Of course, all three people are Cal alum, but our football program is far from being our pride and joy. I mean, most people in the nation don't even know that Cal has a D-1 football program. And there's a reason for that. I was a season football ticket holder for all four years of my learning at the institution. Being a season ticket holder, I got to see all the home games and the game against Stanford. As far as I can remember, that meant 7 games a year. That's a total possibility of 28 games over 4 years. I missed a few games because of school stuff, but i went to most of the games. I know for a fact that I can count the total number of football wins I've seen as a Cal student on both hands. My problem is knowing whether or not I can count it on one hand. I don't have freak hands. I'm a normal person... well, in this way. I have 5 fingers on each hand like most people out there. 4 years!
Why I kept buying season tickets is beyond me. It's one of those inexplainable things. Actually, come to think about it, I bought em thinking in a "just in case" mode. Not just in case Cal makes it to a bowl that year, because that would be beyond possibility. It was always, just in case Cal beat Stanford that year. And of course, I was thoroughly disappointed every year. Hmm... no that's not true. Half of the reason was "just in case." The other half was because it was fun to go. True, more often than not, we lost. And that's not fun. But student seats are on the 50 yard line! And it was absolutely fun heckling our own team when the score got really ugly. It was so easy. "Bring out the defense... we need to score." "4th and goal, go for it... our place kicker can't kick it in from 20 yards." "Hey, don't you get 7 points if your place kicker hits the goal post more than once in a game?" "Lemme guess, screen pass to Bobby Shaw... whaddya know, I got it right. (Repeat)" "(Referee announces an offensive penalty on the opposing team) Roll on you bears!" "Hey Vedder, didn't you see the safety covering him?... I guess its hard to when you can't see over your line!" The list goes on... I guess you'd have to be a Cal student during those painful 4 years from 1997 til 2000 to understand the humor and how true these statements were. When that got boring, there were always the "mic-men" to heckle... the guys who were in charge of leading the student section in cheers. Often, that was even easier than the team. Good times...
So, when I got 3 people IM'ing me about Cal football, I braced myself for the worst. Needless to say, i was very pleasantly surprised.
Well, if you don't know how Cal's football season started this year, here's the ESPN.com game recap link. Somebody should go check the temperature in hell. Cuz i think it just froze over.