A wet and cold but good weekend

Days 36 to 39, 13th to 16th Mar 2009:

Friday the 13th. It has always been associated with a day of bad luck, at least according to superstition. Nothing much on this day. We just continued with training on the XPS database manager. We did get feedback on our presentation the previous day though, through a one on one interview with Francois. As i suspected, i was too fast as i used up only 9 minutes of the allocated 15. There were a few more areas i could improve on but otherwise it was alright. My field evaluation was also ok, thank God :)

As it turned out, it was also Lukasz' birthday. The Polish girls got him a huge bottle of bubbles (i don't really know what you call it, it's the soap liquid that you use to blow bubbles with) as a present it was quite fun actually. Later that night, we partied at his unit. The girls brought his birthday cake along with a birthday balloon. I left around 11.30pm as i was shutting down by then but i think some of the others stayed until past 12.

The birthday boy with his bottle of bubbles :)

Cutting the birthday cake at his apartment

Saturday, the day of the game between the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs finally arrived. It was a wet and cold day, like the 2 or 3 days before it. The weather was just right at the start of the week when it suddenly turned wet and cold around Wednesday i think, probably around 10-15 degrees Celcius and Saturday was no different. I woke up feeling like crap, with my stomach giving me problems and my whole body seeming to ache everywhere. I think it was a combination of the relatively small lunch i had the previous day, with the greasy pizza for dinner and the bacardi with 5% alcohol at the birthday party that did me in. I ended up going to the toilet a few times throughout the day.

Anyway, we were supposed to meet up with Alain in front of the Toyota Center by 6.40pm. All of the guys arrived early at 6pm (the girls had already left the apartments to go shopping after lunch). It was still drizzling and it was cold and there we were standing outside with no tickets to go in, brrrr... Finally, Francois arrived at 6.40pm with the tickets while i had to go to the toilet inside. We got in and some of us bought some souvenirs at the Team Shop. I ended up with both a red Rockets jersey and a cap.

The game started off a little slow but got more intense later as the teams were neck and neck though the Spurs did have the advantage. I shouted myself hoarse trying to cheer the Rockets on, ha ha. There weren't as many dunks as i would have liked to see but there were quite a few interesting events during the time-outs. I especially liked the one where the Rockets mascot threw cakes at 3 Spurs fans...it was hilarious but unfortunately i didn't catch it on camera as i was enjoying it too much. The night ended with a loss for the Rockets but it was still a good match and it was really fun.

The Rockets getting fired up

For a 3-pointer

On Sunday, i finally attended church again. I went with Omon, a fellow Georiser from Nigeria and we went to Lakewood Church. Now this is really what you call a mega church. The church building is the Compaq Center, which used to house sports teams like the Houston Rockets so you have an idea of how huge it is. According to Wikipedia, it can seat up to 16,000 people. Huge! It was interesting experience going there and it was also interesting to see about 3 or 4 people of which half of them (or maybe all) protesting against the church for what they perceive to be a fake church used to gain profit. One of the signs held by a protester read "Fakewood Church" and "Joel Wolfstein". I think we'll be going back there next week anyway.

Inside Lakewood Church

Later in the afternoon, i became a part-time driving instructor. Melanie had asked for my help to teach her to drive before she goes for the real driving course as she will be staying on in Houston for another 9 months after the rest of us leaves. Why? Just to save money, he he. If she can practice now, she won't have to spend so much on practising later on. Frankly speaking, i was a bit apprehensive and there were one or two times where she panicked a bit but overall, it was ok. Guys, please keep me in prayer for this ya :p

Not much to talk about today. It was about project management today and the most interesting part of it was when we were divided into three teams and given the task to build a house using some white cards, a pair of scissors and some magic tape and masking tape. The house had to have 2 floors and 2 ceilings, complete with a ridged roof and chimney. The first floor had to have 2 windows and 2 doors which could be opened and the second had to have 2 windows which could be opened. Another limitation was that the masking tape cannot be on the outside, meaning it must be taped on the insides. We were given 50 minutes to design and plan and only 5 minutes to build as many houses as we can. Two of the teams, including ours only managed 1 house while the other team managed to build 4. There's actually a lot more than what i'm telling here but i don't want to spoil the suprise, just in case any of you might actually go through it as well, ha ha. In any case, i learned a few things here, including the fact that i can be overbearing at times, ha ha. Quite an insightful revelation, that one :)