Quick recap

What did I do with the week I had off?

In no particular order:
Clean room - something I'd been planning to do for a while; basically making sure that I had all my appropriate files stored away into the appropriate drawers, threw away old receipts and other notes that were now obsolete, and the like.

Organize computer - spent some time more clearly defining where my important files were.

Re-organize worship songbook - consolidating to free up some sheet protectors.

Canaan worship schedule for next few months - uploaded to website.

Looking back at these first few items... I took a personality test a while back that indicated that I was very much a "J", or Judgement-oriented, meaning that I place a high emphasis on process, order, and the like. I can kinda see that coming out this week at work, and I guess it's exemplified by the fact that I intentionally took the time to do the two things above during my week off.

Mini-retreat - on Wed, I spent some time alone with God in Mountain View, praying, worshipping, journaling, taking a spiritual gifts survey, and basically enjoying Creation in the outdoors. I'll write more about this later, in connection with work observations.

Cleaned up email inbox and caught up with friends online and offline - thanks to all who I got to hang out with, who emailed or IMed, or who left comments here!

Played and watched basketball - my Spurs finally got over the hump with the Lakers. Gotta give credit where its due - the Lakers have been worthy champions the past three years. But this year, they didn't deserve it. They didn't take the regular season seriously. Nowhere is this more exemplified than the example Shaq set - purposely putting off surgery so he wouldn't have to go to training camp, not working out to stay in shape, making comments like "I got hurt on company time, so I'll recuperate on company time," repeated trash-talking about the rest of the league ("I'm still the Most Dominating Player. Write that down."), and basically thinking that he could flip on a switch at playoff time and dominate. I think it's better for the league that they didn't advance this year - you don't want to send the message that the regular season is pointless. If the team works hard and comes back to win next season, more power to them.

For now, I just want the Spurs to hit some free throws.

On another quick note, LeBron's going to Cleveland. Yawn.

Watched The Matrix Reloaded - not a bad movie overall. Some pros and cons:
Pros:
- Keanu looks more authentic when fighting now. First movie, he was laughably stiff.
- More nifty effects and action scenes. The Neo-vs-Agent Smiths scene and the chase down the freeway were both pretty cool. Particularly with Morpheus busting out the katana against the albino twins and going all samurai on their SUV.
- Intriguing plotline. I have some of my own thoughts and have discussed the substance of the movie with others, I'm too lazy to type them out in invisible font right now but if you wanna banter about it leave a comment or email me.

Cons
- Wasn't paced very well - speech-fight-speech-fight...
- The "rave" scene seemed pointless.
- No real tension in the combat, primarily because you know Neo is super-dude and can't lose... right?
- The plot exposition gets a bit long-winded. As my friend Shiun put it, Matrix 1 was about the nature of reality, Matrix 2 was about the importance of choice. The concepts in Matrix 1 (this world isn't real, wool pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth, etc.) were kinda neat and exciting. Matrix 2 gets rather metaphysical, and while it was pretty interesting for anyone willing to listen very very carefully, I can see how it would probably lose much of the audience just because it was so long-winded.
- Ended very abruptly.

I'll probably need to see it again to grasp more nuances.

Things I wanted to do during my week off that I didn't get to do:

Compile a master songlist - for a while now, I've been planning on creating a searchable database of worship songs to be used as a resource for myself and other worship leaders to select songs, based on song title, tempo, key, and topic. Haven't gotten around to it yet.

Watch Better Luck Tomorrow - maybe someday.

Do research on grad schools - Wanted to check more into the fields of bio/health informatics.

Laptop research - Probably going to get a laptop soon. Any suggestions?

Write a letter to my grandparents - I've never been very close with my grandparents, and the thought came to mind (the day I was laid off, incidentally) to write them a letter and ask my parents to translate it for them - if nothing else, to let them know that even though I don't know them very well, I'd like to say this is who I am, and I'd like to hear some stories of who they are and how they got to this point.

Various blogs - There are a variety of topics I've been planning on writing on for a while. Maybe someday I'll jot them all down here and let whatever few readers I have vote on which ones I should write about first.

Not a very organized post. Sorry, I'm a tad fried.

Oh yeah, a quote that Pastor Tim mentioned on Sunday that I enjoyed:
"As guys, sometimes we get into this macho mentality. We want to go where the danger is."

Strangely enough, as practical as I usually am, I can identify with this. Maybe I'll muse about it more later. For now, sleep.