The NBA is not as far along as the NHL, having started a little later. Having said that, three of the four winners in the East have been determined: Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and Boston Celtics(the 1, 2 and 3 top seeds, respectively). They're waiting on the 4th series to be decided: Orlando Magic (4th seed) vs. Atlanta Hawks (5th seed). Atlanta is actually up on the Magic, 3 to 2, so Orlando needs to win out if they're to move on. In the West, every matchup has a team that is on the brink of moving on to the 2nd round. The Lakers and Hornets have Kobe and co. up 3 to 2; Oklahoma City and Denver have OKC up, 3-1 (Game 5 is being played right now; it's at halftime, tied at 50); Dallas and Portland are sitting with Dallas up one, 3-2, and Memphis and San Antonio are sitting at 3-1, with Memphis surprisingly up in the series. It's funny, because San Antonio have been far and away the no. 1 team in the NBA this season, and now they're choking...to the Memphis Grizzlies, a team that had (before this series) never won a playoff game in their existence, and the 8th seed, to boot. It's crazy! I'm kind of rooting for the Grizzlies...because, I honestly doubt any of the other teams in the West can stop OKC when it comes to team basketball, other than the Lakers. Again, months ago, I predicted Lakers/Heat to be the Finals, and while both teams have given up shaky performances these past few weeks, I think that's still possible, so I'm going to run with that. Ah well. I love basketball...nothing quite like the thrill of watching someone like Ray Allen sink the go-ahead shot with no time left on the clock, or watching someone like Dwayne Wade throw down the nastiest dunk on someone's face. D-Wade and Ray Allen are probably my two favourite individual players, even though they're not on the Raptors....man, I wish. Still, one of my favourite moments in basketball EVER is this dunk right here: D-Wade absolutely destroying Anderson Varejao last year. Not only do I love Wade, but I also fairly dislike Varejao, so it was the best of both worlds. Soooooo goooood.
Another reason I mentioned home wasn't for sports. As many (all) of you know, I live in Scarborough. I will readily admit to most people, Scarborough is somewhat of a rough neighbourhood. I feel it gets a bad rap sometimes, I mean, sure, I've seen a few violent things happen, and yes, I've been involved in a FEW negative things (not my fault! Just wrong place at the wrong time), but still. It's pretty nice where *I* live, and a lot of neighbourhoods, if not all of them, have their rough parts. I mean, heck, on my street, there's old people, and then older people. There's perhaps one or two families on my entire street that have kids my age, and I never really see them anyway. Still, Scarborough is awesome. I was walking through the mall today, Scarborough Town Centre, and I realized that if I were ever to move away from this place, I would miss it terribly. Scartown is probably one of the few places I have ever seen such a huge amount of diversity; just walking through the mall, I saw as many different races and religions that I could name. People from every part of the world, walking and talking, mingling...it's strange, but I feel very at home in a place like that. I doubt very many other places have such an outpouring of diversity; goodness knows that while UofT is diverse, I often do not see a LOT of it at Vic. Heck, on VUSAC next year, of the elected people thus far, apart from myself and ONE other guy, everyone there is white. Exec? Apart from myself and ONE other girl, everyone there is white. I'm not complaining, not even a little bit, don't get me wrong...most of the people on next year's VUSAC I am friends with, and ALL of the people on next year's (this year's, I guess) exec I am friends with, so, I mean, it's not something that I dislike.
It's just that, having lived nearly my entire life in Scarborough, I've gotten used to seeing such a huge range of humans being around me, that I think I've come to just expect it. I'm not going to say I've traveled THAT much, but I've driven from Toronto to Orlando with my family more than a few times...our routes have taken us through the southern USA, which, let's face it, is not exactly diverse. Indeed, there were times where we were getting out of the car in a place like Kentucky or Georgia, to fill up on gas/food, and I'd feel as if people were legitimately stopping to stare, as if they had never seen someone who wasn't white before. They probably hadn't, but still, it was weird. I could never live in a place like that, and honestly, I could never really live in a place that wasn't like Scarborough, a place where there were several races and religions. Toronto in general is great for that, but I notice it way more here in Scarborough. I could also never really live in a country area; I think I'll be living in cities (or at least very close to a city) for my entire life. I can't stand being out in the open...I feel as if I have nothing to do. Even if I'm just IN a city, I feel as if there are more options open to me, and I don't feel as if I'm stranded out in the middle of nowhere.
But, those are decisions I have yet to make, and decisions I probably won't make for several years to come. After university is when I have to decide where I'm going to live...and that's still a year or two away from now, SO, I guess we'll put that on the backburner for now. Wooooo hockey and basketball (Game 5 of Memphis/San Antonio just went to OT, soooo, gonna go watch that! w00t)!
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