Tough Week!

Good evening everyone! It is 11:40 pm on Sunday night here in France. I am about to call it a night, but could not do so until I posted the blog for this week. As I look back over this week, the title of this post is quite appropriate. Basketball is a great game. I love it like no other, but I realize that things may not always go my way! I do know, however, that even in defeat there is a valuable lesson learned. Ok, enough small talk...let's get into this episode of the life of J.J. Miller
So, I know that most people reading this blog probably thought that I would only be talking about the high life that I live. The good things like winning awards, getting money, fame, etc. Unfortunately, my life is not all peaches and cream so that means that this blog will not be all peaches and cream! Now don't get me wrong I am extremely blessed. I am just saying that I am just as susceptible to tough times as anyone else is. Why am I saying this you ask? Well, I have been talking a lot these last few weeks about how good preseason has been going and how well we have been doing as a team. This past weekend we visited Belgium to play a couple of teams that were in the league that I played in last season. Now before the trip if you asked me how I thought the outcome might be, I would have without a doubt told you that we were going to get 2 victories and come back home. Unfortunately, I would have been dead wrong, lol!! Not only did we lose, we got smashed!! Not once, but twice!! For whatever reason we just could not get it together as a team! The teams that we played were decent teams, but with the talent that we have here in Le Havre there is no way that we should be getting beat the way we did this past weekend. All i can say is that we have some serious work to do!!
Work that I looking forward to putting in next week. We went hard last week there is no doubt about that! I recall on last Tuesday being extremely tired when i got back home after our second team practice. It was actually the third practice for me because I had to take a routine bike test/stress test. Stress test is a good name for it because it got pretty stressful towards the end of the test, lol. They put me on a bike with all kinds of cords attached to my chest and back to monitor my heart rate. What the doctors are trying to do is push you as hard as they can to see how much stress your heart can take! Well i think my heart can take too much stress, haha! I was on the bike for longer than the doctors expected me to be. This sounds good, and it is from a medical standpoint! However, I was EXHAUSTED and I still had another practice to go! Let's just say that I am done with the tests for this season, lol!
On another note, I was noticing some things on the bus as we traveled back to France! Things have changed so much from when I first turned pro in 2001! I mean it has almost been a decade in the game for me which is a blessing in itself (Thank God). I remember when i first came overseas to play. The bus rides were one of the worst things about the season. I mean we're talking long trips on slow buses with small seats, no air condition, and loud engines! Now we are traveling in what seems to be first class buses with spacious recliner seats, air condition, and t.v screens in case we need or want to watch a video. I mean looking around the bus, it was almost like I was in a portable best buy, lol. My teammates and I had DVD players, Play Station Portables, Video ipods, Blackberries, Iphones, Entertainment Notebooks, Macs, PCs and more. The two and a half day trip in which we spent what seemed like most of the time on the bus was absolutely painless! The morale of this little paragraph is basically that I/we have come a long way! I could not help but think how great my life is now and how far God has brought me! Sometimes we need to take time to look at where we are, how far we've come, and think about where we could have been! I know we are all busy and believe it or not that is a good thing, but take some time this week to look at where you are. Is it where you want to be? If so great! If not, why not? Either way I encourage you to get with God on whatever circumstances you are in because he knows how to handle any situation! Take care, thanks for checking out the blog, and as always remember to EXCEED EXPECTATIONS!