Anything cOuld happen

(Editor's Note: I'm still planning on posting my Orientation highs, which will go into much further detail than just this, so consider this the prelude to the finale of Orientation blog posts.)

The amount of fun that I've had with this Peer Mentor Team over the past ten days has been absolutely unmatched. I don't know what it is about this particular team - maybe the people themselves, the partnerships, the general cohesiveness of the team...whatever it was, I don't think that I've laughed so hard to the point of tears that many times in two weeks, ever. I've never had as much fun outside of Spoco welcoming students, or inside Spoco for the opening of Playfair. Periods of time like that ("rooms," if you will) are what confirm the notion I have that no one loves Stonehill more than the people who are here. Between the random dancing and dance parties, team meetings, hanging out, and everything else that encompasses Orientation, it has been an absolutely fantastic ten days. I owe it to every single person of the team, and everyone that has gone through this experience together. I couldn't have asked for a better team to close out on, and the Class of 2017 could not be in better hands. Thank you PM Team for being not only what the incoming first-years need, but for being what we need too.

The final countdOwn, pt. 2

What am I even supposed to say about Orientation at this point? For the first time ever, it actually feels like I've done this before. And this is the fifth Orientation group/session I've had as a PM. Which is weird, because I would have totally expected this to happen by now. This isn't to say that this year doesn't feel new in any way at all - this is obviously a different team, with different mentees, and pretty much a different everything. That's the beauty of doing this over and over, that you get to experience it in such a different way.

Ah, experience. That's something that I might want to talk about in further detail at a later date, but the diversity of experience is what I think is the most kind of diversity. We talk about lots of kinds, but everyone goes through a different path to where they are right now, and where you are right now is different from where anyone else is right now.

It hasn't hit me yet that I have one more Orientation session remaining. And maybe it won't, and maybe that's fine. What I can say is that I feel as though I kinda have everything down - how I want group times to go, how I want to answer certain questions...hell, I even finally have an "I Am" poem that I want to stick with. I definitely feel like a third-year, but in the "get everyone else involved" role, instead of just looking at the end. That's something that I think I've done this year, really be in the moment as far as whatever is concerned.

As a completely different aside, I REALLY want to go see Explosions in the Sky. They're coming to New England in August -- not really anywhere close, but perhaps within reasonable distance. I just really want to see them. They make everything better. Here is "Postcard from 1952," because it's an amazing song.

The final countdOwn

It's weird, this whole "this is your last Orientation" thing. What's different about this year is that I absolutely know that it's my last Orientation (and year at Stonehill, for that matter), and for the first time, I'm heading into Orientation with the end already in sight. Not sure what that means, but it's there. If anything, I think there will be this sense of a need of closure, a resounding finale to my Orientation career. I get the feeling that almost every third-year has gone through this, so I know I'm in good company, but I haven't gone through it. Thus the weirdness.

In many ways, I'm starting this Orientation the same way I started my first. Bearded and excited about the Bruins. That's about it, actually. After two years of this, I finally think I know how to prepare myself for a successful Orientation. But there's no preparing for how Orientation is going to feel. Hell, I already wrote "Goodbye, cruel world" on June 28th of my calendar, the night of Cryfest The Celebration of the Peer Mentor Team (henceforth known as "Celebration"). I have the feeling that the next ten/eleven days will be its own Celebration, almost like a victory tour of sorts.

I wish I had more to say about this, but I'll let the next ten/eleven days do the talking. I remember at last year's Cryfest Celebration saying that Orientation was like one giant Playfair. You just can't describe what it's like. I'm pretty sure that's still true now, and if it is, this Orientation will be just like each of the five Playfairs I've been a part of - amazing, incredibly in-the-moment, and something you'll never really be able to explain.

My favorite thing about Stonehill

I'm not sure why it took me three years to realize this, although perhaps that's how this sort of thing works. While I was giving a (fantastic) tour on Friday, I was talking about the chapel and how we love to do service here, and how no one's really going to get in your way as far as religion goes. And then I realized that this is pretty much true across everything here. This community is incredibly supportive of everything that people do well, whatever it may be. If you want to volunteer your time with Into the Streets, or other forms of service, we're all behind you on that. If your thing is academics, and you do all of this fantastic work in your field, that's awesome too. If you help an athletic team achieve success, we'll come out and cheer you on. Whether it's any of these things, or SGA, student leadership...you'll have support. Anything that you do well will be praised, and you won't be asked why you aren't doing other things. I get the sense that we're okay with athletes doing their thing, because that's what they do. If all you do is volunteer, then that's cool, because that's what you do. Do what you do well, and you will have the support of the entire community. Whatever your cup of tea is, no one's going to tell you that it's right or wrong. And I think that the best part about Stonehill is that it absolutely creates and facilitates an environment where all of this can happen - there are incredible opportunities here, and plenty of ways where you can find out exactly what it is you do. So there you have it. We are the best at letting you do what you do, because everyone is doing something to give back to the community that treats us so well as students.

A beautiful campus never hurt anyone, either.

The wall of 8.5"x11"

One of the best college decisions I ever made, right up there with getting a Razor scooter, was the wall of 8.5"x11". It was essentially a collection of great pictures; pictures that tell a story, represent something awesome, or are just hilarious. Only nine pictures strong at its inception, I built upon it. When I got the idea to blog about this, I envisioned the post being much longer, talking about each picture, but I'll just leave the "Original Nine" picture here for you to enjoy.

10 ways LOST would have been very different

(Editor's Note: There is a horrible amount of spoilers in this post.)

Lost, for those who watched it, had many twists and turns. So many twists and turns that it kinda didn't make sense after a while. And then really didn't make sense. And then everything we thought we knew about everything was wrong. But what if some things were different?

1. What if the plane didn't crash?
Yes, this seems to be the most obvious, but think about what Desmond did to bring the plane to the island. (That is, if you prefer electromagnetism to Jacob.) Left the hatch to go find out what Kelvin was doing, and failed to get back in time before everything went crazy. If the plane doesn't crash, well....there isn't really a show, is there?

2. What if they killed Henry Gale?
Henry Gale, later known as Ben Linus, ended up being the evil-but-then-good-but-always-might-have-been-evil leader of The Others/The Good Guys/Team Jacob. He killed many people at many different times. With no Ben, what becomes of the Others?

3. What if they never blew up the hatch?
See Question 1. Everything kind of just moves along as it was. Desmond keeps pressing the button, the Losties keep hanging out on the beach and in the caves...alas...

4. Or the Hydrogen bomb?
What is it with these people and blowing things up? There was huge debate midway through Season 6 that the detonation of the bomb either created the entire timeline of events that ended up being Lost, that it was the "incident" to which Dharma referred to, that it created this separate timeline of events that was a sideways flash but still somehow ended up being Lost.....

5. What if it was Penny's boat?
In perhaps one of the most recognizable images for Lost fans, the boat that could have saved everyone ended up being the boat that was going to ultimately kill every living person on the island. Which, depending who you ask, happened anyway.

6. What if Ajira 316 never makes it to the island?
In another episode of the parallel universe theory, Ajira 316 was the reason that everybody who left the island came back, thanks to Faraday's mom, Ben's work on the mainland, and probably magic. But what if it wasn't perfect? The plane never crashes on the island, and the last scene with everything in the church together becomes people wondering where the hell everyone else went. Seriously though, how many alternate realities were there in this show?

7. What if Jack jumped?
Going back to the flash forward timeline, Jack was this close to committing suicide in the next (future) life. If he succeeds, then who gets everyone back to the island? Does Jack serve the role of his father? (Oh, the hypothetical irony.)

8. What if Ben doesn't move the island?
In the true revealing of Ben's do-things-for-the-good-of-the-island, he moved the island, transporting himself to Tunisia. This was never really talked about, though...either that or I just forget what happened after. Probably because this was the last thing done before everything went absolutely bonkers on the show. This might have been the last thing that made sense. And even then, did it really?

9. What if they never went back?

I know that this was kind of talked about already, but I just wanted a plug for the most-recited line in Lost history.

10. What if the Losties did nothing?

Seriously, what if they did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING? What if they just kept to themselves, didn't fight the Others in an eternal battle, didn't get involved with the hatch, didn't fight Widmore's people in another eternal battle, didn't fight Man In Black and all of his pure evil? EVERYTHING WOULD BE OKAY. But where's the fun in that?

A suite deal

It seems only fitting that I title this post with as horrible a sports pun as they come. (Aside: I wonder if there is a list of the ten worst sports puns that ESPN has put out...) A couple of weeks ago, my dad and I spent a Red Sox game in the owners' suite. By owners, I mean the B-listers (that is, the guys right below John Henry, Larry Lucchino, and Tom Werner). But it was still absolutely tremendous. So we ended up on a tour of the ballpark, going through each of the five levels of Fenway. We saw the press room, the TV room, where all the sports writers sit to watch the game, certain Holy Grails of Red Sox history, got on the field...it was pretty much fantastic. I'll let the pictures on Facebook speak for themselves, but this is the little description of what story those pictures tell.

(Editor's Note:) Also, I might have cheated with some of the pictures. I bought a 99-cent Camera+ editing app for my phone, and it's totally awesome. I just have to learn to make edited pictures still look real...

Francona: The Red Sox Years

Well, I just finished Francona: The Red Sox Years, and it was certainly a different perspective from the one that Red Sox fans saw at the end of Terry Francona's tenure as manager. A lot of what was going on wasn't really surprising -- the tension between the manager and ownership, the GM (Theo Epstein) playing the intermediary between the two, and the eventual loss of unity in the clubhouse (see: chicken, beer). The biggest takeaway that I had from this book is how Terry Francona conducted his business in the clubhouse. He created an atmosphere that everything was going to stay inside the clubhouse, because that's what kept everyone together as a team. The whole chicken-and-beer thing didn't really bother Tito - it was the fact that it got out and spread across America, ultimately destroying the clubhouse and Tito's relationship with his players. It was a mentality, an understanding that was really similar to what Bill Belichick has done with the Patriots. For all of Belichick's successes in New England, Tito had just as many, and was just as good a leader. It wasn't Tito's fault that everything broke down - what it ultimately came to was the players, and when Bobby Valentine came in, there was nothing done to change it. If anything, Valentine's arrival to Fenway only exacerbated the current situation. Stuff like questioning Youkilis's physical and mental motivations, calling out Will Middlebrooks, and his jabs at Pedroia were simply a subset of the misery Valentine caused in 2012.

I'm glad that Francona is still revered in Red Sox Nation. He is one of the best managers in Red Sox history; he brought us two World Series rings, he was a player's manager (the book's words, not mine), and he brought a winning culture to a franchise that had been lacking one for decades. Leave it up to none other than Francona's pitching coach from 2007-2010, John Farrell, to be the guy to right the ship at Fenway. The Sox have gotten off to one of the best starts in baseball in 2013, and it can be attributed to the success of the manager and clubhouse chemistry between the players. These aren't Idiots; they're not the dominating offense of 2003 and 2004; they're not the up-and-coming pitching core of 2007. But damn it, they sure as hell seem to be back.

Metablogging, pt. 2

If there's one thing that I love, it's the prefix "meta" which means....well, I don't really know what it means. Self-referential is what I said in my first metablogging post. If there's another thing that I love, it's having multiple parts of something on my blog (Jam Band, Values Game, This I Believe, time, to name a few). So this is both of those things. While my first metablogging post was literally about the blog posts as an entity, this one is about what those blog posts actually consist of -- at least, nowadays. What I feel about my blog is that it's become this place where I just talk about really important stuff on a less-frequent basis that I used to talk about stuff. But like I said, this stuff now is more important, more meaningful in the grand scheme of all things blog-worthy. I'm not gonna come out with something lame and call it a day. I suppose that it's an okay thing to have meaningful stuff coming out of here, but in a way, it almost makes it seem that blogging is some exhausting task that I have to do every time something significant happens. For example, I'm definitely planning on blogging about Terry Francona's book once I finish it in the coming days. But that's something that I know I can get a solid blog post about, so I make sure to take care of it. And you can see it, too - everything is much more Facebook-status-worthy, and I post everything, but the most telling thing is that I have fewer posts each month. Which is what this all comes down to - less frequent posts, but with more depth to them. Maybe the form of the blog is changing a little bit. It's cool to rethink things and to reevaluate where I'm at and what I'm really doing with this blog, and it's something that I think is worth the internal struggle.