I wish there was a cool graph I could come up with to illustrate this, but it's an elusive image right now. There is one interesting data point that didn't make the actual data - the 2011 Red Sox. Back when the team was falling apart from within and completing one of the most monumental collapses in history, Adrian Gonzalez was saying that the team had too many night games on getaway days - days in which the team travels to another city - and that it was a lot to endure. (You can read more about it here.) This was coming from a player who was 29 at the time, enjoying a .338 batting average and 117 RBI. So I looked into it, and in 2011, the Red Sox were 21-12, good for a .636 win percentage, much higher than their .556 overall win percentage. I won't say that Gonzalez was making empty excuses, but it might have been a good idea to consult the stats before he made his remarks.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Rise and shine, there's baseball today
Well, now that I'm essentially out of things to blog about pertaining to Stonehill, I have to find something else to talk about. Good thing I still love messing around with baseball-reference.com! I wanted to see if there was any relationship between the average age of an MLB team, and their win percentage in day games played following a night game. The theory here being that older teams rest some of their older stars for said games (this can be said for banged-up players and catchers, too), and because the best players aren't out there, the games aren't being won. Unfortunately, I was horribly off. In 2013, the ten oldest teams (we're talking about exclusively hitters here - if a pitcher is scheduled to pitch a certain day, he's pitching that day) won 55.4% of their day games after a night game. On the other end of the spectrum, the ten youngest teams won 45.8% of their games, effectively reversing my hypothesis. The correlation between a team's average age and their difference in win percentages (that is, overall win % minus day-game-after-night-game win %) is 0.245, suggesting that if anything, the older your team is, the more likely you are to win these games. (Not by a significant amount, but it's still a positive correlation.)
I wish there was a cool graph I could come up with to illustrate this, but it's an elusive image right now. There is one interesting data point that didn't make the actual data - the 2011 Red Sox. Back when the team was falling apart from within and completing one of the most monumental collapses in history, Adrian Gonzalez was saying that the team had too many night games on getaway days - days in which the team travels to another city - and that it was a lot to endure. (You can read more about it here.) This was coming from a player who was 29 at the time, enjoying a .338 batting average and 117 RBI. So I looked into it, and in 2011, the Red Sox were 21-12, good for a .636 win percentage, much higher than their .556 overall win percentage. I won't say that Gonzalez was making empty excuses, but it might have been a good idea to consult the stats before he made his remarks.
I wish there was a cool graph I could come up with to illustrate this, but it's an elusive image right now. There is one interesting data point that didn't make the actual data - the 2011 Red Sox. Back when the team was falling apart from within and completing one of the most monumental collapses in history, Adrian Gonzalez was saying that the team had too many night games on getaway days - days in which the team travels to another city - and that it was a lot to endure. (You can read more about it here.) This was coming from a player who was 29 at the time, enjoying a .338 batting average and 117 RBI. So I looked into it, and in 2011, the Red Sox were 21-12, good for a .636 win percentage, much higher than their .556 overall win percentage. I won't say that Gonzalez was making empty excuses, but it might have been a good idea to consult the stats before he made his remarks.
Trace
Play this, then keep reading.
Do you hear that one note in the background, staying constant? It's going to be there for the next seven minutes, and is the idea behind this post. I tried to imagine this one note, and construe some mental representation of what it looked like, and I came up with a line, a rope of sorts. One thread that just kind of extends into infinity. I've always loved the musical structure of this one-note-persisting kind of thing, how it's omnipresent and never changing. After I visualized this line, I wanted to travel along it, and soon thereafter I came up with this idea that this line is my life. Just one, infinite string of everything that has ever happened to me, and everything that will ever happen to me. Not that I'm plugging determinism, but a little ways down the line, whatever food (if any) I decide to eat for breakfast tomorrow, that's along that line. How I react to whichever team ends up winning the Stanley Cup is along that line. How I die is along that line, and how I was born is along that line. This is one line out of an infinite number of possible lines that could have ended up as my life. But I have this one, and you have yours. One single thread to trace up and down, to look back at and to discover in the future.
Do you hear that one note in the background, staying constant? It's going to be there for the next seven minutes, and is the idea behind this post. I tried to imagine this one note, and construe some mental representation of what it looked like, and I came up with a line, a rope of sorts. One thread that just kind of extends into infinity. I've always loved the musical structure of this one-note-persisting kind of thing, how it's omnipresent and never changing. After I visualized this line, I wanted to travel along it, and soon thereafter I came up with this idea that this line is my life. Just one, infinite string of everything that has ever happened to me, and everything that will ever happen to me. Not that I'm plugging determinism, but a little ways down the line, whatever food (if any) I decide to eat for breakfast tomorrow, that's along that line. How I react to whichever team ends up winning the Stanley Cup is along that line. How I die is along that line, and how I was born is along that line. This is one line out of an infinite number of possible lines that could have ended up as my life. But I have this one, and you have yours. One single thread to trace up and down, to look back at and to discover in the future.
Monday, May 19, 2014
The only moment we were alone
Stonehill, you beautiful place, you.
Words cannot do justice for the amount of gratitude I have to have been able to experience four years of my life at such a place. But I have to use words, because I have nothing else at this moment. The extent to which I've looked back on my time at Stonehill is rather significant (here's a reminder, if you need one), and especially so for the interactions and relationships that I've had with people. I've been saying from day one that the people are what make this place special, and that never changed over four years. But one thing I never thought of were the moments that I shared with these people on an individual level. "The people at Stonehill" has always represented a group, almost an indescribable idea that you have to experience for yourself. Well, I have, and some of the most salient memories I have of Stonehill are with only one other person. Out of all the time I've spent with my friends, all the time I've been doing something-or-other at Stonehill, what stands out are the moments I was alone with someone. Talking about broken relationships at lunch. Trying to find out our place in this world, and if God has anything to do with it. Watching T.J. Oshie's shootout against Russia in the Olympics, forced to yell quietly so as not to disturb a sleeping suite. Sitting on the stone wall by O'Hara Pond at 3:30 a.m. Fearing for our lives about what people might hear us talk about from the top bunk to the bottom. Realizing that we lose people, but that we also continue on. Laying on the beach with an almost-full moon reflecting off the water. Making music in a soundproof studio. This is obviously not a comprehensive list, but these are some examples of times when I was alone with someone, learning about myself and them, about us and the world in which we live.
The people at Stonehill had so strong an impact on my life. So did the people who got me to Stonehill. Teachers who taught me a lot more than calculus or statistics or psychology or physics. Coaches who showed me the value of discipline and pride. Friends who brought an energy that I still feel many years later, one that I tried to bring to Stonehill with me. My family, who has wanted nothing but the best for me, always pushing me to go after what I want. Grandparents and great aunts and other relatives who always welcomed a phone call or surprise visit. Again, many others have a place here.
Even though people come in and out of our lives, and the value that certain people have in our lives changes from time to time, what remains transcendent of it all is the memory. Whether I see my Stonehill friends again in twelve hours, a week, or perhaps five years, I will always have the memories of our time at Stonehill, just as I have the memories of my time in high school. And the moments we were alone are what will be there every day. Think about your moments. Maybe even write them down, so you have them to look back on, so you can remember some of your most special times. Stonehill is a special place, but only because we made it.
Words cannot do justice for the amount of gratitude I have to have been able to experience four years of my life at such a place. But I have to use words, because I have nothing else at this moment. The extent to which I've looked back on my time at Stonehill is rather significant (here's a reminder, if you need one), and especially so for the interactions and relationships that I've had with people. I've been saying from day one that the people are what make this place special, and that never changed over four years. But one thing I never thought of were the moments that I shared with these people on an individual level. "The people at Stonehill" has always represented a group, almost an indescribable idea that you have to experience for yourself. Well, I have, and some of the most salient memories I have of Stonehill are with only one other person. Out of all the time I've spent with my friends, all the time I've been doing something-or-other at Stonehill, what stands out are the moments I was alone with someone. Talking about broken relationships at lunch. Trying to find out our place in this world, and if God has anything to do with it. Watching T.J. Oshie's shootout against Russia in the Olympics, forced to yell quietly so as not to disturb a sleeping suite. Sitting on the stone wall by O'Hara Pond at 3:30 a.m. Fearing for our lives about what people might hear us talk about from the top bunk to the bottom. Realizing that we lose people, but that we also continue on. Laying on the beach with an almost-full moon reflecting off the water. Making music in a soundproof studio. This is obviously not a comprehensive list, but these are some examples of times when I was alone with someone, learning about myself and them, about us and the world in which we live.
The people at Stonehill had so strong an impact on my life. So did the people who got me to Stonehill. Teachers who taught me a lot more than calculus or statistics or psychology or physics. Coaches who showed me the value of discipline and pride. Friends who brought an energy that I still feel many years later, one that I tried to bring to Stonehill with me. My family, who has wanted nothing but the best for me, always pushing me to go after what I want. Grandparents and great aunts and other relatives who always welcomed a phone call or surprise visit. Again, many others have a place here.
Even though people come in and out of our lives, and the value that certain people have in our lives changes from time to time, what remains transcendent of it all is the memory. Whether I see my Stonehill friends again in twelve hours, a week, or perhaps five years, I will always have the memories of our time at Stonehill, just as I have the memories of my time in high school. And the moments we were alone are what will be there every day. Think about your moments. Maybe even write them down, so you have them to look back on, so you can remember some of your most special times. Stonehill is a special place, but only because we made it.
 |
| One final memory that was shared with many, many people. |
Friday, May 9, 2014
Moving on
It currently stands at 1:59 p.m., Friday, May 9th, 2014. If you've read any of my end-of-a-Stonehill-year posts (see here, here, and here), you know that I've started off this post the same way I have each time I've done this. Similarly so, I'm listening to the same Lost music that I have each time. It's called "Moving On," and as such, serves as a perfect song to listen to for my last blog post from Stonehill. The weather isn't as nice as it was the first three times, but I can still hear the waterfall through my headphones, and the air is cool yet comfortable. This time tomorrow, I'll be in the Cape with all of my friends, ready to take on a week of who knows what before graduation and the end of our Stonehill careers.
Two years ago, I looked forward instead of looking backward. There isn't really much in terms of 'forward' at this point in time, and over the last few weeks, I've been reflective as much as I can. As much as I believe that we have control over our lives and what happens to us, there is still a hell of a lot that we don't get a say in. Who enters and leaves our lives is the most salient example of that. Forty-seven months ago, I was sitting in the Sports Complex listening to Father Cregan tell us how many months were left until the Class of 2014 graduates. I knew one person in that room who was going to Stonehill. I knew zero people in the other Orientation session who were going to Stonehill. There was absolutely no way I could have predicted who I would have become roommates with, who I would have shared a suite with, who I would have been in and out of a relationship with, who would hang out with us for the first two weeks of school and transfer three months later, who would slip through the cracks for one, two, or three years...there was no way I would have come close to predicting how my four years would have been here. All of that was out of my control, and by some sense of universal randomness, it worked out the way it did. And I believe that I wouldn't be the person I am right now if that randomness happened a different way.
I can see the room that I lived in freshman year from where I am. Whoever lives there now might not know it, but they'll probably look back at that room the same way I do three years later. The same way I look at my room in Villa from sophomore year, and my New Hall suite last year. One thing that I've learned this year is that you really aren't able to appreciate Stonehill until you're a senior. I mean really appreciate it. It's the littlest things, too. The day in the spring when all of the trees magically bloom. The Saturday of spring weekend where everyone is outside at the same time. Playing on the softball field during finals week. Crispy chicken wraps. So much of this year has been spent appreciating the fact that it was happening to us, that we had to appreciate crispy chicken wraps and being able to monopolize the laundry room and getting Hill food at 12:59 a.m. As much as I've been telling all my non-senior friends to start appreciating everything now while they can, I don't think they'll be able to until it's their senior year. Their time will come, just as it did for me and the rest of the Class of 2014, and every other senior class who has come through Stonehill. The people here are what make this place what it is, and it's because the people here understand how amazing Stonehill is, and that they do appreciate it as much as they can.
I've always wanted a week at Stonehill where everyone just gets to run around and play and have fun, with absolutely nothing restraining them - no exams, no papers, no deadlines. Just us and the campus, and to an extent, we've kind of made that happen anyway. Again, it might be a senior year thing, but the wheels fell off hard, which opened up a lot of free time to have as much fun as possible. Another thing that I've learned this year is that putting in a ton of time and effort is overrated. There's so much emphasis and value placed on succeeding and getting out of college with a job and a degree and a three-point-something GPA...all of that is important, don't get me wrong, but the amount of energy we expend attempting to achieve those standards is sometimes limiting from one of the most beneficial aspects of college, which is finding yourself. If you still have some time left in your college career, you might not believe me, but even if you step off the gas pedal in terms of academics, you'll still end up okay. You can get to where you want to be, and you'll have a lot more room to enjoy your time at college if you roll with the punches. The more time you leave for yourself, the happier you'll be and the more you'll come to learn about yourself and this wonderful universe we live in.
Then again, I can't exactly explain what I've found out about myself in the past 47 months. I can tell you what moments and events developed me as a person, like the first Values Game I had as a Peer Mentor, where I said a goal I had for college was exactly that - to develop as a person. Or each time I've come to this area of campus and tried to sum up a year at Stonehill in a few paragraphs. Or any of the late nights spent talking with friends. The last scene of Lost, which I've talked about before, involves Jack and his father talking about, well, everything, and I think that's a pretty perfect way to wrap all of this together in a neat, little bow. What they talk about parallels exactly what I feel about my time at Stonehill, and that's going to be the last thing I want to write about while I'm here. It's now 2:47 p.m., and still May 9th, 2014. I'm right where I want to be.
"This is the place that you all made together so that you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you."
"For what?"
"To remember...and to let go."
"Kate...she said we were leaving."
"Not leaving, no. Moving on."
Two years ago, I looked forward instead of looking backward. There isn't really much in terms of 'forward' at this point in time, and over the last few weeks, I've been reflective as much as I can. As much as I believe that we have control over our lives and what happens to us, there is still a hell of a lot that we don't get a say in. Who enters and leaves our lives is the most salient example of that. Forty-seven months ago, I was sitting in the Sports Complex listening to Father Cregan tell us how many months were left until the Class of 2014 graduates. I knew one person in that room who was going to Stonehill. I knew zero people in the other Orientation session who were going to Stonehill. There was absolutely no way I could have predicted who I would have become roommates with, who I would have shared a suite with, who I would have been in and out of a relationship with, who would hang out with us for the first two weeks of school and transfer three months later, who would slip through the cracks for one, two, or three years...there was no way I would have come close to predicting how my four years would have been here. All of that was out of my control, and by some sense of universal randomness, it worked out the way it did. And I believe that I wouldn't be the person I am right now if that randomness happened a different way.
I can see the room that I lived in freshman year from where I am. Whoever lives there now might not know it, but they'll probably look back at that room the same way I do three years later. The same way I look at my room in Villa from sophomore year, and my New Hall suite last year. One thing that I've learned this year is that you really aren't able to appreciate Stonehill until you're a senior. I mean really appreciate it. It's the littlest things, too. The day in the spring when all of the trees magically bloom. The Saturday of spring weekend where everyone is outside at the same time. Playing on the softball field during finals week. Crispy chicken wraps. So much of this year has been spent appreciating the fact that it was happening to us, that we had to appreciate crispy chicken wraps and being able to monopolize the laundry room and getting Hill food at 12:59 a.m. As much as I've been telling all my non-senior friends to start appreciating everything now while they can, I don't think they'll be able to until it's their senior year. Their time will come, just as it did for me and the rest of the Class of 2014, and every other senior class who has come through Stonehill. The people here are what make this place what it is, and it's because the people here understand how amazing Stonehill is, and that they do appreciate it as much as they can.
I've always wanted a week at Stonehill where everyone just gets to run around and play and have fun, with absolutely nothing restraining them - no exams, no papers, no deadlines. Just us and the campus, and to an extent, we've kind of made that happen anyway. Again, it might be a senior year thing, but the wheels fell off hard, which opened up a lot of free time to have as much fun as possible. Another thing that I've learned this year is that putting in a ton of time and effort is overrated. There's so much emphasis and value placed on succeeding and getting out of college with a job and a degree and a three-point-something GPA...all of that is important, don't get me wrong, but the amount of energy we expend attempting to achieve those standards is sometimes limiting from one of the most beneficial aspects of college, which is finding yourself. If you still have some time left in your college career, you might not believe me, but even if you step off the gas pedal in terms of academics, you'll still end up okay. You can get to where you want to be, and you'll have a lot more room to enjoy your time at college if you roll with the punches. The more time you leave for yourself, the happier you'll be and the more you'll come to learn about yourself and this wonderful universe we live in.
Then again, I can't exactly explain what I've found out about myself in the past 47 months. I can tell you what moments and events developed me as a person, like the first Values Game I had as a Peer Mentor, where I said a goal I had for college was exactly that - to develop as a person. Or each time I've come to this area of campus and tried to sum up a year at Stonehill in a few paragraphs. Or any of the late nights spent talking with friends. The last scene of Lost, which I've talked about before, involves Jack and his father talking about, well, everything, and I think that's a pretty perfect way to wrap all of this together in a neat, little bow. What they talk about parallels exactly what I feel about my time at Stonehill, and that's going to be the last thing I want to write about while I'm here. It's now 2:47 p.m., and still May 9th, 2014. I'm right where I want to be.
"This is the place that you all made together so that you could find one another. The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people. That's why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you."
"For what?"
"To remember...and to let go."
"Kate...she said we were leaving."
"Not leaving, no. Moving on."
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
In and out
Alright, so I lied about my previous post being the penultimate post from Stonehill. I'm just in one of those moods right now, reflective and silent and aware of my tiny little presence in the universe. I don't really have anything I want to blog about in particular, which might be a first for me. I just feel as though I can't let this moment pass by without me allowing myself the reminder of where I was and how I was feeling. And I think that's what my blog has become for me...I know way back when, in my first post, I said that this would be a representation of me, but over time, I think this is now a representation for me. People have their scrapbooks and home videos, capturing the moments that mean the most to them, but for me, I think I resolve feelings and emotions to words and put them here. To me, that's the best way that I can place myself back in that moment, to feel as closely as possible exactly what I was feeling at that very moment. And when I look back at this post, however many days or weeks or months from now, I'll know what I was feeling because of this blog post. So I guess this really is for me, as much as I seem to make my blog for others. At least the important posts. I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing for a decent amount of my most-charged posts, and I like that I can do that, and I like that it's because of my blog and these words. To me, nothing emulates the moment like words, and I've always had a fascination with saying things in as perfect a way as possible, because no two moments or experiences are exactly alike. So it kind of makes sense that Explosions In The Sky is my favorite band ever (well, perhaps ironically so), because their music lets you fill the words in yourself. The music evokes feelings and emotions and because they don't have any words, you get to choose yours. You get to find your words and be in equilibrium with your thoughts and feelings, because the two will align through the music. At least, they do for me. I understand that not everyone is as nuts about EITS as I am (actually, I don't think anyone is as nuts as me), but the realization that my blog really is for me seems to be a tidy justification for loving on them so much.
Freshman year, in my religious studies general education course, we learned about how pretty much anything can be sacred. And despite there being no thread of religiosity in me, there is absolutely a level of sacredness to certain things. Most of them are abstract concepts that can't really be well-defined, ideas that are perfectly understood by only me (and even then, I fail to understand them all the time). Like being the only one who knows what a certain subtext in a blog post is about, or being the only one who listens to a certain song a certain way, or being the only one who understands anything I ever talk about here. It's secretive and sacred, and it's something that I don't want to lose. Sometimes it's what keeps me together, knowing that I have myself. But I'm rambling at this point. You don't know that reading this, but I've been typing away for almost 25 minutes now, and I'm pretty sure there still isn't one damn sentence here that you're going to make sense of. But that seems to be the point of all this, doesn't it?
Freshman year, in my religious studies general education course, we learned about how pretty much anything can be sacred. And despite there being no thread of religiosity in me, there is absolutely a level of sacredness to certain things. Most of them are abstract concepts that can't really be well-defined, ideas that are perfectly understood by only me (and even then, I fail to understand them all the time). Like being the only one who knows what a certain subtext in a blog post is about, or being the only one who listens to a certain song a certain way, or being the only one who understands anything I ever talk about here. It's secretive and sacred, and it's something that I don't want to lose. Sometimes it's what keeps me together, knowing that I have myself. But I'm rambling at this point. You don't know that reading this, but I've been typing away for almost 25 minutes now, and I'm pretty sure there still isn't one damn sentence here that you're going to make sense of. But that seems to be the point of all this, doesn't it?
 |
| A picture of the Northern Lights, just because. |
Monday, May 5, 2014
10 send-off songs
Well, here it is, the last week of the last semester ever for me at Stonehill. The difference between this semester and each of the first seven semesters I had here is that I have absolutely no work to do. Well...I have minimal work to do, and no urgency in taking care of it. I mean, it's just two unit tests and writing one abstract for a paper that's essentially already written. Which means instead of staying in and studying and focusing on schoolwork, there's plenty of time to hang around, play lots of fun games on the quad, and listen to awesome, fun music, instead of the more serious stuff that I'd listen to if I had work. So, here we go, a music post, a "10 things" post, and a penultimate blog post from Stonehill. Ten songs that I'll be jamming out to over the next few days, before one final end-of-a-Stonehill-year blog post.
1. Opposite of Adults - Chiddy Bang
1. Opposite of Adults - Chiddy Bang
2. The Underdog - Spoon
3. Down There - Bronze Radio Return
4. Don't Let Me Fall - B.o.B.
5. If You Wanna - The Vaccines
6. Mercury - Moon Taxi
7. Garands - Young the Giant
8. Can't Hold Us - Macklemore
9. Baba O'Riley - The Who
10. Dirty Water - The Standells
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