8 highs of Orientation

Orientation hasn't left me yet. Yeah, we're all done, but there's no way this feeling is going away for at least a long time. The last ten days have been absolutely incredible. Here are some of my favorite moments:

- Literally the first time I saw everyone. I remember walking into the Sem cafe and seeing everyone talking, hugging each other, seeing each other for the first time in a while...sometimes meeting each other for the first time ever. I was so in love with the energy in the room and everyone there that I couldn't be more excited for what was ahead.

- For the second year in a row, my two groups were amazing. I've had the pleasure in my two years to have two awesome partners and four amazing groups. Our first group bonded quickly and I have a great feeling about the opportunity I have to see them grow throughout their first year and beyond. Second session went just as well - Values Game worked incredibly well with the mentees, as some of them opened up and felt comfortable in the context of the game. It was amazing to see the transformation right before me.

- Seeing other groups rally around something was one of my favorite parts about Orientation. Watching Cotrone and Tori Kane's group fall in love with that damn chicken hat on the tiki torch was hilarious, as well as the honey badgers and the classy Group 24. I have no doubt in my mind that everyone in those groups will keep that going for the next four years.

- I remember thinking on Thursday morning that I could do this forever, and that I wanted to do it forever. The waking up at 5:15 a.m., the minimal sleep, and the constant structure is all worth it. I actually enjoyed it; I didn't even think of waking up early as a bad thing. It was actually one of my favorite parts of Orientation.

- I didn't get sick! Last year, I got sick after the first night in O'Hara, then lost my voice, and was dreadful throughout the week. Everyone picked me up, which was awesome, but this year, none of it was needed. Being on campus before Orientation helped, and I actually knew how to handle screaming during Capture the Flag, welcoming, and the run in.

- Everything about this year felt real. Last year, I was just happy to be here. I did my thing, Orientation was awesome, and I was excited to do it all over again. But this year was so much different than that. I really felt that we were all making a difference. Not only to our mentees and the Class of 2016 as a whole, but to each other. It really is our essence that we wear on our sleeves and wake up with every day of our lives. It's who we are, and I've been nothing but grateful to share my essence with everyone on this team, but to see everyone's true essence come out in moments that the entire team shares as a whole. It's absolutely perfect.

- My last high was Playfair of session two. Actually, I lied. I'll break this into two parts. The first one was the beginning, where all the mentees run through the line of Peer Mentors. Yeah, it was an awesome feeling to be jumping and yelling and giving everyone a high five, but my favorite part was that moment after I would yell and scream and cheer for so long that I had to stop and take a breath. My core literally felt empty, and that was because I was putting everything I had out for the students. I know that everyone else did this too, just by seeing the pure excitement on everyone's faces. It was incredible.

- My real last high was the end of Playfair (fittingly enough). Newton had the students form a huge circle on the football field, with the PMs in the middle around the 50-yard line. He called out for students to run across and high five Peer mentors if they were the first in their family to go to college, if they loved pets, if they lived in Massachusetts...basically a giant Where the Wind Blows where everyone gives you a high five for being you. At the end, Newton had them all walk towards us, and everyone just started cheering for each other. It was such an amazing feeling to know that it was all real and that the Peer Mentors and the Class of 2016 shared it together. This might end up being one of my favorite moments to ever do with Orientation.

This year was absolutely amazing, and I really am blessed to have shared it with everyone on this team.

Postcard from Orientation

After reading through my four blog posts about Orientation 2011, it's really cool to see how I've grown as a Peer Mentor in my second Orientation. Last year, it was pretty clear through my posts that I was just glad to be part of the entire experience of Orientation - I loved the trainings, I enjoyed all of the team-building activities we had, I loved waking up at 5:15 a.m. to start the 20-hour day, and I loved being a part of something bigger than me. All of that is still true for this year, but it's all different at the same time. I can really feel that I'm making a difference now. Like I said, I was just glad to be there last year. Now I'm glad that I have the opportunity to actually welcome the Class of 2016 to Stonehill, to see thirty students grow throughout the year (and in 32 hours this week), and to be someone that is available to anybody; not just mentees, but fellow PMs, as well. I feel as though I've been able to connect to this team in a way completely different from last year, which I remember saying was one of the things I was excited for heading in to this Orientation. If I had to pick one word to describe my experience last year, I probably would have said something synonymous with "awesome." Now that I have such a different, broader, and deeper understanding of what it truly means to be on this team, I would say that this experience has been special. The relationships that I've built with the team has been unlike anything I've experienced, and the chance to get to know first-year students (keep in mind that Session Two hasn't even started yet) has been something that I'm consciously aware of taking full advantage of, so they get the best experience they possibly can. I know that's happening for me so far, and I have nothing but confidence about this keeping up for the next two days.

10 things I'm excited for

As I was taking notes on one of the papers I was reading for my summer work, I looked closely at the letters I was writing, and how they are merely symbols and characters of our language. It reminded me of Lost and Jack's tattoo, how it had Chinese characters. I thought of the quote at the end of that episode, and got a brilliant idea to have a compilation of all of my favorite Lost quotes. Which I could compile as I rewatch the entire series. Here are nine other things I'm excited for.

2. Doing the same for House. The summer after I graduated high school, I wanted to watch all six seasons of House before the seventh one started. I got midway through the fifth season. Point is, the whole time, I was writing down my favorite episodes, and why. A great patient, an interesting plot development, or some amazing quote. Now that the series is over, it only makes sense to do this again.

3. ORIENTATION! With our first day of training tomorrow, you would think that this would be at the top of the list, but I had to lead into the theme of the post. I'M SO EXCITED! I woke up today, thought about it, and was in an immediately ecstatic mood. I'm living in the same room that I had last year, and I dunno, I'm just incredibly excited to go through all of this again.

4. 2012-2013. Next year will be busy, exciting, interesting, and many more things. I'm just ready to take in another year at Stonehill (despite typing this FROM Stonehill...) and just kill it in the time I have here. Some of my friends are going abroad next year, which is something I've never really had a desire for. Maybe I'll live vicariously through their abroad experiences next year, so I get the best of both worlds. In reality, I'm perfectly content with my Stonehill world.

5. June 28th through July 3rd. On four out of those five days, the Red Sox play at 10:05pm ET. Thank you, West Coast trips! I love falling asleep listening to a Red Sox radio broadcast. We might actually win some of those games too, because we're playing Seattle and Oakland.

6. July 4th! Nothing like July 4th in the Cape. Vicki will be coming down, and I'm going to try and get some of my friends from home down, too, like last year. It will be mad fun and I'm really excited and it will be nice to just relax for a few days. Not that I don't relax here, but I mean really relax. Do literally nothing with my life.

7. Orientation blogging! I definitely thought about putting this as the fourth item, but passed it up for a while. With the short amount of time I have between 16-hour days, my blog posts during/about Orientation will be heavy posts with lots of depth. Either that, or an 83% increase in exclamation points.

8. Numbers! I'm in the midst of an enormous fantasy baseball statistical excavation (Editor's Note: That might be the 35th best word I could have used there. The first 34 have escaped me right now.) where I take every team's statistics and plug them into various formulas, coming out with value rankings on which team has the best hitting, pitching, overall team (independent of record), and then who's been having to face tougher opponents. I could go into so much detail, but I will refrain. The second part of my excitement for numbers is that I'm starting to fully understand that I'll be messing around with numbers and labelings for my SURE project this summer. Again, I could go into more detail, but I won't. Basically, I get to see which combination of numbers yields something cool. Puzzles. Math puzzles.

9. Reading. No, seriously, reading. I go from numbers to reading? The only way that would ever make sense is if said reading were about sports. Which is exactly what reading I'm excited for. I still have a ways to go in Now I Can Die in Peace, Bill Simmons's masterpiece about the 2004 Red Sox team. I also have a couple of ESPN The Magazines from forever ago to read. I love going through them and reading about stuff, even if it's not up to date. I pull out some of the better-looking pictures and tape them on my wall, too. It's like a shrine of awesome pictures/articles. All four of them.

10. Life. Yeah, I know, leave the absolute corniest thing in the world for last, but you know what? Things are corny for a reason. And corny things go last for a reason. That reason is because IT'S TRUE. A few days ago, a couple of my friends and I were talking about the universe, and planets, and stars, and other astronomical things, while shooting some hoops with the lights out at a park at midnight. It was awesome, and it made me realize how small we are, but just how much we can do with our lives. Everyone has something going for them somewhere. Maybe it's one thing right now, or maybe it'll be a couple of things coming up. But just keep on plugging away at it. Whatever it is, if it's worth it, will make you want it. Go after it.

Before the 2010 MLB season, Jayson Stark wrote a piece for ESPN about what makes a winner win. I think that what he says about Derek Jeter is one of the best and most honorable things anyone can say about somebody else:

"But the quality that really separates Derek Jeter from the masses is the unstoppable force that drives him from April to September. We know it as energy. But it's more. Or focus. But it's more. Relentless concentration. But it's more. What Jeter really has is an ignition with no "off" switch. It's there in his first at-bat on Opening Day. It's there in the ninth inning of Game 162. And it's always pumping -- every day, every inning, every pitch in between."

I love that imagery. Ignition with no "off" switch. Never stopping. Don't stop with whatever you do. Keep at it and good things will happen.

Impersonations/LOST

So I'm just poking around YouTube and watching everyone impersonate Christopher Walken. If you have some spare time, definitely check out some of these videos, because they're just absolutely hilarious. AND I just came across a video with the Man in Black from LOST and it just reminded me of how much I'm in love with that show. I thought I saw the actor in the preview box, and when I started the video, his voice came on before his face, and it sounded just like him. I miss LOST. Vicki and I are going to watch it all the way through soon, and I can't wait. As much as I said that I always simultaneously loved and hated the show, I love it all the way through. Maybe it's just the nostalgia, and I'll hate it when I start watching it more again, but I miss it. Glad to be able to watch it soon, and very happy I came across all these hilarious videos.

One year

It's interesting to think about how much can happen in one year. Sure, if you pick any twelve-month period of your life, lots of things will happen. Some good, some bad, and some in the middle. This time last year, we were all rallying around the Bruins during their Stanley Cup run. Who knows if we'll be doing the same next June, or if it will be a Celtics NBA Championship pursuit.

A lot can happen with school too. Hell, we've spent every year in memory with education, and it almost seems that our childhood years run not from January to December, but from September to May and June to August. Although within each school year, I guess it's broken up into weeks, terms, semesters, and the like.

But outside of my family, I've never really spent an entire year with someone. I mean even in my first two years at school I've been away from Watertown for most of the year. But the one constant, in addition to family, friends, and myself, is Vicki. Sometimes I can't help but wonder how she still likes me/puts up with me, but hey, we're still together and I love every single moment of it. We've gone here and there and back again, and taking many different routes to get there. But I don't want to go too far into anything. Because what happens between us is just that - between us. It's not anybody else's relationship, no one else is involved, and we know that at the end of the day, we're going to want to be with each other. And as long as that happens, we'll do just that. Which is all I can ask out of us. It's been an amazing year of dating and over fifteen months of knowing each other, and I want those counts to keep going on, and I want everything to stay amazing. Which will take a lot of work, no doubt. But come on, every relationship takes work. If it didn't, then it wouldn't be any fun, and it wouldn't seem worth it. Knowing that you have something to work towards every day, and that you're excited to work for it, is an incredibly rewarding experience, especially when it's on a human level.

Boston sports talk

Bruins goalie Tim Thomas has decided to take the 2012-2013 season off to spend more time with his family, friends, and faith. And as a result, everyone is talking about it. Up until now, I haven't really had enough of a say either way to talk about it, but after watching Felger & Mazz on Comcast SportsNet, I know what I think. If Thomas really does want to spend time with his family, then hell, who are we to stop him? Sure, he's under contract to play next season, but if this really is where Tim Thomas is coming from, I think you have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He's 38, won multiple Vezina Trophies, a Stanley Cup, a Conn Smythe Trophy...he has the accolades to be regarded as an outstanding goaltender. Of course, a lot of the fire at Thomas is that it's a contract year. There has been some speculation about Thomas foregoing the season to force a trade, or put a different onus on the Bruins. But I don't think this is the reason. Thomas has been nothing but good to the Bruins, and brought us back to the upper echelon of the NHL. At this time in the Bruins organization, it's time for Tuukka Rask to step in and take the goalie role from here on. Tuukka is ready, young, and can quickly become a face of the franchise, and I don't think the Bruins should get in the way of that at all.

Which might also be what the Red Sox should do with Daniel Bard. Bard has been sent down to AAA (Pawtucket) because of his recent struggles at the major league level. With a 5.24 ERA and a 1.62 WHIP, Bard has struggled in his role as a starter this year. After two seasons with a sub-1.00 WHIP and 30-plus holds, Bard was converted as a starter, which was apparently much to his chagrin. I don't have an exact quote, but I remember him saying something along the lines of wishing the Red Sox had let him be the pitcher he was in the bullpen, in the starting role. Meaning he would go out every fifth day, start the game in the first inning, and pitch like it was the 8th. For six or seven more innings. Every fifth day. The problem with this is that YOU CAN'T DO THAT! You can't throw 97 mph seventy percent of the time and expect major league hitters to not catch up by the second or third time through the lineup. So naturally, he threw his fastball less. He went from throwing his changeup 7.1% of the time in 2011 to 19% of the time this year. He tried doing things to make him a better pitcher. But he didn't do any of them in reality. Daniel Bard is a thrower. And he's not even doing that anymore. His fastball velocity is down 4 mph from last year, has been very ineffective, and generally, he's not a good pitcher. Bard needs to learn how to use his head on the mound, instead of his fastball. He could afford to do that in the bullpen, but has no such luxury as a starter. And hopefully he'll work on this in Pawtucket, if the organization chooses to have him remain in the rotation. Personally, I think he should go back to the bullpen, because there are zero guys in there who can intimidate any batter. Sure, the bullpen has gotten better. But if Bard is going to go out every five days and suck, I'd rather have him in the bullpen, not suck, and have someone else try and do better as the fifth starter.

Best of You

Introduction
Back when I thought the whole newTunes project thing would work out, I listed "Best of You" by Foo Fighters as the first listing (my personal choice), because it was, for lack of any better words, amazing. But now, after listening to it closely, interpreting the lyrics, reading others' interpretations of lyrics, and playing it many times on guitar, I want to go nuts with this song. Yes, there is an introduction. Yes, there are sections of this blog post. Yes, this will probably be longer than some papers I've written in college. You know what? I like that. Here we go.

The Difference between Yelling and Screaming
Yelling and screaming are two different things, in my view of music. Screaming is when you can't understand any words, or there is no pitch - yelling is singing notes at the very end of your range, at a very loud volume and intensity. This song is all about the latter. (For an example of screaming, check out the first few seconds of this song.) One of my favorite things about Dave Grohl is that he doesn't scream. Yeah, he's really loud, and I'm not sure why he still has a throat, but he doesn't scream. And because of that, it's a song that I pretend I can sing along to.

Sounds of "Best of You"
Those songs that you have perfectly memorized have intricacies that make it so special from every other song you know. In "Best of You," it's that first chord. I don't think I like any one chord more than what happens at 48 seconds in this video. But that's the live version. In the studio version, after the bridge, there's another chorus and verse ("I've got another confession, my friend..."). At the end of that verse, that "Is someone getting the best" is SO AMAZING. Dave Grohl's voice is so grainy, angsty, powerful, angry...all those terms that make that one line just perfect and makes me want to break through a brick wall.

Kurt Cobain
I was always a non-believer in the "every FF song is about Kurt Cobain" theory. Then I listened to In Your Honor. Sure, not every song is about Kurt. But if any song Foo Fighters has written is about him, it's "Best of You." I say this because of Cobain's suicide note; specifically the part where he writes, "For example when we're back stage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury, who seemed to love, relish in the the love and adoration from the crowd which is something I totally admire and envy. The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you." Cobain mentioning fooling his audience, and Dave Grohl writing first that "I'm your fool," and later "I'm no fool," makes me think that he's talking to/about Cobain. He bought into what Kurt Cobain was doing (because he was part of Nirvana), but was also able to see everything beyond that, and ultimately, not be a fool. It's not seamless, but it's plausible, I think.

Has Someone Taken Your Faith...
Ultimately, however, I think this song is about addressing the inevitable pain in life. Specifically with love, in "Best of You." But by the lyrics, it seems like it's much more than that. Like it's a demoralizing pain. Not that love is incapable of that - it certainly is. But while the problem may be someone else, the solution is whoever Dave Grohl is speaking to. This song is about breaking past everything. But enough from me. See it for yourself.