Season(s) of Love

525,600 minutes,

525,000 moments so dear,

525,600 minutes,

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee,

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife;

525,600 minutes,

How do you measure a year in the life?

How about love,

How about love,

How about love,

Measure in love,

Seasons of love.

--"Seasons of Love," Rent

As we enter the the number 2 "season of love" (Valentine's Day would be no. 1), it's time to bask in the glow of family and friends, and share the love via gifts and togetherness that the season of Christmas calls people to do. It's been an interesting past few months internally debating such a topic, trying to figure out the truth about it, and what it means.  There's the lover-lover, parent-child, friend-friend, person-pet, and so many different sorts of it, and for me trying to figure how it all fits into my life has been no easy task. For many years I've been grappling with the issue (although many of them during adolescence and teen years), wondering why I wasn't giving as much of these different forms of love to other people I care about (namely family and friends), and figuratively killing myself over every missed chance. I talked with a couple friends to give me some pointers, A.) about how they have dealt with it, and B.) to look at it from a larger perspective. At times I recall I would forget about giving for the sake of giving rather than expecting things in return, and it would drive me crazy. But one of my friends stressed to me the spiritual angle, citing that while he didn't have the relationships that so many of his friends had, he was undoubtedly thankful that he actually had people around him. I think as I've gotten older and further away from the crazy teen-age stage, I've been able to get a better understanding of how the social circle works, particularly that it always changes over time. Thus it has helped me focus on making people happy not because they expect me to do so, but because seeing them happy would make me feel happy on the inside.

With Christmas upon us, it would be the perfect opportunity to show family friends how much we all care about each other. What with sending e-cards to people that I care about and thinking of them on this holiday; I can handle that. I have wavered at times, depending on how my psyche and/or sanity has been holding up through whatever life is throwing at me. But this love that is to be shared with others on the whole, I think it's the work of Jesus, where he had so much love for this world when he was crucified, that it hurt him to see those very same people turn against him. He wasn't interested in the selfish love where he would devote it all to one person; he wanted to share it. That's a lesson I wish more of the world would take to heart (no pun intended). It would, after all, make it a much easier place to live.

Opening Night of "Steel Rhapsody"

Amidst multiple scenes with dancers and musicians, I'd have to say the collaborative group of choreographers and composers had a field night last night. On a personal note, it was my real composition debut at St. Olaf, not counting several composition assignments that I've had over the last couple semesters. Many thanks to choreographers Ariel, Megan, Alicia, Katie, Elizabeth, Claire, Hannah, Julia, Liz, Sarah G, Sarah S; composers Alan, Blaise, Tom, Christoph, Jonathan, Mattia, Laura, John, Ben, Guhn, Joe, Ryan; and all the other performers that took part to make the evening rather special.

Hit it!!!!! 1,2,3,4...  ;-)

An exhausting musician's checklist

It's been quite a hectic month already (only a week old), and I've been going through a list of things I have to complete between now and the day I get to hop on a plane to Chicago.

First off was Christmas Fest. A dress rehearsal, and 4 concerts. Check.

Next, was finishing my Passacaglia and Old MacDonald variations for the composition assignment in Music Theory. Check, but not before staying up till 3:30 to finish it and getting up at 7. Check. (yawn)

Next was finishing my final project for my composition class. For the most part I am done. I have the final score, and I have given the violin and viola parts out to those who will play them. The only thing I have to do now is refine the score to make it "professional," and add an introductory page. Of course I didn't already accomplish what I did without going through only 3 hours of sleep for the second night in a row. Check, and soon-to-be check. (forcefully open eyes after they repeatedly keep closing)

Next was getting requests from four other people to play their variations. So for most of them, I didn't have their variations until 8:00 last night (today we had to perform our variations in class). And so I spent learning their variations and mine at the same time, which stretched my bedtime once again. 5 hours of sleep last night. Check, except three of the other people's variations that I was to play will have to wait until Tuesday. Check nonetheless. (doze off)

Next was to meet with people I am accompanying for their juries. Check, check, check, and check (for also preparing for my jury). No sleep commentary needed, as I didn't stay up late for this kind of work.

Remaining on the checklist: studying for final exams, studying for my Ear Training proficiency exam for tomorrow, French homework, preparing for Christmas break in which I will go home for the first time since early September, playing the remaining variations that I didn't get to do today, playing in my piano juries, playing in other people's juries, finishing up my score for composition class, practicing the piano part for the piece, meeting with the dance choreographer to go over the piece for finalizing correspondence of dance moves and musical phrases, actually performing the piece at the "concert" next Friday...

...print out my e-Ticket, come up with $50 so I can get a ride to the airport, pack, close up the room (my roommate is leaving first), uh... sleep...

Speaking of checklists, the Cubs crossed off another couple needs from their offseason checklist by acquiring Juan Pierre. Not only can he play CF (and thereby supplant Corey Patterson the bust), but he can lead off. Of course I bet Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry didn't get a lot more sleep than I did, as he was busy over the weekend at the General Managers winter meetings. Sleep is for the weak. Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

For the first time in my life, I feel like a hard-core music major. I never knew what it would be like, as I never really hung around hard-core musicians of my generation. At the same time, I'm ready to take a break from being in the music building all day, every day, surrounded by the same old people. (insert smiley face to indicate that it was a joke)

So anyways, I have:

1 day until my Ear Training exam

5 days until I finish playing other people's variations

6 days until I start performing at people's juries (and indirectly getting paid for it)

7 days until my jury and my first final

8 days until the dance/composition concert

12 days until my last final

13 days until I stuff my bags and hop a plane to celebrate Christmas at home

Again with that unlucky number, and again I cannot wait for the day this semester ends (for me) to arrive. (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)

Back to the real world...

In the afterglow of the final Christmas Fest performance, I find myself both relieved and disappointed that it's over. Relieved, because we spent a month-and-a-half working on music for it, but disappointed because it had brought us together both physically and spiritually. Now we return to secular academic atria of thought. I've been madly working to finish up my composition as part of a joint project with a dance choreographer, and I await commencing my comp project for Music Theory, and an essay test in French in the upcoming days. After thinking exclusively in a choir mind-set (ie going over music and text, drinking water, etc), it will be fun to switch gears and head back on the worldly trail.

Tomorrow I believe is Norway's official Christmas Day. During my first year here last year, I seriously thought Christmas Fest was at the beginning of December simply because it was the latest we could have it before 1st semester finals was due to start. Even though I knew it was a school based on Norwegian and Lutheran traditions, it never occured to me to come up with 4 after putting 2 and 2 together. After all, I am only half Norwegian and not at all Lutheran like the prototypical St. Olaf student. So while my true Christmas is still 21 days away, I have been able to feel the joy and spirituality of the season, and most of all, I can now start mentally putting the original text of Mendelssohn's There Shall A Star back into my head. Hallelujah!

There shall a Star from Jacob come forth,

And a scepter from Israel rise up,

And dash in pieces princes and nations.

As bright the star of morning gleams,

So Jesus sheddeth glorious beams,

Of light and consolation,

Thy word, O Lord,

Radiance darting, Truth imparting, gives salvation,

Thine be praise and adoration.

--Numbers 24:17; Psalm 2:9; Phillip Nicolai

...and that's how it should be. :-)

The True Christmas Spirit

"Christmas Fest is not a concert, but a spiritual event that you are sharing with the audience."

The advice that the president of my choir gave us at the end of warmups before heading through the blustery weather to Skoglund (where Christmas Fest is held) really stuck out with me. Of course I had merely pondered it somewhat before the performance, but suddenly while we were singing John Rutter's Gloria I had this feeling of joy that made me love the piece we were singing. It may have been the brass section playing in syncopation, it may have been the thrill of just watching Dr. Aspaas conduct us, but whatever the reason, it put a smile (more or less) on my face for quite some time during the concert.

I don't usually smile when I sing. Not because I don't want to, but I'm focusing so hard on making the music sound good that more often than not my jaw tightens and my vocal cords shrink up so I lose the notes on the low and high ends of my range. But coming to St. Olaf (despite the Is-RYE-yel pronunciations and changing all the words of Mendelssohn's There Shall a Star for political Lutheran correctness) has opened a new way of singing, one that made me willing to show and act out my love of performing a work of art to the audience. I suppose what really helps is the spiritual aspect of it. When I sang at my high school choir during the "holidays" (i.e. Christmas season) we sang mostly secular songs, so not to bring the church into the school. I remember our director always implored us to smile. I sort of tried, but deep down I knew it was all for superficiality. Not that spending the holidays with family and sharing the joy was superficial; those are great values in themselves, but growing up going to church on a regular basis showed me there was something more than just talking Santa magic and making little kids happy. The truth is, it's more amazing to celebrate Jesus' birth and share that joy with family and friends.

Even though Christmas is still yet 24 days from now, thanks to the Norwegians we are celebrating it now. Even despite the fact that America is celebrating it all month anyway so to boost the economy via all the shopping and spending that takes place. Of course, the American way is too secular for my tastes.

Out of the whole program, I found a set of lines I though was most appropriate for the post. I didn't take the entire poem (too long) but I found the heart of what Christmas is supposed to be about.

Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:

Tis he is born, whose quickening birth

Gives life and lustre, public mirth,

To heaven and the under-earth.

We see him come, and know him ours,

Who, with his sunshine and his showers,

Turns all patient ground to flowers.

The darling of the world is come,

And fit it is, we find a room

To welcome him.

The nobler part of all the house here, is the heart,

Which we will give him; and bequeath

This holly, and this ivy wreath,

To do him honor; who's our King

And Lord of all this reveling.

-Robert Herrick

Sermon on thankfulness

Sorry I haven't been posting over the last couple days, given how it was Thanksgiving (and I spent that day with some family friends) and how I've been having loads of free time to do whatever I want (outside of hanging with people, since they're all elsewhere). But I'd like to use this 100th post to talk about the season of thanks, giving, and sharing (especially since both Turkey and Jesus day cover much of the same ideals).

Anyways, I was fortunate enough to be roused on Thursday with a combination of my alarm going off and the phone ringing, and giving directions to "Dash's" mother on finding Mellby Hall. Next, after completely ignoring the ice crystals on my window, I threw on my clothes, and opting for my fall jacket instead of my winter parka, and met the weather with shivering results. The morning service was alright. I hadn't been to a Thanksgiving Day church service since 2002, so I figured I was due. It was a nice brick building (including the interior of the sanctuary) with a decent-sounding organ, and it seemed pretty festivitous. There were several Ole students there that I didn't know. The rest were families and older-generation folk.

So then after the service I trucked over to "Dash's" house (via car; it was at least 20 blocks away), played around with the cats (Cotton and Teya; Lunchbox had been shipped off to faraway lands), helped set up some of the table and food stuff (sort of), and enjoyed a nutritious meal with a smorgasboard of Thanksgiving-related munchies. I even learned how to play the dulcimer (I think).

The last day or so I've been sleeping and eating on a really weird schedule. I napped from 6pm to 9pm, then stayed up till 5am, went back to sleep till 1:15pm, and managed to stay up all day up till right now. But within all this off-schedule living, not to mention the fact that in 18 hours I will be again at work, singing in Urness Recital Hall with the massed choir working on Christmas fest music that supposedly we will have memorized (even though there are a couple pieces that I never got copies of, so I won't have them learned, let alone memorized), I have been pondering and mentally putting together a list of what I was thankful for. It did take me a couple days, as I've been asleep about half the time. So here it is:

I get to eat leftover food from the Thanksgiving dinner I had on Thursday. I got to eat leftover food that a couple of my friends ate for their Thanksgiving dinner from Thursday. I got to see some snow on the ground Friday. I even got to walk around in it Friday evening. I've had the room to myself the past 3 days. I've been able to chill with a few friends during break, despite the fact that the vast majority of them have been gone. I called my mom on Thursday while at "Dash's" house, got some news about home, etc. I was able to enjoy a break from all the stressful homework and practicing that I've been having to do, and will have to do again soon. I got into an Interim class, finally. I'll be able to go home for the first time in several months in less than a month. I got to watch a Suns-Nets game on ESPN tonight, and even though I would've enjoyed more watching the Nets come from behind to win the game, I still enjoyed watching some basketball TV. I'm thankful that the Bulls beat the Spurs tonight. I'm thankful that the White Sox won the World Series last month. I'm thankful that the Cubs signed a couple relief pitchers within the last 10 days.

I started going back through the blog, and it was the first time I realized that the year 2005 is nearing its end. I'm still kind of in shock. As a kid I thought this year would never get here. I never really thought of life past 2004, when I graduated from high school. The concept of the word 2005 is still somewhat new to me, and in a little over a month the calendar will change *ahem* sox and wear the 2006 label at the top of each monthly calendar. It was also the first year I really got back into religion after taking a little over a year off. I'm thankful that I started going to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) organization back in January to help soothe my aching soul, which was still broken from the St Luke's Scandal which peaked just a couple years ago. I was rather disappointed when I returned home at the end of May and found myself internally denouncing Episcopalianism as "going thru the motions" after a service at Canterbury one of the first Sunday evenings of the summer. I was rather intrigued when I started going regularly to St Paul's Church by the Lake at mid-summer and accepting again this brand of Christianity as the true call to faith. But I was thusly disappointed after I returned to school in September that I didn't find FCA as soul-moving as I did when I first opened my heart to it 8 months prior. So at this point, I'm definitely back into religion (I've gone to Morning Prayer every Friday, and I've gone to Selah, FCA, and Bible Study on scattered occasions), but I'm still rather confused. I went to Milwaukee on the Fall Break mission trip, not sure if I was going to have a repeat spiritual moment that I did in Arkansas back in March. I did somewhat, but less than what I had hoped.

I also witnessed the Patriots, Spurs and White Sox claim the championship titles in the worlds of football, basketball and baseball. Even though I was happy for the Patriots and Spurs for winning their titles to demonstrate that it takes a team rather than individuals to win, watching the White Sox exorcize their demons really hit home for me. Even though it isn't the Cubs that won, I am grateful to have seen the city of Chicago (one that I have been familiar for over 20 years) finally have a baseball team to boast that it was the best. And although I was thoroughly disappointed that Illinois University lost the title game and the Bulls in the first round of the playoffs, I am thankful that they got as far as they did.

I think life has a lot to do with expectations. My life, at any rate. I still remember expecting to go to Houston for the baseball All-Star game festivities with a crew several of my best friends from home (church and high school), and walking away from the plan in February empty-handed, hand squashed. I remember not knowing whether I would ever see my church friends after my family broke off from the church after the scandal, thus depending the rest of my senior year and every day of summer 2004 hoping to hang out with them on a regular basis. Ditto keeping up with them freshman year. Last year (freshman year) was, in a way, kind of an extension of my life before St. Olaf. I was basically balancing my time between hanging/figuring out my school friends and IM'ing my home friends (among classes and choir), trying to keep in touch with several people all at once. For whatever reason, this year my expectations have been completely turned around. I've only talked with several of my home friends only a few times. I've spent much more time hanging with my school friends and unintentionally burning my home friends. If one were to ask me who my best friends were even a year and a half ago, I would rattle off a list that included mostly people from my church youth group and perhaps a couple others from high school. Ask me the same question now (November 2005) and the list is completely overhauled, replaced by fellow St Olaf students. Not because of choice, but happenstance.

I should end this rant (if it sounds like one). After all, it's still the season of Thanksgiving, and considering that I meandered to the topic of friends, I should note that I have at least 20 people that I am truly thankful that I get to know and hang out with them. I was going to create a list similar to the one that I listed above, but I stopped after reaching 36 people, just so I could see on paper who I could rely on any given day to hang out with. So there's a positive thought. After all, I still have two parents alive and kicking, one grandparent still kicking, a cat and a bird, a third "surrogate" parent as she likes to call herself, 3 places to call home (school, mom's place, dad's place), 2 cars, 3 computers, a bajillion pianos/keyboards (although the list shrinks to 3 if I take out all the pianos and keyboards at St Olaf), 5.25 semesters and 3 interims left of college, a church in which to attend chapel and/or Sunday services as I want, 3 beds (one at school, 2 at home), approximately 5 sets of bed sheets, a TV, video games, and a month's worth of clothing. Even though that list is far from perfect, I know of many people that would love to have all the things I have been blessed with. Probably the only thing that is missing (that I can think of at 2:30 in the morning) is a job. I've suffered my bouts with laziness and sluggishness, but I figure if I can at least find a job with decent pay that I can stand, then I can't do too badly.

I really should stop trying to live like a Cubs fan desperate for a championship. Clearly the players have more control over whether the team wins than the fans do. The Cubs lost Game 6 of the NLCS in 2003 because then-SS Alex Gonzalez booted the ball, not because some idiot fan tipped a foul ball five minutes earlier. But there are times when it's hard not to get caught up in everything. I know of people who are like that, especially at work, and could use some prayers. But at the same time, while prayers are floating around, we cannot forget to give thanks to God for the good things that have happened. It's not like life is totally horrible, although I can say from first-hand experience it has often felt that way. After all, God is always moving. It's hard to be motivated when one is standing still, so to speak. If one can learn how to move with the Spirit of God, then that would help immensely.

Moving with God, as opposed to against Him, creates a whole new sense of expectations and reality. I think what really helped in March when I went to Arkansas was that there was so much unknown. There were 12 of us making the trip, and at the beginning my friend Dylan was the only person I knew. But as the week progressed, I made 10 new friends, and I know for a fact that if I was expecting things to happen my way, I wouldn't have experienced the joys that God had in store for me. I think if I can reach that plateau again, and take it for what it's worth, well, now that would be something for which to be thankful.

Generation... Y?

My generation finally has a name! ...although I am rather disappointed in the name they chose. I never really understood the reasoning for the term "Generation X" for people born in the mid-to-late 60s and 70s, and I think that they chose Y for my generation simply because it came after X.

But it has to be official, because it said so in today's ["http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-11-06-gen-y_x.htm"] USA Today paper. Never mind that it's not a great newspaper. ...

Questions on the choice of seclusion

Late last night, I was extremely bored and started running through sort of random web sites that either a.) I had never visited before, or b.) had not seen in quite a while. At some point I found myself going through various articles that more or less said the same things. The topic was the release of the new anthology containing all 3 thousand-odd strips of Calvin and Hobbes, and the first time its creator, Bill Watterson, “speaks up” about his retreat into seclusion since New Year’s Day 1996.

Of course, the fans’ questions still pour in: why did Watterson hang up his pen so soon? (he was only 38 when he called it quits) Why didn’t he license Calvin and Hobbes? Will he ever return to cartooning? Will we ever see another Calvin and Hobbes strip? Even 10 years later, these questions are still burning strong, perhaps even stronger than 9 years ago. We more or less know the facts behind the situation. Watterson was not going to sacrifice the sanctity of his art to the mindless advertisement regime that has helped bring down America and parts of the rest of the world (although you can’t say George W. Bush didn’t do his part). When I took a Sociology class first semester of last year, we learned about the “MacWorld” influence of mindless American advertising that our once-great country spewed across the globe, and how exploitation, merging, and mindless homogenation of commerce, culture and tradition has turned adiverse culture into a huge McDonald’s. Only a few foreign films, probably known as one of the best film genres, are heard of as much as crappy action movies like “The Matrix Revolution.” Quaint local shops and other attractions are being replaced by megastores like Walmart...

I could go on, but it goes to show only a sliver of what Watterson was going through. Were he to succumb to every little thing Universal Press Syndicate asked of him, Calvin and Hobbes strips would turn to the crapper and lose much of what made it so good. Watching the Simpsons for the past few years has turned me off. We rarely see a new episode in which some famous celebrity, corporation, or popular event was not part of the main theme. Occasionally we’d get a new twist in plot that for some reason wasn’t discovered before and yet if that plot were introduced even five years ago would not have made any sense. Reading other comic strips that used to be great nowadays have also turned me off, as the content often reflects the MacWorld ideology that was brought up earlier.

I’d say it was a good thing though, that Watterson retired when he did. Although I will never understand why he did what he did, I get that he was doing it for peace of mind, and for his integrity. After all, he did claim that he had nothing new to offer to the strip (probably why he introduced a couple new alien characters named Galaxoid and Nebular two months before the strip ended). But it is also possible to assume that perhaps Watterson is more of a painter, a throwback artist who fancies in art before the 20th century, and that he created the Calvin and Hobbes strip merely as a side project that simply captured the hearts of millions of people.

It’s interesting to see how some of the best people at their jobs somehow have their careers cut short. Barry Sanders, a running back for the Detroit Lions during the late 80s and most of the 90s, abruptly stopped his Hall of Fame career during his prime because he no longer had the desire to play the game. This was a guy who ran with the football as good as anyone, and yet when he reached the end zone he simply handed off the ball to the referee. Unlike Deion Sanders, he never did an end-zone dance. He merely shrugged off each personal accomplishment as a means to improve the situation for his team.

George Gerswhin, in my opinion, was one of the best, if not the best, composer of all time. He was ahead of his time (early 20th century), combining jazz, late developments of romanticism, and early developments of modern music. He wrote a lot of Broadway tunes, and perhaps not so many piano and orchestra pieces. But the way he incorporated rhythm, melody, and harmony was absolutely seamless. He managed to keep his music fresh and catchy, and yet logical at the same time. Alas, he died young, at the same age as Watterson at his retirement, but the way he wrote music captured the hearts of many people, in the same way that Watterson’s creation did.

A fourth guy I would have brought up had he not returned to his profession not once, but twice, would have fit very well into this category. Had it not been for his ultimate desire to keep playing basketball, Michael Jordan surely would have topped this list. And for that I am ultimately happy, as I am a die-hard Bulls fan, and was always a huge Michael Jordan fan. But given that after 3 straight championship titles, he temporarily retired from the NBA after his father’s murder and yearning to fulfill his dream of playing baseball. Like Watterson in cartooning, Barry Sanders in football (up for debate), Gershwin in music (also up for debate), Michael Jordan was the best basketball player ever. Had he not returned in 1995, I’m sure he would still enter the NBA Hall of Fame, but as another example of a great career cut short. Of course, depending on how many championship titles LeBron James racks up, MJ’s status will remain intact until James matches or surpasses the six MJ got.

I also ran into a website article (taken from a group blog) comparing Calvinball to a Cubs-Reds game back in September that went wrong in so many ways for both teams. Somehow the Cubs still managed to lose it, by a crappy score of 7-4 in extra innings. As I was reading through it, I started to yearn for the days of the 90s when Calvin was in the papers, the Bulls were champions, and I still had yet to experience life away from home.

On second thought, when I saw the price of another Calvin and Hobbes book (centered on the Sunday strips) that came out in 2001, it was worth around $10 last night. Perhaps in a few years, the big anthologies will be worth around $50 as opposed to the current $150 tag, assuming inflation doesn’t suddenly spike and keep the price sky high. After all I still have all the other Calvin and Hobbes books, except for the aforementioned book that came out 4 years ago and one of the earlier books that got lost during moving season many years ago. I have other more pressing things to think about than some dinky anthology.

88

Today (or yesterday, in some parts of the world) marks a single number for 2 very important coinciding things:

My 88th post, and,

88 years since the White Sox... heck, since the city of Chicago had a baseball team bring home the World Series trophy.

In the words of my friend Si,

"w00t! Just incredible. Go Sox, it's about time."

...Never mind that he was referring to the Red Sox last year (when he said that), i.e. the other Sox.

And I thanked God just recently for being able to celebrate with a friend in Thorson Hall, write the musical composition of my dreams, walk one of my several dream girls to the library, and chill with several music friends till the wee minutes of the morning talking about urinals.

Nothing like a little happiness now and then.

:-)

Pre-World Series Musings, 2005 edition

Well it's official: Chicago and Houston will face off in the ultimate championship series in sports for the first time in history of all four major sports. With the Astros' win yesterday, there will be some bragging rights within parts of my family (my grandpa lives in Houston) for claims to the baseball title. I recall during the Bulls' title run of 6 in 8 years how good the Rockets were (they won 2 in a row in between the two 3-peats), yet the two teams never faced in the Finals. Back then I actually liked the Rockets. We had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, et al. They countered with Hakeem Olajuwon, Robert Horry, Sam Cassell, et al. It would've been the perfect series, with the Bulls winning of course.

This isn't quite the same, as a Cubs fan who isn't much of a fan of the Astros as much as the Rockets, but hey, neither team has gone to the World Series in 46 years. (The Astros didn't even exist in 1959.) It should be fun. And I still hope the White Sox win it. After all, they are a Chicago team, too.

Quite a trip: 2 new T-shirts

Living in Chicago and going to school in Minnesota (and camp in northern Wisconsin, etc) has sent me through Milwaukee dozens of times. I can navigate a bunch of people who couldn't read a map on the main expressways and probably list all the street names that one could exit onto. I've even spent time staring at a street map of Milwaukee and could give a vague description of where the main roads are, and to a lesser extent describe how they run.

But I had never been to Milwaukee. Not that I ever really wanted to; it's a pretty junky city with tons of poverty and abandoned buildings, and other than the local brewery plants the city itself doesn't really have a lot of history. Add in the fact that once I got there, I watched the driver of my car get hopelessly lost in one of its suburbs, nearly hit a deer, miss a turn on an expressway junction, and nearly get hit by a pair of cars going 90 or higher (mph) in a 60 zone. So much for trying to sway my views of the town.

But a lot of good things happened. I banded with several friends from FCA to make the trek to serve God and the inhabitants of this blah city, ranging from helping a church store in a rundown neighborhood set up shop, to helping disabled kids in the Special Bowling Olympics, to visiting a homeless shelter and organize donated clothes that had just arrived at the shelter. I was able to not give in to material distractions such as computers and TVs (apparently the White Sox won the pennant while I was away). I spent a lazy afternoon in one of Milwaukee's beautiful downtown parks playing frisbee and sipping hot chocolate from a local coffee shop. I surprised several of my friends in Cantorei when several of my FCA chums made the trek to a suburb when the Cantorei people clearly weren't expecting any of us to show up. I made some new friends, as well as getting to know better several of the people I already knew. And I got a big reward at the end of helping with the Bowling Olympics: a hug from one of the kids who initially had trouble accepting that he wasn't going to succeed every time he bowled. Oh yeah, and 2 new T-shirts.

There were some frustrations as well, centered around trying to balance hanging out with my friends as well as knowing new people--we had a group of about 25--and feeling productive about what I did during the day. But playing Mafia, Sardines, (the piano) and learning how to jump-start a car (from a safe distance) helped tip the balance into agreeing that it was quite a trip.

End note: the first word out of my mouth when Justin's car finally started this morning (after going through 2 sets of jumper cables) was not, Yippee! or Woo hoo! or Hooray!. It was Hallelujah!. Hallelujah for spirituality of it all, I guess. Hallelujah for the fact that Chicago finally has a team in the World Series for the first time in my life. Hallelujah for the fact that we all arrived Milwaukee and returned at St. Olaf safely. Hallelujah for the fact that I didn't have to do homework for five days. Hallelujah for God. Booyah.

White Sox game addendum

The game wasn't going so well when I entered my previous post, and when I couldn't stand the Sox' inability to push a run across the plate in the 8th inning, I furiously turned off the TV, and let's just say I had a heart-to-heart talk with God. When I came back, the Sox won ["http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20051012&content_id=1247698&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=cws"] after a called third strike (that would've sent the game into extra innings) was controversially ruled as hitting the ground when it reached the catcher's glove. The Sox hitter took off for first base, reached safely, and after the pinch runner stole second, the next batter hit the game-winning double.

I just hope I didn't jinx it by writing about it in this post. But I still am thankful for that divine assist.

Playoff baseball musings

I'm sitting here watching the White Sox-Angels game (Game 2 of the ALCS), mostly because I don't really have any homework to speak of. Already I'm having some strange flashbacks to the Cubs' amazing playoff run that fell short just two years ago. This year's White Sox seem destined to win it all, and why not? Like the Cubs, they haven't won a World Series in over 80 years, won a pennant in almost as long a time, and have been IN the playoffs only a precious few times.

The Cubs' 2003 run was pretty miraculous in itself; they had a pretty miserable record the previous season, and they changed many of the personnel during the previous winter. They had a new manager, a new general manager, and several new players, and they were aiming for a .500 season, despite the new manager's so-called inspirational quote: "Why not us?" So their season ended on a 3-game losing streak in Game 7 of the NLCS against the Marlins, after defeating the Braves in the first round in 5 games. And, well we know what hasn't happened with the Cubs since that day they watched the Marlins celebrate at Wrigley Field en route to the World Series.

But what about the Sox? They haven't been in the playoffs since 2000, and they were out in 3 quick games as they were swept in the first round by the Mariners. This year, they did just the opposite, sweeping the other Sox out of the playoffs in 3 quick games. But now they are where the Cubs were two years ago, in the League Championship Series, with home field advantage, and the city of Chicago (the South Side anyway) going nuts, salivating over the chance to see one of its teams go to the World Series since 1959. Nineteen-fifty-nine. That's a pretty dang long time; approximately when my parents were born. Which means I'm a couple generations removed from the last time anyone's seen (and remembered) a Chicago team winning a league pennant.

I've been reserved about my excitement level (both internally and externally) this season. I kept hoping and believing that it would indeed be the Cubs' year, especially after the Red Sox won the World Series trophy for the first time in 86 years last year. After showing much excitement for the Cubs' possibilities both in '03 and '04, only to be sorely disappointed at the end, it hit me that it wouldn't be worth it to get my expectations up whenever any Chicago team actually makes the playoffs. The last time a Chicago team won anything significant (and as the Wolves are minor league, they don't exactly count) was the Bulls in 1998, clinched by Michael Jordan's famous "last shot." So while I feel optimistic about the White Sox' chance of going all the way, I am more adjusted to the fact that the Angels could defeat them in the ALCS. Or, even if the Sox make it to the World Series, they will undoubtedly face a tough opponent, who could make a strong case for taking the World Series championship.

Musings aside, I'm watching the game. Go (White) Sox!!

[Even though I'll always be a Cubs fan.]

***

I can't wait for the weekend. I will join roughly 25 other FCA friends (and people I don't know yet) on a trip to suburban Milwaukee for a short mission trip. The biggest perk is I'll be able to relax and hang out with people at the same time.

First Piano journal entry (with minor editing)

Today, 11:00 AM, right before my piano lesson

I signed up for practice room times just this morning. Even though I tried to keep a balanced schedule I had practice sessions ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours at a time on different days. So I will see how it all works out.

The Bach (Sinfonia No. 6) was interesting to learn. My biggest trouble spots were mm. 13-16 where the bass has a continually descending pattern loaded with skips and steps. Sometimes these 3-note series of such intervals repeated a second time before continuing downward, whereas others did not. The other trouble spot I had was the soprano line toward the end on the Sinfonia. It had a wacky melody (in the Baroque sense) which was loaded with syncopation. The longest and strongest note occurred on the the 3rd subdivision of each beat, with 16th notes filling up the other two beats. It took me awhile to figure it out, since my current assignment was to play each of the three melodic lines of the Sinfonia separately.

Gershwin just simply knows how to write harmony. I enjoying sort of going through bits and pieces of I Got Rhythm and relished playing the harmonies that went with the melody. For example, in mm. 20-21, the AATB goes from C-flat, G-flat, D-natural, A-flat to B-flat, F, D-flat, G-natural with E flat in the soprano in m. 21 (the key was D-flat major) just rubs me rightly. Needless to say, I didn't spend too much time on it; I more or less learned the first page and the last 10 measures of the song. I had more pressing concerns I needed to address.

The E major and C# minor scales weren't too bad. I still used a metronome, mostly to help me coordinate the two hands.

I knew Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata 1st movement (I started it over the summer), but I still had much clutter to clear up. I still had problems keeping the triplets quiet and bringing out the meoldy, played mostly with the ring and pinky fingers of my right hand. I didn't have so much trouble with my ring finger; the pinky still played pretty weakly (retroactive to elbow problems off and on last year?). For example, when I would put my thumb on the C# and my pinky on the D an octave higher, you'd hear the C#-F#-A triplet pretty clearly, but not the D so much. It's stuff like that, and much more, that I hope to correct.

Musing on Waterville, USA

Just looking over the hundreds of pictures taken of the hard-hit communities of New Orleans, Biloxi MS and Mobile AL still gives me frights. Expressways are completely submerged, houses and trees from a birds-eye-view look like boats surrounded by seaweed, traffic lights are ripped off the wires from which they once hung, cars crushed by piles of bricks and other debris... I could go on and on, but it is just absolutely devastating. Granted, New Orleans wasn't hit as hard as everyone had feared (the hurricane veered off to the east at the last minute), but since the ground there was already below sea level for most of the area, I knew there would still be a hell of a lot of water. I've been reading papers, online articles, and blogs covering all this mess and representing people's personal fears and prayers to those suffering direct damages. I have yet to talk to my dad since the incident, before which he told me some distant relatives who lived where the hurricane hit refused to leave. I do worry about any potential news as it comes, fearing that I will have yet another connection to this catastrophe.

New Orleans may not be livable for several weeks, maybe even a couple months, depending on how quickly all this water evaporates. Hard to believe a place that is completely packed with partyers on Mardi Gras could suddenly be so empty on a day like this (well, empty of people anyway). But in a way, that's probably a good thing; it means most people survived. The next thing to do is pray for those that cannot pick up the pieces, and donate cans of food to those that lost their entire food supply in the destruction.

Dreams reflecting the changing Reality

...I had another back-to-school dream last night, this time focusing on how many of my would-be classes went wrong (one of my classes involved going to a church service where people didn't know any of the responses--such as "And also with you," or "Thanks be to God," etc.). Even though my memory on most of what happened is greatly diminished (it's been about 12 hours since I dreamed the such), I can still remember walking from a Music History class down an endless hall that connected to a church, which in turn connected to a stairway that led to state-of-the-art practice rooms, where the ceilings were high and the acoustics were great. At the same time, as I was venturing between classes and practice sessions, I passed several people that I knew but for some reason didn't want to talk to them. I remember feeling both a rush to get someplace that even in the dream I had no clue where I was going, and guilt for not saying hi to the several friends that I had not seen in a while.

...It was probably the fourth or fifth St. Olaf-related dream I've had ever since I started going there, but this was the first time I had any negativity associated with it. It's possible that my brain was reusing old scenes from previous dreams in which I was going back to my high school and getting ready for Physics and History. About a couple weeks ago, I crammed a dream in three main sequences: first in which I finished practicing, grabbed a few of my friends and headed on a long footbridge over a bay of some sort; second in which I attended a History class with several Olaf and North Shore friends, all taught by one of my high school History teachers; third in which we all split up, and I walked back with my musician friends on the same footbridge that was fast getting flooded with water; we walked all the way to a train station, at which we would take an underground train back to school.

...I recall the first college dream I had actually didn't occur till midway through freshman year. It was the most obvious that I was on campus. My brain shot several scenes at Buntrock Commons (the center of campus where you get food and the mail) and an unnamed dorm, all in which I was hanging out with several people from North Shore (playing card games with guys and making out with the girls). I woke up several times just when the scenes were getting good, but the last part of the dream I remember driving out of St Olaf with family and suddenly finding myself driving on a Houston freeway being chased by some ex-cons wanting revenge for ramming their car, or cutting them off (by changing lanes), or something.

...The second dream didn't occur till halfway through the summer, where I was well away from my dorm when I heard that I had to go back and start packing everything because the U.S. suddenly engaged in a nuclear war with Al-Qaeda and we all had to evacuate and go north (presumably to Canada). So I returned to Kitt and found Tyler already having packed up most of his things (the room was half-bare). Next thing I remember, I'm running with a couple suitcases and a pillow northward in some thick woods, and suddenly I'm in this "safety center" which looked more like an open dungeon. Everyone was huddling together somehow, and I basically just set my stuff down, and woke up. I was actually so intrigued by the scenario that I actually wrote a short story about it. But of course I mixed in some fantasy to spice it up.

...There was another dream or two between then and the last couple weeks. Sadly I don't remember them. I think I had more music opportunities in those dreams, but that's all my brain can muster.

...I've had multiple themes in which I had clusters of dreams with the same ideas floating around again. When I was young I used to dream about different Chicago street plans, and wake up everytime a thunderstorm struck or my cat wanted to bite me. Over the years, I also had dreams about returning to St. Thomas and seeing everyone I knew again, and church dreams in which I was desperate to take part in the services and hang out with my church friends. Off and on I've also had reconfigured Evanston dreams, half the time with a river (not a canal) running through the middle of town, and sometimes Lake Michigan would disappear off the map. And over the past 5-6 years, I've had dreams generated by hormones, some more intense than others. In the past I would have dreams about chasing particular girls, creating all sorts of exotic scenes that wouldn't happen in reality, and at least for a couple hours I would be a happy boy. Now I have dreams in which I hook up with one girl, then we go someplace (like class) and afterward we split and I'm hanging out with other people that happen to be the "persons of the hour." Or, sometimes my dreams will reflect periods of being lazy socially, and my alienation of such people will drive me insane in the process.

...I worry I may get a little nervous about going back to school now, due to my history of being very socially active in small clumps and socially inactive in large clumps. Until the last couple days I have been extremely excited about going back to school. I learned where I was going to live, who was living near me, and all sorts of other possibilities. Suddenly this fear of replicating what I've done pretty much every year of my life, sitting alone in my room, not talking to people and not doing stuff with them and building memories will set in, and I worry about repeating my history in that regard.

...I really hope I'm not connected with Cubs in social futility. If it turns out that they have to go another century before winning a World Series, I surely hope that I will have started dating, hit a homerun, sustained a strong relationship, keep in touch with all my friends for sustained peroids of time, and other important aspects of social vitality long before that happens. Seriously, I couldn't stand getting myself to the point where I dream only about failing to keep correspondence with people that I care about.

Thank you God for another great day

I can definitely say, without a doubt, today was the best day in all of 2005 thus far. [Although the night I saw God in a vision while closing my eyes at an FCA-presided worship service comes really close.] I hadn't gone to Great America in about 2 years, and even when I went then, I certainly didn't stay practically the whole time the park was open. Chris and I were going to go about 10 days ago, when they were open 12 hours (10 AM to 10 PM), but today was just as good, as the last 2 rides that we went on occurred after sunset. We spent our time mostly on or waiting for roller coasters (no need for that carousel stuff), and we both started and finished our day riding the best roller coaster in the park.

Since I cannot exactly express my joy in words (although I could talk more in detail about what I did), I'll leave with a snapshot: a picture of my wide-open mouth and eyes when we went on the second-to-last Raging Bull ride of the night. That expression was so shocking, something that I never thought I could pull off. I decided to buy the photo, despite the $20 price tag. Once I scan it, I might share it later. [Edit: See below.]

Heck with the best day in 2005. I think it's the best day I've had since I pulled an all-nighter at a church lock-in, crashed during the following day, and went to a Halloween party dressed in a White Sox uniform a couple years ago.

Theology of Baseball

I ask my Lord why I bleed Cubbie blue;

I ask him, what it all means to be one too,

I ask what it takes to suffer, to give thanks for the lover,

To reach for the heavens, and all that is within it;

I ask my Lord why they can't win it.

I was bumbling around the piano a couple weeks ago when I wrote these words. It rings pretty appropriate today, as the Cubs lost yet another series, and are playing .500 ball. Granted, that's not so terrible, considering the many seasons they endured in last place and losing over 90 games. Anyway, I wrote down several other lines, but I don't know if I'll use them. It's interesting how, after the Cubs won Game 4 in the NLCS in 2003, they were one game away from going to the World Series. I was chilling with a fellow Cubs fan friend, and I mentioned in passing that if the Cubs went all the way I would write a song about it, exclaiming the finality of the so-called curse and the euphoria that we would experience. [Of course, the rest is history and they still are searching for that elusive championship.] In a way, writing a song about their failures and the divinity/theology of it all seems more appropriate in the big picture sense.

People say God is a Yankee fan, but I know that is absolutely false. If it were true, that would mean Jesus would be getting laid every night without ever getting STDs or women pregnant. If it were true, it would be OK in the Bible for people to steal, cheat, lie, commit adultery, dishonor their parents, and worship other gods (ultimately forget about God himself). The world would be utter chaos. Yes, even worse than what it's like today.

I propose that God is a Cubs fan (at least until they win a World Series). Generations of people have suffered through mediocre seasons, horrible seasons, even excellent ones that turn sour at the end, but they have remained loyal to the team. There aren't too many bandwagon Cubs fans (except for morons) the way there are bandwagon Red Sox fans, or bandwagon Yankees fans. In the "old days" (i.e. before I was born) most Cubs fans would go to Wrigley Field just to have a beer and enjoy the sunny afternoon. The baseball game was merely a bonus, and it didn't matter whether the team won or lost. These days, more fans who go to the games focus more on the team, and pour their heart into cheering when the team does well, or booing when they don't do well. But none of these mean switching loyalties. The fans learn about the history through their parents and/or other older generation Cubs fans who have suffered with the team their whole lifetime. And they share that pain, because they are lured into hoping that they will watch history go down when the Cubs finally do win. It would be that much sweeter to watch a Cubs team lift up the World Series Championship trophy than, say, the Baltimore Orioles or the Cincinnati Reds, because most people in the older generation would have been alive for those events.

I could go on, but what I just posted is merely an introduction to which I would look into history and make more references, and when I would need stats to compare players or teams, or to look at what decisions were made by the manager (during games) and general manager (in shaping the team) over the years, to see what went wrong, study what was common around baseball (spitballs, dead-ball era vs homerun era, etc) and suggest what the Cubs should do to keep themselves ahead of the times. I might write a tell-all book, but then I'd have to major in English, right? Well, did Jose Canseco major in English when he wrote his book claiming several players were on steroids? I don't think so. :-)

Anyway, I know some of you might have questions about the line "to give thanks for the lover," especially since it doesn't have anything to do with baseball. I was mostly trying to find a word that would rhyme somewhat with "suffer."

More proof that God exists

I heard a clamor outside the house (we had our windows open so to let in cool air), and saw a tow truck towing a car. They already had it loaded up on the truck, and they were setting the chains and straps. I've heard lots of negative things about tow truck companies and how "merciless" they can be in dealing with victims of towed cars in that a victim can have a dire emergency and the tow-ers wouldn't give a damn. Anyway, I was merely intrigued in seeing what was going on. I was there for about 30 seconds, and they looked up and saw me at the window. I left right after that, realizing that I didn't need to inhibit in their merciless duty. After all, half the streets in my neighborhood were getting swept the next day, and I could see if they were clearing the roads early (although I've just gotten a ticket for parking in such a zone once), or basically some other semi-logical reason. Anyway, about a minute later I went back to the window and was a bit surprised to see the car back on the street, in the spot it had been previously. I then went to another window and heard them talking about moving it to another, more legal spot. I observed them push into the car into that spot. In pondering the sequence of events, I wonder if I had an influence on their decision to return the car to the spot. If I wasn't so curious to see what the racket was, some neighbor of mine would sure have been pissed.

People generally think God works only in the hearts of good, wholesome people. I think that's true most of the time, as those people are the most open to alternate views and decisions. But, sometimes on occasion He will reach the harder hearts of people fit for cold-blooded jobs. Whether or not He changes their hearts entirely, even if He succeeds for a minute or two, the world is a slightly happier and more relaxed place to be.

Films of the North(side of Chicago)

An invitation to a film festival brought back memories of my filmmaking interim freshman year in high school. A vagabond trio of at least temporary fanatics, we created two short films that generated more rave reviews than the other group (of about 7 people) that created their own film as part of the weekly project.

The first one we did was titled "Stop all Commercialism," and basically it was a series of silly ways to express our views of the endless advertisements so dutifully crammed onto our TV sets during and between shows and other broadcasted events. We had a scene of us painting the title, followed by random clips of commercials that happened to be on TV that day, and a hilarious animation of four rocketships zeroing in on a can of pop, causing it to explode on contact.

The other, which didn't take nearly as much work to film, was titled "Nathan Uses the Force." Basically I walked around secretively in my winter coat (Interim Week took place in November, so it wasn't unbearable to walk around in it), and I went to an indoor balcony and brought out my DoughBoy effigy. I dropped it over the edge, and then had to use some magical power to bring it back into my hand (thanks to Ben, the film brain, they had me drop it again and we just recorded it in reverse), put it back into my coat, and I walked out of the building. [Not to mention we changed the picture to black-and-white after editing.]

Alongside the songwriting workshop I participated in Interim Week of my senior year, the filmmaking was my favorite project. Although I can't really complain about any of the interim projects I did... after all, the other two years I painted a mural and studied comic books. So I can easily say Interim Week was my favorite part of the school year.

...which brings me to tonight. Ian IM'ed me and invited me to a film festival at his school a mere few hours before it actually started. Getting a chance to hang out with one of my friends, I was happy to go, but I was also hoping to watch one of the films that he created from his Colloquim period project.

Unfortunately, some other people in his group somehow sabotaged the film, so it never got shown. The films that were shown, however, ranged from pretty good to kind of crappy. So, in order not to hurt anyone's feelings, I shall comment on only one film. It was titled "1,000 Satellites" and it at least had somewhat of a plot. It's hard to say what all happened, as it had sophisticated music in the background, almost no dialogue, and interesting written messages stuck throughout the whole film (both within and in-between scenes). Suffice to say, it was well put-together, and it had some decent humor.

So anyway, I finally got to visit Northside Prep High School, where Ian just graduated, and where the film festival was held.

Credits and Emotions

Wow. Way better than last year, mostly due to the much lighter (and happier) mood surrounding the past choir year. Congratulations to Mark, Jenny, Lovik and Adrian on their adventures to their respective colleges. And, many thanks to a couple of great friends over the past few years, Ian and Si, for delivering probably the best couple of choir banquet senior speeches I'd heard in quite some time, and for helping me through my senior year a couple years ago.

That was the choir banquet that my ex-church had held at the end of each choir year for about a decade. I remember, with each passing year, eagerly anticipating delivering my speech, sharing with the crowd before me my happy experiences in the choir, and thanking the people that helped me grow, both friends and adults. Then some crazy stuff happened at the church that left me bitter (I may detail in future posts), and when it came time to write my speech the following spring, I was just completely shot of my happiness in trying to detail everything I had wanted to share. So, long story short, I wrote a speech but never delivered it, and again I was filled with this combination of bitterness and sickness due to the lingering culture that cause the church to crumble in the first place.

So where am I going with this? Several of the speeches that were delivered tonight were pretty much the type of speech I always wanted to deliver, ones full of happiness and reminiscence, and gratitude. At the same time, listening for the first time to people of younger years than I delivering their speeches, I felt like that guy who was in a coma while the Red Sox won the World Series. I felt like I completely missed out, as if I didn't actually graduate, even though I am officially an alumnus. So where do I take this new emotional information? Do I store it in the back of my head, hoping to forget it forever, or do I live with it, understanding that I did indeed graduate from the choir, but without doing what I had wanted to do most for many years? That is the issue with which I have to grapple. But, at the same time, I keep living my life, and I keep in contact with those friends that I made through the choir and the church.

Once, again, congrats to the graduates, and thanks for making it a better event than what I had to endure a year ago.

Faith: it brings your life together; does it end curses?

Like that guy in Stargate Atlantis, who brings up many subjects when he's videotaping farewell messages to his family on earth, but returns to the topic of leadership every time, I'd like to introduce a similar topic that may in itself take up several posts: faith.

What is faith? Some people may describe it as a religious thing, while others apply it more to the secular world. I see it as all these things, and much more. Having rediscovered my faith in the church over the past school year (while I was up at St Olaf), it was perhaps one of the most wonderful things to happen to me. As I had been technically churchless for about 14 months, spanning most of my senior year in high school, the following summer, and half of my freshman year in college, my life was in the midst of a whole bunch of confusion, and refusing to believe certain events happened, even if I had witnessed them. Over that time period, I experienced the political collapse of my home church, my high school graduation, going to New York to see my choir school mates for the first time in four years, visiting Ground Zero for the first time, my grandmother's funeral, going off to college for the first time, the Cubs' collapse in the final week of the baseball season, and the Red Sox's curse-breaking World Series run. Most of the time, I either believed too readily, or not at all, the fact that each event was actually happening. It was for good reason, too, as I was still searching for a valid source of faith that I had misplaced when I would refuse to wallow with the rest of the parishioners during this political collapse.

I was also personally in a state of shock on the first day of being at college, as I had not been away from home for a long time (not counting a choir tour to Europe in 2003). Per my wishes in choosing my school after St Thomas that I be with my family and friends and that everything at home would return to how I left it at the end of 4th grade, such hope proved waywardly wrong, as I soon realized. After a completely disillusioning summer to ponder the past year (as well as the past 4 years), I realized it was indeed time to go and try start a new life. So I did, on the backdrop of my first rain-free and snow-free road trip up to Minnesota of my life, and made plenty of friends and went to my classes and went to my choir rehearsals, etc. But something still did not feel right. Typical to habit back then, I slept in every Sunday, and felt like I had no true common link with my friends besides being in the same class and/or living in close proximity with them. (Of course, I don't hang out with many of the friends I had first semester as much, and I made more friends second semester that I still keep tabs with.)

It wasn't till that month between semesters, popularly denoted as "Interim" (January), that I finally found at least one possible niche in which to carve myself. I joined Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and suddenly found myself spending my weekends playing broomball, participating in worship services, playing Sardines, praying, and by God, I found something that made my life pretty complete. I had a vision of Him in my head during our evening worship service at Lani Land (after a day of broomball), and that was the highlight of my whole college freshman year right there. I'd definitely say it was one of the highlights in my life, but I'd have to go back over a score number of years to find anything that competed with it. That goes to show how faith works when I have it.

I even had faith working for me during Spring Break. While my roommate was down in San Padre Island getting laid, I was doing the laying (same word, completely different meaning) in a small town called Marvell, Arkansas. In the midst of all my ground digging and sod-laying, I was also laying friendships with the people in the town, but also with those Oles that came on the trip with me. Out of the 11 other people that made the trip, I didn't know 10 of them beforehand, and for the most part I made friends with pretty much everyone in the group. At the same time, this was after a couple months of feeling down for the first part of second semester, possibly because I had hoped the excitement of Interim would carry over to the following term. However, being separated from the FCA people more often than not, and sharing classes with people I practically expected to hang out and be friends with but somehow didn't happen, I was left questioning all the faith I had built up over interim, and trying to decide how to make things happen socially. So that was hell. After spring break, my spirits were up for a while, but then crashed again after about a month or so, feeling like I wasn't much of a person to anyone. This also coinciding with roomdraw, hoping to find a couple friends to room with for next year. Even though I'm not disappointed with my plans with my roommate for the upcoming year, it would've been nice to find people that hung out in groups and become friends with everyone in the group.

Now that I've gone slightly off-topic about how fun the second half of last year was, I'd like to talk about a subject that's very dear to my heart: leadership. Ahem, I mean faith. As of right now, I'm in-between churches, because I will continually refuse to return to my home church, even though it's functioning much more cohesively than it was, but also between Lutheranism and Episcopalianism. I went to Canterbury for the Sunday evening service, and everything was too "run-through-the-motions" as far as the service was concerned. We had our readings, prayers, hymns, and communion, but it had that "get-this-done-and-move-on-to-the-next-thing" feeling. The services I'd experienced at the chapel on-campus, and the worship services organized by FCA was simply to take time and reflect and share views about how God wants us to come to Him and we'll be saved, rather than fulfilling obligations, remembering everything on the calendar and we're lucky to go to purgatory for a week, for example. It was about expressing faith, and sharing it with others, be they friends or non-believers. Now I'm a big fan of community in the services, and I'll admit it took me a while to get used to a church service with different music, but now I feel like I have to go to a more Protestant church just to get the enthusiasm I so crave to feel like I'm in God's house, rather than zipping through the services in a robotic fashion.

***

I've spent the past couple of days intently on the online baseball message boards, particularly the Cubs' board, and it amazes me that even though the Cubs have returned to .500 by virtue of a 4-game winning streak, many fans have already begun to write off this season as a possible curse-breaker via a World Series championship. Several days ago, I myself also began to echo many of their sentiments, as the Cubs just seem to keep piling up quality players on the DL due to injuries. What amazes me is that a possible reason that the Cubs don't win very often is that the fans lose faith in the team when even the littlest thing goes wrong, and write off the season "because of the curse." Apparently the Red Sox fans finally decided to stop believing in curses and pull for their team no matter what, because after being down 0-3 to the Yankees in the American League Championship Series their team pulled out a comeback, beat the Yankees, and then bush-slapped the best team in all of baseball, the Cardinals, back to Sportsman's Park. In other words, the Red Sox absolutely humiliated them in four straight games. Now that's reward for faith. [For those of you who don't know, Sportsman's Park used to be the ball field for St. Louis' other baseball team before it contracted in the 60s or 70s. I think it's been demolished.]

Of course, the Red Sox fans never simply showed up at Fenway Park "to have a beer" and get some 'rays, like so many Cub fans of my parent's generation. Of course, in those years, Chicago didn't really have a winning team in any other sport, so it helped fuel the apathy. Fortunately, the fan culture may change now, as so many people in my generation grew up watching the Bulls win not one, but six championships, and were also treated to the Cubs playoff run in 2003 of which was unhinged merely by player shock via a deflected foul ball. That was all evidenced in the fans booing LaTroy Hawkins, the misfortunate reliever who was supposed to be a great reliever but couldn't close out games. Thus shows how the fans want change now, if there's a problem, rather than next year. I'm sure there's plenty of faith for this year's Cubs team, as the Marlins were deep in the gutter about this time 2 years ago, changed managers, and went on to win the World Series. Hopefully the Cubs themselves could be on their way to duplicating that (minus changing managers), but it'll take faith, if nothing else, among the team and among the fans to pull it out, just like the Red Sox did last year. One last note, the problem with having a cursed team is that if enough people believe it, then it is cursed. Once we (Cub fans) stop believing in the curse even if one of our outfielders trips while running for a routine fly ball to end the game and win the NLCS, and believe that we still have a great chance to win, then we will.

But all it takes is faith, and not that wimpy, "hope-it's-possible" faith, like I've had in various aspects of my life over the past few years. Put your strength in the Lord, and anything is possible. [And I'm sure I just quoted a Bible verse in there somewhere.]

Behind the Whistle and Underneath the Stripes

When you're watching a game, whether it's on TV or in person, if it's not the opposing team, it's the umpire or referee. Sometimes they'll drive you so mad you want to run down on the field and challenge them, either verbally or physically. Sure, even I have felt for players and coaches when they believed their integrity was questioned when a ref puts them down for their outbursts. I remember last spring, in the last inning one of our guys cursed after striking out, and was promptly ejected and suspended for a game as well.

It's kind of weird how generally the most mild-mannered and level-headed guys (off the court or field) can be insulted if they strike out or commit a foul. And of course we want to blame the official; after all, [he] was the one who made the call. I've been around sports quite a bit to understand the stakes and tensions in a game, and when a call (especially a dumb one) goes against my team even my adrenaline goes up because I'd never want my team in that kind of situation.

I remember in basketball last year, we were at Mooseheart in the middle of nowhere. The varsity team was a little more determined to win than usual because the JV team (who was having a good season) lost by one point on a last-second shot by Mooseheart's JV. So we found ourselves in a tight game but ahead by a certain number of points. However, Mooseheart had momentum and was clawing away at our lead. Then the fireworks came out when, while we were on defense, the refs whistled a foul, and the announcer's table immediately reported the foul on our star player, his fifth, even though he was nowhere near the play. What really got to me was that the refs weren't intelligent enough to look at the jersey numbers and clearly identify that a different person had committed the foul. So our star player was out of the game, and Mooseheart would go on to win the game on another last-second shot. Never mind that our star player would have reached a career high in points scored had he stayed in.

So, why would I bring this topic up, you ask? I ran into a couple of FCA friends at lunch today, and one of them happens to be an umpire for youth baseball, lacrosse and other youth sports. Tex and I lingered for half an hour talking about our experiences in games, and how he had to deal with angry players and coaches, and he made me realize how truly hard umpiring a game can be. What with angry players and coaches (and fans too, occasionally) coming up to his face, he'd sometimes want to end the game because of a true lack of sportsmanship. We discussed the little, hard calls, such as whacking people's arms with lacrosse sticks, and getting into the tidbits of what was legal and what wasn't--for example, using a stick to whack someone else's arm or stick is legal as long as it's under control--and how people erupt when a call is made. He also told me of times he ejected people simply to send a message, not that he had a personal problem with any of them.

Tex told me he once officiated a game where some high school kid took out another's head with his stick. He went over to the coach, and told him he'd let off the kid this time, but if he did it again he'd write a note to the league asking for the kid to be kicked out. The coach completely understood, and appeared as angry as Tex was. So the coach yanked the kid off the field and completely chewed him out, trying to send a message that the behavior would not be allowed, period.

I may or may not want to be a referee. I mean, you're the king once you set foot on the playing surface; even the coaches cannot dictate the game. However, I'd have to learn all the game and league rules and regulations, ace all the exams, and then exercise stiff judgment and stand by them even in the face of anger. I'm not 100 percent sure if I could do all that. Not that I'm afraid, but in my small frame I'd have to have a lot of guts standing up to 40-plus old-school coaches trying to manipulate me in to playing by their rules rather than the league's rules. I suppose if I had a late growth spurt and went on an eating binge, then it's possible. But I seriously doubt that.