FYSH Blog
Monday, December 10, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Umass Lowell Riverhawks Hockey Game
I have played hockey my entire life, and it has probably been the most influential activity I have ever done. That being said, I always wanted to play D1 ice hockey for a Hockey East team. Growing up watching BU, BC, Northeastern, Harvard, and of course UMass Lowell, I have been to the Tsongas Center a few times as a kid. However, I had not been during the recent years prior to this semester.
Coming to UMass Lowell, I was naturally excited to watch the hockey games here. I have been to quite a few this year but I have chosen to write specifically about the UML-Northestern game on 12/8/2012. I chose this game in particular, not only because we won, but because it was the game that I felt we played most as a team and fluent. Also, Northeastern was always a team a really looked up to as a kid.
During the first period, both teams were battling for a goal. We weren't playing necessarily awesome, but then again neither were the Huskies. When the second period came around, though, the score was tied 0-0. We came out killing them, a few open ice hits letting them know we weren't messing around and the Riverhawks were here to play; the fans, including myself, were going crazy. We were taking shots from every angle trying to slide one past the Northeastern goalie, but he was giving us nothing. Finally, with about 2 and a half minutes left in the period, we put one in to make it 1-0. It was a nice shot from the slot (right in from of the net) going right by the goalie's leg, bottom right corner. That was the end to the second period in terms of goals.
The third period was filled with stress and anxiety. The Huskies came out swinging with a vengeance this time, determined to come back. Our backup goalie (not sure why he was in the net) was giving them nothing. He was making great saves left and right. Eventually, we got back to our game, great passes, good hits, and some quality shots. We finally put in a second goal to make it 2-0; it was perfect. Riverhawks were coming down on an odd man rush, the forward passed it right across the slot for a backdoor goal, meaning he shot it right where the goalie wasn't looking, as he was too distracted by the player who made the great pass. We fought hard the rest of the game, and came out with the 2-0 win. It was by far my favorite game of the season.
As for my experience at the Tsongas center, I'd like to talk about the first game I went to this season. I hadn't been there in years and it was just as incredible as I remembered it. Walking through the doors, the blowup shooting station, the inspirational pictures painted on the stairs. As I walked up the stairs to the main part, I suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia. All I could think was being 10 years old walking the halls with my team, anxiously awaiting the day I could play here. It was incredible.
I wanted to play hockey again so much; it made me sad remembering that I don't have time with all of classes going on. I quickly snapped out of it, though, and remember I was about to see one of my childhood legendary hockey teams play again. I waled around looking at all of the merchandise and people all here to cheer on their team, whichever team that may be. Walking down the steps to my seat, joining the mass of Umass Lowell students, was insane. There were so many kids ready to cheer, yell, scream, laugh, and anything else that was about to happen. I loved every second of my first back at the Tsongas Center. Unfortunately, the prices of food were a lot higher than I remember them being though...
I have played hockey my entire life, and it has probably been the most influential activity I have ever done. That being said, I always wanted to play D1 ice hockey for a Hockey East team. Growing up watching BU, BC, Northeastern, Harvard, and of course UMass Lowell, I have been to the Tsongas Center a few times as a kid. However, I had not been during the recent years prior to this semester.
Coming to UMass Lowell, I was naturally excited to watch the hockey games here. I have been to quite a few this year but I have chosen to write specifically about the UML-Northestern game on 12/8/2012. I chose this game in particular, not only because we won, but because it was the game that I felt we played most as a team and fluent. Also, Northeastern was always a team a really looked up to as a kid.
During the first period, both teams were battling for a goal. We weren't playing necessarily awesome, but then again neither were the Huskies. When the second period came around, though, the score was tied 0-0. We came out killing them, a few open ice hits letting them know we weren't messing around and the Riverhawks were here to play; the fans, including myself, were going crazy. We were taking shots from every angle trying to slide one past the Northeastern goalie, but he was giving us nothing. Finally, with about 2 and a half minutes left in the period, we put one in to make it 1-0. It was a nice shot from the slot (right in from of the net) going right by the goalie's leg, bottom right corner. That was the end to the second period in terms of goals.
The third period was filled with stress and anxiety. The Huskies came out swinging with a vengeance this time, determined to come back. Our backup goalie (not sure why he was in the net) was giving them nothing. He was making great saves left and right. Eventually, we got back to our game, great passes, good hits, and some quality shots. We finally put in a second goal to make it 2-0; it was perfect. Riverhawks were coming down on an odd man rush, the forward passed it right across the slot for a backdoor goal, meaning he shot it right where the goalie wasn't looking, as he was too distracted by the player who made the great pass. We fought hard the rest of the game, and came out with the 2-0 win. It was by far my favorite game of the season.
As for my experience at the Tsongas center, I'd like to talk about the first game I went to this season. I hadn't been there in years and it was just as incredible as I remembered it. Walking through the doors, the blowup shooting station, the inspirational pictures painted on the stairs. As I walked up the stairs to the main part, I suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia. All I could think was being 10 years old walking the halls with my team, anxiously awaiting the day I could play here. It was incredible.
I wanted to play hockey again so much; it made me sad remembering that I don't have time with all of classes going on. I quickly snapped out of it, though, and remember I was about to see one of my childhood legendary hockey teams play again. I waled around looking at all of the merchandise and people all here to cheer on their team, whichever team that may be. Walking down the steps to my seat, joining the mass of Umass Lowell students, was insane. There were so many kids ready to cheer, yell, scream, laugh, and anything else that was about to happen. I loved every second of my first back at the Tsongas Center. Unfortunately, the prices of food were a lot higher than I remember them being though...
Honors Event - Women's Basketball Game
Upon arriving to the game, I was excited to see Costello Gymnasium. I had been inside, but I have only seen the pool, so the gym was new to me. My first impression was that it was enormous; the gym was so much bigger than I expected it would be. Also, arriving not too much after the game began, I was shocked to see so many people supporting the Women's Basketball Team. It was my false belief that hockey was the only sport important to this school; it was all I had ever gone to, and I assumed it was all that the other students at the school have gone to as well. I was very wrong, though. They were handing out blue Commonwealth Honors Program shirts, and we were all wearing them, so it looked like a giant blue see behind the hoop; it was very cool. Also, the gym had all of the banners from all of our sports teams championship wins hanging all the way around the ceiling (as seen in the picture to the left). With bleachers on both sides, and behind the hoop, where I was sitting, the gym holds a ton of people. A good portion of the seats were filled by fans cheering for their team to win.
Also surprising to me was the pep band. I was not expecting a band there (for whatever reason). As I walked in I heard some great music coming from the stands between plays. It was pretty awesome. They were playing songs like "The Final Countdown" and, I think, "Shout," and a ton of other popular, fun songs to hear while watching a great game.
As far as the game goes, I believe the Riverhawks ended the game with a 70-65 loss (if I remember correctly). It was a great game, though. Lots of battling for the ball and heated confrontations. In my opinion, the refs threw the game away; they were calling our team for just about everything. It eventually got to the point that our fans were screaming and yelling at the refs for blowing the game. It got pretty intense and entertaining, really. Their were so many foul shots that the last ten minutes of the game actually lasted a good half of an hour. I didn't mind though, because fouls are what makes basketball interesting. Otherwise, I have never been a huge basketball fan. I was very impressed at the skill that these girls had, however. They were making a lot of 3 pointers and almost never missed a foul shot. Those types of things made me respect the time and effort they must have put into the sport throughout their entire lives.
Even though I am not a huge fan of the sport, I did enjoy this. I had a great time rooting for the Riverhawks with the other kids, and I will definitely going to more games. Hopefully next time I can see a nice win.
Costello Gymnasium |
Also surprising to me was the pep band. I was not expecting a band there (for whatever reason). As I walked in I heard some great music coming from the stands between plays. It was pretty awesome. They were playing songs like "The Final Countdown" and, I think, "Shout," and a ton of other popular, fun songs to hear while watching a great game.
As far as the game goes, I believe the Riverhawks ended the game with a 70-65 loss (if I remember correctly). It was a great game, though. Lots of battling for the ball and heated confrontations. In my opinion, the refs threw the game away; they were calling our team for just about everything. It eventually got to the point that our fans were screaming and yelling at the refs for blowing the game. It got pretty intense and entertaining, really. Their were so many foul shots that the last ten minutes of the game actually lasted a good half of an hour. I didn't mind though, because fouls are what makes basketball interesting. Otherwise, I have never been a huge basketball fan. I was very impressed at the skill that these girls had, however. They were making a lot of 3 pointers and almost never missed a foul shot. Those types of things made me respect the time and effort they must have put into the sport throughout their entire lives.
Even though I am not a huge fan of the sport, I did enjoy this. I had a great time rooting for the Riverhawks with the other kids, and I will definitely going to more games. Hopefully next time I can see a nice win.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Journey to the Center of an Atom
Journey to
the Center of an Atom
Large Hadron Collider |
Professor Chowdhury had an amazing
presentation set up for learning about the microscopic, yet extraordinary atom. He spoke of the prediction (I believe by
Albert Einstein) that atoms would never be able to be separated. That is clearly false, however, since we have
been doing that for years. The Large Hadron
Collider, located in Geneva, is the biggest atom separator on the planet, which
I found very interesting. Just to get a
little off-topic, I remember years ago there was a very large population of
people that were terrified of this machine.
They claimed that it was so powerful that it could in fact cause a black
hole and suck the Earth into it. It
sounds ridiculous, but I remember hearing a lot about it, so it must’ve been a
pretty big concern.
Something I was also intrigued with
was when Professor Chowdhury explained that we as humans are learning to
manipulate atoms into doing specific things.
This is particularly interesting because that is basically chemistry
meeting engineering. Imagine what could
happen if we could control atoms to do anything we needed? The amount of potential energy in an atom is
unreal. We could do so much with that. It could be an alternate source of power, or
anything else. So many doors would be
open to humanity; but this is just me rambling.
The next topic covered was actually
about the movie The Hulk, having to do
with photons being shot into the main
character. In reality, that machine
measures the photons leaving a nucleus, however in that movie the photons were
being shot from the machine. I thought
it was pretty funny that they would do the complete opposite of physics just
for a movie to look “cool.” Not to
mention, the beams that were shot into him cannot actually be seen with the
eyes, so that was not accurate either.
It did get the point across, though, in an amusing way.
Two of my favorite parts of the
presentation were the demos. One was two
eggs, one hard boiled and one raw. He
spun the first and stopped it suddenly, then took his hand away; the audience observed
that it stopped dead. He did the same
with the second egg, the raw egg, however it kept spinning after because the
liquid inside was still spinning.
Apparently, this is what happens with an atom too, which was a unique
way of thinking about it.
The second demo was my personal
favorite. He had a fairly large ring
tied to the end of a string, and began moving the string in a circle, causing
the ring to also spin. Eventually, the
ring was no longer dangling but was flat, almost like it was resting on a
table, yet it was spinning in the air. His
explanation for this was (roughly) as follows: “the ring uses energy to rise
up, and the ring changes its course of spinning. The gravitational system can recognize better
or worse scenarios o its own. Nature likes
to minimize things.” I think that
gravity realizing that one path could use less energy than another in
fascinating. How can something without a
mind, without any way of thinking, control something like that? How could it choose the best way of completing
something? Nature is a ridiculously complex
being which I personally don’t believe we will ever completely understand.
I thoroughly enjoyed Professor
Chowdhury’s presentation on the atom. It
approached the subject from a lot of different angles which kept things very
interesting and made it easier to understand what exactly he was talking about. I have never been particularly interested in
chemistry and atoms and things like that, but it definitely gave me a new
appreciation for it.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Presentation
My presentation on an authentic Cambodian restaurant in Lowell was completed on 10/17/2012.
Textile History Museum
Required
Excursion #3
American
Textile History Museum
Visiting the American Textile
History Museum was a very interesting experience for me. Not only did it have great exhibits, but it
also had underlying themes that I am not sure were apparent to everyone; they may not have been intentional at all,
but they were obvious to me.
First and foremost, I would like to
discuss the “Homefront & Battlefield” section of the museum. The underlying theme I experienced from this
exhibit is that war (the civil war, more specifically) are not about fighting, but fighting for something. It is not solely about winning a fight or
conquering a territory, but it is more about the soldiers that are doing it,
and the reason behind it. Furthermore,
perhaps a more obvious message was that textiles played an enormous role in the
outcome of the Civil War. Learning about
the Civil War, I never thought about that aspect of it. I had always paid attention to the winner and
the loser, not the politics and economy behind it. I was fascinated with some of the things I
discovered. I was so interested in fact,
that after attending this excursion, I did some research on my own (from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/arts/design/homefront-battlefield-at-american-textile-history-museum.html?_r=0). I will
describe the information that I found at the museum and online. Textiles were a crucial part of the American
Civil War. As I now know, participants
in this war went after cotton fields, burning them and ruining the crops in an
attempt to surpass the other half of the country from a material stand point. Cotton was used for crucial items in the war:
soldiers’ uniforms, blankets, and an abundance of other items. Often times, textile workers were even
kidnapped to prevent textile manufacturing. How could something that goes so unnoticed now
be so incredibly valuable 150 years ago?
How could we kidnap our own women simply because they assist in creating
something that helps the country? It
seemed absurd to me.
Contrary to the actual violence part
of it, the quilts and pictures and diaries were very moving. Often wars are thought of as soldiers fighting,
but the families are rarely mentioned.
Seeing a quilt made from a soldier’s mother, or a diary entry from a
wife, or a picture of a soldier’s family hit my heart hard. I imagined being in their shoes, losing a
loved one, losing a family member or someone close to me. That must be something so difficult to go
through. However, it seemed ironic that
the quilts were so colorful; I almost thought it could be subconsciously symbolizing
hope that things will get better. Then
again, it could have just been random colors used; I just like to think there
was an underlying meaning behind them.
The next section was about the
“Textile Revolution.” This was a
timeline, if you will, of the steps taken in the textile industry. Of course, it began with the long process of
created fabrics by hand, and all of the complicated parts involved. Next, was the common story of Samuel Slater,
and how he miraculously snuck the secrets for America’s first spinning mill
from England. I mistakenly did not jot
down the rest of the journey in my notes, but I believe the next section was
about the design of clothes, how the colors and designs have changed, and so
on. I also recall the topic of
firefighter uniforms and hings like that being displayed. This was interesting to me to think that some
of the same materials I wear, are also worn by people saving lives. I think that it is miraculous that such a
commonly found material nowadays can save lives in some circumstances, if it is
put together properly.
All in all, I had a great time at
the American Textile History Museum. I
am definitely glad I went, and I learned a lot of valuable information about
the history of America’s textiles. Since
Lowell was a “powerhouse” in that department, I’d say we’ve had quite a
significant impact on the country.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Jack Kerouac Literary Festival
Jack Kerouac Festival
Mandatory Excursion
Attending
the Jack Kerouac Festival was probably my favorite excursion so far. I attended the Rick Moody and Tanya Donelly
session on October 10, 2012. The
majority of the event consisted of these two incredibly talented musicians, and
author in Rick Moody’s case, discussing their personal achievements, ideals,
thoughts, and opinions on certain topics.
I have
recently been taking more of an interest in how music is created, what goes
into it, different methods of playing it, and playing instruments such as bass
and electric guitar. After having said
that, I found this event enticing. One
woman in the audience asked which came first, the lyrics or the music. To my astonishment, the mutual agreement
between Rick and Tanya was neither.
Tanya said that the words and the music need to come together at the
same time, otherwise the process is extremely “laborsome.” I had never heard this before, the answers I
had heard before were either the words come first, or the music need to come
first. I had never thought that the
process would call for both to be imagined at the same time. I say imagined because Moody’s response was
to not even pick up an instrument when writing a song or one will be forced
into using common chords or melodies.
Also
something that was previously a mystery to me was where professional song
writers write their music. Moody said he
writes on anything available, like napkins, paper, the notepad app for the
iphone, or anything else. Tanya had a
more definitive answer of a notebook.
She said she always writes her songs down with a pencil in a
notebook. I suppose it is all based on
personal preference, but I found the opinions and strategies interesting.
They
were asked how their music has been inspired by books. Tanya, struggling to find words for an
answer, came up with the book “Tinkers” that inspired a song she had somewhat
recently written. Often time I have
heard of bands related songs to books, whether it be for inspirational purposes
or for humor. Moody on the other hand
stated that to him music and books were the same genre. They are a common piece of work. “Literature is musical,” he said. “To say one inspired the other would be to
say that they are different, and I have trouble believing that they are.” That stuck with me throughout the
session. Can music and literature be the
same? Are they the same? It is a
very clever thought that makes sense.
What is music, but literature with a tune?
After being asked if music has
“plots,” Tanya stated that they absolutely do.
They tell stories and have characters and scenes. Moody, however, had an answer that shocked
me. It made so much sense yet took an
incredible amount of thought. He said
that books have a beginning, middle, and end.
He said that when writing a song, “music can’t have a beginning, middle,
and end or you become a slave to the system.”
He said that songwriters can’t be editorial or have strict thoughts
about a song prior to writing it.
Otherwise, he explained, song writing is nearly impossible; You are just
going back and forth trying to find words that fit in a melody, or a melody
fitting in with words. This concept sort
of goes back to the idea that lyrics and music should flow at the same time,
rather than forcing one upon the other.
Surprisingly
enough, Jack Kerouac was almost never mentioned throughout the entire
event. I heard his name a few times
vaguely referenced, but otherwise nothing.
I was a little disappointed about that because this was supposed to be
the topic of the excursion. However, I
still found this to be my favorite trip yet.
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