Monthly Archives: April 2017

Mouse Rat Season in Review 2017

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In manners of terrain, you must learn to cut yourself from it. You must cut even your footprints from it, if need be.

–Meti’s Sword Manual, which was most likely not written with playing softball on swampy ground in mind.

I am saddened to report that I am no longer an undefeated softball player, but also glad that I am no longer an undefeated softball player. As a follow up to my previous article, I now provide my analyses of each of the seven games in Team Mouse Rat’s now-complete softball season.

Game 1: Mouse Rat vs Chunder Boys
The other team didn’t bring very much chunder. Or any players.

Win by forfeit.
1-0

Game 2: Mouse Rat vs Balls Deep
Our first real game of the season went about as well as could be expected. We implemented a mercy rule, otherwise all of those points might have happened in a single inning.

Loss 0-20.
1-1

Game 3: Mouse Rat vs Pitches Be Crazy
Before the game, I predicted that we would suffer a 1-21 loss. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was far off the mark. An enjoyable game for all sides, if not a close one.

Loss 5-15
1-2

Game 4: Mouse Rat vs Fresh Timber
I can only guess at the other team’s reasons for failing to appear for what could have been a career-making game.

Win by forfeit.
2-2

Game 5: Mouse Rat vs We Dem Boyz
Our team’s perfect record in games that were not actually played was shattered like a glass jaw here. The Boyz showed up in force, but before our own players could rally to meet them they were set upon by great birds. Each bird emitted a cry that sounded exactly like a complete musical scale, then carried its victim off in the direction of the music building. Crippled by this unexpected attack, we were forced to concede.

Loss by forfeit.
2-3

Game 6: Mouse Rat vs Flyin Hawaiians
By far the closest game we had all season. We even led for a moment, but the Hawaiians quickly recovered and hit a series of home runs to cement their lead.

Loss 4-9.
2-4

Game 7: Mouse Rat vs The Turtles
As the seventh and final game of the season, this had every right to be a climactic showdown. If this were a sports movie, this would be the game where we, the ragtag band of misfits, brought a seemingly undefeatable powerhouse of a team to their knees as the audience listened to the crescendos of an inspiring soundtrack.

We won, but it wasn’t really that exciting. The turtles must have been busy fighting crime or something.

Final record: 3-4
Balls hit through a window in Wyatt Hall: 0, surprisingly.

Expectations

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When you go to college you don’t think about teenagers/early twenties students running branches of national organizations, attending conferences, putting on events that cost thousands of dollars and more. Yet in my experience that is the responsibility and opportunities available to students in college and at UPS. We’re representatives of our university, clubs, honor societies, departments, labs, fraternities and sororities and more all connected through a national network. We have opportunities to be national leaders for our respective organizations, regional representatives, and sit on communities representing our peers to professors, deans, professionals and more.

I’m constantly in awe when I think of my experience in my sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. We’re at a small university and still our executive team, for some its their first time in a leadership position and even so its a role that is very different than limited high school responsibilities. We handle thousands of dollars putting on our philanthropy and formal for over 100 people, we coordinate events with other houses and community organizations to do fun activities and service projects. Many other campus organizations do the same, some planning rallies, and workshops!

 

Even the opportunity to live off-campus, we as students have to find roommates/housemates, reach out to landlords, set up our utilities with various companies and preferences. We furnish our own homes for a few months to a few years during our time year, choosing to live off-campus, walk or drive to campus and begin to stop relying on the campus meal plan but rather cooking (or trying to cook) for ourselves. These are all valuable experiences heading off on our own whether its a graduate program where we must find our own living situation, even finding a job in a different field than we expected to pay the bills.

How I Became an Undefeated Softball Player

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The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.

-Sun Tzu

Consider: the undefeated swordsman must be exceptionally poor.

-Meti’s Sword Manual, Precept 12

 

I suppose the story began in an entirely different dorm then mine. For reasons that still elude me, a group of people I knew decided that they should start an intramural softball team. As the minimum team size was four, the fact that they numbered six gave them a considerable advantage. I now list the first six members of the team and their respective capabilities.
One baseball player
One actual softball player
One dude who runs fast
One lady who is good at throwing stuff but can’t run fast
One swimmer
One team captain (who is confident in the abilities of everyone except herself).
It was on these terms that Team Mouse Rat was founded.

So last Saturday night I was hanging out with these people, and they decided to try to recruit me. There were several arguments they made to convince me to join, but only one of them really stuck: “we’re so low-commitment you don’t have to show up to any of the games.” I also had a reason of my own: “this might be funny.” At that point, they informed me that I needed to sign up on the official website: a task made harder by the fact that the website in question experienced severe technical issues when viewed from a mobile device. So it was that, three hours before the deadline, I signed up for Team Mouse Rat.

Monday morning I got a text from the team captain telling me to prepare for a game Tuesday. I was surprised. She was as surprised as I was. Apparently we were to be facing a team called the “Chunder Boys.” This seemed odd, because the “Chunder Boys” happened to be a softball team of three people. None of us quite understood how a three-person softball team would function, as we figured that they might eventually end up with a boy on each base and no one at bat. Anyway, a game was a game.

On Tuesday afternoon, I walked down toward the field. As I went, I glanced at the forecast: 50% chance of rain. I felt a raindrop, followed by another and another. I decided that the forecast might be a little out of date. The fields on campus are well known to turn into mudpits under such conditions, but I pressed onward. Most of the team, including a few new recruits, was gathered on the field ahead of me. The other team was notably absent. An official looking man walked up to us and helpfully informed us that if the other team did not show up in ten minutes, it would be counted as a forfeit.

Team Mouse Rat’s first game was a resounding success. Our team captain distinguished herself with an insane chain of base-stealing, our batters hit several stunning home runs, and our fielders did a lot of running around. The other team was so utterly overwhelmed that they did not score a single run against us. In fact, they could not even hit a single ball. In fact, they did not catch anything either. They were so overwhelmed that none of them actually showed up to the game.
The now-undefeated Team Mouse Rat stands in the strong position of being the second-largest team in the league. I am left with no option but to conclude that this is the beginning of an exciting season.

Destress

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Without a doubt, this has been my most stressful semester of college. Between midterms and just everything, finding a balance between work and relaxation has been a difficult challenge. Although there is a current lull in stress, post-Spring Break, we’re slowly nearing the end of the semester (!!!) and, as a result, I wanted to share a few of the ways I destress.

  1. Craft. I’m a person who is constantly fidgeting with my hair or with jewelry or with anything, really. I re-took up knitting and I find the constant rhythm of moving the needles is an easy way to relax.
  2. Watch a funny TV show. Throughout the course of the semester I’ve made it through a purposefully unmentioned number of episodes of The Office. It’s nice to mindless watch something and laugh at the antics of Dwight and Jim. As an added bonus, I can knit while watching the show.If you don’t have time to watch an entire episode of a television show, here’s a short clip from an interview with Nick Offerman. Between 6:58 and 7:00 you can see Nick Offerman realize that the interviewer didn’t catch the joke.
  3. Bake. Here are a few of my favorite recipes:
  4. Exercise. Now that it’s slowly starting to get sunny again, taking a walk around Tacoma is a great way to reduce stress. Although Tacoma is beautiful in the fall, I happen to think that Tacoma in the spring and early summer is slightly better. I also recommend yoga. You can attend one of yoga clubs weekly meetings. If the times don’t fit into your schedule, here’s a youtube channel that you can watch and follow along to: https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene.
  5. Deep breathing. Here is an article from Time earlier this year that explains why deep breathing is the fastest way to calm down: http://time.com/4718723/deep-breathing-meditation-calm-anxiety/. Mediation Studio is also an app that I’ve used on and off that has some really good guided mediations.