Spring in Ithaca

Looks like spring is making its way to Ithaca:

Except, not really.

Top picture was taken a few weeks ago.  If you can't tell, the tree is budding, the grass is visible, and the sky is blue.  Bottom picture was taken on the way to class Thursday (yesterday) morning.  The grass, trees, and buildings appear to have been covered by a soft, wet white substance also known as snow.  Everything is grey.

Double Knots

I’m actually talking about two different kinds of knots here.  Two types of double knots . . . hidden symbolism? . . . Yeah, no.

First, I would like to discuss the art of tying shoelaces.  I tie my shoelaces when I first put my shoes on, but as soon as they become untied, I have a habit of leaving them that way.  This actually disturbs other people, especially the ones who trip over my shoelaces, more than me.  However, when I started climbing, I had to double knot the laces on my climbing shoes because those were getting in my way when they came untied every five minutes.  This led me to the brilliant idea to also double knot my regular shoes.

Yeah, I know.  It took me nineteen years several months to realize that I could double knot my shoelaces and they wouldn't come untied.

Speaking of climbing, (That may have just been a transition, meaning that I may have actually learned something from fourteen years of English class.) there are several knots necessary for climbers to know.  Among those are the double fisherman’s and double figure eight knots.

I had to learn the double fisherman’s my sophomore year of high school when we had to tie our own harnesses.  The double figure eight I had to learn a few weeks ago; it’s the knot we use to tie climbers in to the ropes at Lindseth.  I think I have some sort of learning-to-tie-knots deficiency, because while everyone else is tying knots after one demonstration, I’m staring at two ends of rope in my hands.

I’m not sure if it’s because I want to tie the knots in the opposite direction as the way they’re taught or what, but as soon as anyone starts saying anything like “and take the two ends of the rope and wrap one end around the other, then pull the other end through the loop and bring the ends of the rope back together and you’re done,” I get hopelessly lost after about the “and.”  The first one.  So for me, learning to tie any type of knot more complicated than my shoelaces* involves someone walking me through every single step.  Probably multiple times.  But I can now tie a double figure eight knot, and yes, I am very close to passing my belay test.

*Actually, there’s the “around the tree” method of tying shoelaces, which I don’t use, and no matter how many times I see people do it/have it explained to me, I will not be learning to tie this on my own. And no, an online picture tutorial will not help me. Have you ever tried to draw a knot?

You Win Some, You Lose Some

After a fairly successful weekend on the sports front, Cornell and the New England Revolution proceeded to then lose just enough games to disappoint their fans.  On Saturday, the Revolution had an early evening kickoff against the Philadelphia Union.  I was listening on the radio (Which, by the way, is especially confusing when Dax McCarty [New York Red Bulls] and Stephen McCarthy [Revolution] are playing against each other.  Is it too much to ask to know which team has the ball?) and from what I could tell, it wasn't a particularly good game.

There were approximately three shots in the first half and the teams went into the second half tied.  With about twenty minutes left to play, the Union scored on a terribly marked set piece.  To add insult to injury, the goalscorer had scored the game winning goal against the Revolution during the previous three Union-Revolution games.

With that, the Revolution returns home to play Sporting Kansas City.  In the offseason, New England’s highest paid midfielder Benny Feilhaber was sent to Sporting KC for allocation money and draft picks.  People weren't exactly devastated to see him go, but if this plays out in typical New England fashion, I expect a hat trick from him this afternoon.  (See also Jeff Larentowicz’s MLS Cup with the Colorado Rapids the year after he was traded and Shalrie Joseph’s two-goal performance against New England last summer.  Note: those were the only two goals Joseph scored for Chivas USA in twelve games.  And since the Revolution didn't want to hold on to Marko Perovic, fortunately he went back to Europe.  But seriously, can we get this guy back?)

On the same day as the Revolution’s loss, the Cornell’s women’s hockey team was knocked out of the NCAA playoffs and the men lost to Quinnipiac 10-0.  Really.  While the women’s hockey season was ended, the men had one more chance to keep their playoff hopes alive.  With a best of three series tied at one game each, Quinnipiac and Cornell would face off one more time on Sunday night.

Cornell  lost.  In double overtime.

Final note: I would be more than happy to be proven wrong about Feilhaber’s return to New England, especially if the Revolution pull off a win.

If At First You Don't Succeed

Try, try again; you’ll probably fall again, but try not to hurt yourself.  More life lessons from the climbing wall.  I know, I’m my parents are paying thousands of dollars [for me] to go to Cornell and I seem to be learning the most from my PE class.  This only looks like the case because somehow, I don’t think the general population would find nested for-loops and inhomogeneous linear higher order ordinary differential equations as fascinating as I do, so I keep that fun to myself.

In rock climbing two Mondays ago, instead of learning a few new climbing techniques like we usually do after snack, we were put into groups and told to come up with our own bouldering problem.  We were told that the other groups would be trying our problem, so the goal was to find something kind of absurd, but that we could still climb.  As in, no choosing handholds fifteen feet apart because that’s just ridiculous.

The instructor who was with our group mostly came up with our route, but then two out of the three of us had to climb it.  One of the guys in my group was pretty tall, so he did it after a couple tries.  I, on the other hand, occasionally have trouble getting off the ground because I can’t reach any handholds.

The route began with some solid hand and footholds.  The next move was to move my right hand into a pocket-type hold (I know, I've got the terminology down solid.) and switch feet so that my left foot was free.  At that point, there was some mantling (pushing down on a hold instead of pulling up or to the side) and smearing (using the friction between the wall and your shoe), and that’s where I kept getting stuck.  With both hands jammed into a hold, I was supposed to pull myself up to reach the second to last handhold, but I kept slipping out.

What the instructors have been teaching us in class is that where you put your feet is as important as where you put your hands, and shifting your weight can drastically affect your balance.  I didn't really have a choice about where my feet were, but by shifting my weight onto my left leg, I could push myself upward, move my left hand to the next hold, and finish the route.

It took me almost ten tries, but I did it. And now I have a route on the climbing wall, which I think is pretty cool.

Let’s Go Red, and Viva the Revolution

It seems that all my favorite sports teams had a pretty good weekend a couple weeks ago*. At Cornell, women’s hockey beat Harvard to win the ECAC Hockey championship.  Men’s hockey beat Princeton in a best of three series to move on to the ECAC quarterfinals.  Women’s basketball picked up a win against Dartmouth.  Over in Bridgeview, Illinois, the New England Revolution started their MLS season with an away win against the Chicago Fire.

It started Friday night with women’s basketball, but I was working and couldn't attend the game.  On Saturday, Lynah [Cornell's rink] was scheduled to host any and all of the ECAC action, so the first game (Cornell vs. St. Lawrence) started early, at one.  (If the men had gotten home ice for their first round games, the early start would have allowed games to be played at one, four, and seven – both women’s semifinal games followed by the men’s game.)

The women continued the trend of not jumping out to a 4-0 lead (like they sometimes did in the regular season) in the playoffs.  They scored two goals in the first period, but were matched by St. Lawrence in the second period, so we went into the third period tied.  Midway through the third period, Cornell got called for two penalties, leaving the team to play some 3 on 5 hockey and me, and the band, and probably a lot of Lynah, to think “we’re in trouble.”  But the team managed to kill the first penalty, and with less than two minutes to go, scored the winning goal.

After the game, since it was still early, I had a couple hours in the afternoon to do nothing get caught up on homework.  Later that night, I may have been simultaneously checking the score to the men’s second game against Princeton, watching the live comment feed of the Revolution vs. Fire game, and trying to Skype with my parents.  Turns out the Cornell men’s hockey team secured their second win to move on in the playoffs, and not only did the Revolution’s Jerry Bengtson score a goal, but the Revolution held on to their late lead to secure the win.  (Bengtson is fairly well known around MLS circles for scoring Honduras’ game-winning goal in the US-Honduras World Cup Qualifying match while also being seemingly unable to score for the Revolution.  Let’s hope he proves otherwise.)

Sunday, the women’s hockey team took on Harvard for the ECAC final.  It was similar to the St. Lawrence game, except with less goals.  Cornell scored first, then Harvard tied the game in the first period; nobody scored in the second, and we were down to the last minutes of the third period.  Once again, Cornell scored their game-winning goal with less than two minutes to play.  They almost made it 3-1 with an open net goal, but the puck hit the post and didn’t end up crossing the line.  And with that, the women move on the NCAA playoffs, the men take on Quinnipiac in the ECAC quarterfinals, and there may yet be hope for the Revolution.

(For anyone who doesn't understand why the title seems to be applauding a color and making marginally correct English sentences like “Live the Revolution”:  Cornell teams are often referred to as the Big Red, and fans often shout “Let’s go red” to cheer them on.  Last year, the Revolution’s home goal song was “Viva the Revolution.”)

*Blog time tends to move anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks behind real time. Since that weekend, a few somewhat demoralizing events have transpired; they will probably be featured sometime within the next weeks.