The Jeremy Lin Problem

Jeremy Lin is the prime definition of a strong minded person. In this article the author talks a lot about how Jeremy Lin dedicates his success to his faith and relationship with God.

As an athlete you tend to forget sometimes why you play the sport, what made you love it in the first place? As you get more serious with your sport and grow older in age pressure and confusion consumes your thoughts. Why am I playing this sport? Are my parents happy with my performance? What about my coach? I wonder what the fans watching thought.....next it's all about your confidence. Am I going to lose my starting position? Am I better then that player? Your own thoughts can become your own enemy.

Jeremy Lin dedicates most of his success to God, not anyone in particular. He is at a state of mind that works for him, and does not let negative thoughts consume him and affect his play. This is why many athletes are successful. When your mental toughness is at ease so is your performance. Many athletes find their mental strength in God. My teammates once a week have bible study, and some of them dedicate their play to him as well.

I consider myself what they call a "head case" when it comes to my performance. I am my hardest critique, but at the same time I am also my worst enemy. That is why I found this article so inspiring because I too am still struggling with certain things in not only my everyday life but soccer as well. It's hard to find that ease in yourself and let your mind relax. Jeremy Lin has dedicated his performance selflessly to God. It has taken years for him to finally figure this out and is still working on it, but his performance has improved immensely. I know one day I will figure my mind out as well, but it is still a major work in performance.

Real-Life A Capella Competitions- Not Just on Glee!

The Dicks and Janes performing Bicycle Race at ICCA Quarterfinals, 2012
That's me singing Freddy Mercury's solo!

This weekend, the Dicks and Janes, along with three other groups from the University of Michigan, competed in the International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella, better known to all of us as ICCAs. The Quarterfinal round was hosted this year at U of M by the G-Men, an all-male a cappella group that also competed. There are five quarterfinals in the Midwest region with 10 competitors each, as well as many other quarterfinals around the country. The winner and runner up of each quarterfinal goes on to compete in that region's semi-final, the Midwest Semifinal being in St. Louis in March.

I am a proud member of the Dicks and Janes, and since September, we have been working on making every song in our repertoire sound performance-ready, always wondering in the back of our minds what our Musical Director (a Junior neuroscience major who is fabulous with music) would pick for us to perform. After last year's quarterfinals, in which we did not place, we were hoping to up our game and put everything out on the table during competition this time around. In January, we decided that our set for ICCAs this year would consist of three songs- Bicycle Race by Queen, a mash-up of Fly Me to the Moon and Fever by Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, respectively, and My Heart With You, by the Rescues. Our goal was to make this the best performance that we possibly could, and during the two months that we solidly rehearsed day in and day out, we had a blast making beautiful music with each other.

During Fly Me to the Moon, we danced the salsa on stage!

We knew we would be judged on a variety of things by three different judges, all members of Varsity Vocals, the organization that produces ICCAs each year. Some of the criteria included dynamics, visual cohesiveness, choreography (that was one of my favorite parts, as you can see from the pictures) and complexity of arrangements. Note that all of our arrangements as of right now have been arranged by the brilliant and musically gifted members of the Dicks and Janes. We knew we would be taking a huge risk with the songs that we chose, the choreography that we designed, and the seamless transitions that flowed between songs. However, with practice, we were soon incredibly comfortable with the set we designed and we were ready to be on stage and share our music with an audience.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon to Rackham auditorium, where we pulled the concert order out of a hat and were selected to go 7th, giving us a little time to mentally prepare and enjoy the performances of the other groups. There were all male groups, all female groups, and co-ed groups from universities in the area such as GVSU, Michigan State, and Central Michigan University. It's nice to see some of the same members, year after year, and to continuously meet new people in this very large a cappella community. There's always that feeling of competition between each group, but the best feeling of the night by far was coming off stage and seeing another group waiting to high-five our team for a job well done. It reminded us that this isn't just a competition; it's the one time a year where we can all really enjoy the stellar performances that groups from around the state created to share with one another- and make friends along the way!

Fly Me to the Moon/Fever-definitely a crowd favorite.

Finally, it was our turn to go up on stage and sing. For months we rehearsed, danced, sang, laughed, stressed, and prepared for this moment when we would take the stage. I, along with the rest of the group, felt so comfortable with what we practiced; we were eager and ready to go! Shortly before we took the stage, one of my fellow Janes reminded me that during my Bicycle Race solo, I had to "put it all out on the table," something her dad would tell her before every performance. "You never want to regret not pushing yourself as far as you could go," she said, "but if you give it your all, you'll know." So that's what we did. We gave it our all. The audience cheered and laughed and cried (that last one according to my mother who was in the audience) throughout the 11.5 minute set, and the sound of the applause at the end told us that we gave it everything we could. At that point, I didn't care if we won or lost. It was an honor to perform on stage with my best friends, my brothers and sisters, and the most talented people I've ever met.

We started and ended our set with a half of Bicycle Race. 

At the end of the night, awards were announced. I am proud to say that the Dicks and Janes were the winners of the Midwest Quarterfinals, with the G-Men in second place, and we will be traveling with them to St. Louis in a month to compete in the Midwest Semifinals! It was an incredible experience to have participated in this competition, but the practice leading up to it was the best part. Deliberate practice not only made us perform better during the competition, but it allowed us to foster our creative abilities and confidence. We worked together solidly as a team and had an unforgettable night that I'm sure each of us will remember for a long time.

The Platonic Relationship between Game and Gamer

Above was a video created by EgoRaptor that illustrates explicit versus implicit tutorials, rather humorously. 

Explicit tutorials are those that explicitly show the player what to do via tooltips or dialogs that open up and tell you exactly what buttons to press. Implicit tutorials are those that create scenarios in which the player learns via experiment what each button does and when to use such actions.

Recently, video games have taken to a lot of “hand-holding” in their introductions. In other words, detailed tutorials have been implemented, which is not entirely a bad thing, but the tutorials do dissolve a lot of the mystery of discovery in these games. 

Why does the mystery matter? There is a sense of accomplishment when a person first solves a problem, even if it is small; however, lately, it seems that society is heading towards a path of instant gratification, especially in games.

In the busy buzz of today’s society, no one has time to learn the basics, they want to skip to the end and reap their “rewards” (quotation’d because of the question to whether or not there is accomplishment in no challenge).  Below is an example of the World of Warcraft implementing “quest-markers”, or markings on a map that tell you where exactly you must go.  Originally, the game did not have these, but as society grew to prefer instant gratification, the developers of the game adapted to such taste and implemented these markers that essentially made the game much faster to get through.

The effect of these markers removes the incentive for players to explore and/or read about their quests.

If applied to real life; however, perhaps instant gratification is a good thing. Tutorials should be explicit and clear in the real world because there is no “fun” in figuring out what you should be doing at your new job or class. And perhaps people just want to learn the basics so they can get to the “meat” of the game.

So, is instant gratification in games a good thing?

The Top Dog

Competition. Excellence. Perfection. Victory. Best.

These 5 words make people think about the olympics, world championships, and other competitions of the sort, but no, this past week, these 5 words described one event, one champion, one tiny, 4 year old.

Let me elaborate. This past week, a 4 year old Pekingese named Malachy overcame his larger competition at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. This tiny dog became best in show, the best dog in the nation. 

The competition was fierce, but Malachy had nothing to say post-victory. Was this still a real competition between dogs? Or are the trainers the true competitors? These dogs do not know they are competing against their counterparts really, but these trainers are so incredibly invested, that they appear to have the same dedication as elite athletes. This was of course satirized in an incredibly funny movie, "Best in Show"(I really recommend it). These trainers compete, and the dogs merely represent the trainers' work. 

Although seemingly unapparent, these trainers mimic several people in games, whether they are video game characters focused on improving and grooming their characters to consistently make them better, or coaches, who try to train players to achieve certain goals or steps towards perfection. These trainers do not differ from the others because they are essentially performing the same actions, training another entity to reflect the goals of the trainer. 

So congrats Malachy, you did a great job as the trainer's star player, or rather his avatar. 

Mock Rock 2012

This past week Varsity student athletes at the University of Michigan put on a talent show where their hidden, and even odd talents were displayed and put into skits or dances for the entire audience at Hill Auditorium to view. Although this entire production was for charity, it is easy to say that when you put competitive athletes in front of one another there will be nothing but a competitive atmosphere.

Some athletic teams had put together a performance where they had been working on it for months, and held practices every week. Other teams had put together and last minute skit in hopes that there would be a team worse then them who had done the same thing. My team was one of the teams who had decided what they were doing that week of Mock Rock, and held an hour practice the day of Mock Rock. Thankfully our sense of humor in the skit made the judges love us and we were not the worst team at mock rock.

All of these performances reminded me of the article, "The Role of Deliberate Practice in Acquisition of Expert Performance." It got me to think about how practicing something out of your element or something you're not very good at will help you get better. Making the effort to be the best in competition will help you succeed. Men and Women's track won the Mock Rock competition, but they had 3 practices a week since December. They were very serious about their performance and it was amazing. It was very evident the teams that had just put together their skits or dances, because of the lack of practice.

Gaming To Get Ahead

According to the New York Times in an article from late January, many colleges are making up their numbers of applicants, how many were accepted, and the average GPA of accepted students. Ultimately, their goal is to rank higher in the US News & World Report.

"Gaming the College Rankings"

The NY Times took a unique approach of classifying the college ranking systems as a game--a game in which cheating will put institutions ahead of others. It's true, the competition to get into colleges is insane; here at the University of Michigan, we can all attest to that. What's even more interesting is the competition between colleges and universities to look better to prospective students.

You can read the article for yourself. The big question--how much do these rankings actually matter to prospective students? Clearly enough to fuel lying to US News & World Report, and cheating, if you will. This simply continues the cycle of insanity that goes into the college selection process among students, their parents, and their counselors. Perhaps the "college game" is beginning to get a little out of hand.