I also found that I have a big hole in the back of my favorite t-shirt. Luckily I was wearing an undershirt under it today. Now it will have to become a t-shirt project, but that means one less shirt that I have to wear for rowing. Very sad.
It was raining this morning. More rain means longer red flag. I was talking to Ula and she said she wished they would just say Torpids is cancelled. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about all this erging. They’re having another erg session tomorrow since we can’t go out on the river. But it’s during my tutorial, so I told Hannah I would do an erg today. But first I had to get my essay done. Luckily we didn’t have rowing this morning, or I would have been screwed, or at least my essay would have been much worse than it was.
I woke up this morning around 6:30. Well my alarm went off at 6, but I got up and took a shower at 6:30. I skimmed through the rest of my reading, called the doctor and made an appointment to ask about my coughing and chest pains, and then went to my lectures. By the time I got to my first lecture, my pants were soaking and I was freezing by the end of it. By the end of the second lecture, my pants had dried, but it was windy outside so I was still cold. I had sat next to Simon during the lecture, but there was a column in between us and we didn’t notice each other until the end. He’s doing the presentation in our econ tutorial this week, so I had sent him my essay. He said Chris had told him to focus on different stuff than what was in my essay. I think he was just confused as to why his presentation was on different stuff, but it made me scared because I may have focused on something completely off-base and not answered the essay right.
So then I came back to my room and worked on my essay with a lunch break until 4:30. I went to go print it off and the printer in the JCR was broken. After trying three times, I ran into Ula and she said I should go print it in the MCR, which I had forgotten had a printer. So I did, and I asked Taylor if he could turn in my essay so I could make it to the doctor on time. For some reason I had to re-register there. It said I had left the practice, but I’ve never been to any other doctor here, so I don’t know why. So I tried to fill out the forms, although I realized I always ask my mom for dates of operations and shots, and I really don’t know anything about my medical history. I also don’t know my phone number. So the doctor had me breathe into this tube and said my breath or something was a little low. So she gave me a prescription for an inhaler and said to try it before I exercise to see if that helps. I went to Boswell’s and got the inhaler, and then came back here, almost getting hit by a bike on the way. I came into my room and flipped my light switch to see the light flicker on and then off, so either I blew a fuse or the light bulb broke. I went up to see Ula and she had an extra lamp that she’s letting me borrow. Mike down the hall showed me a fuse box, but he couldn’t find anything that matched our rooms. So if it weren’t for Ula, I would be sitting in the dark with only the light of my computer.
Hannah was stuck in the Bod waiting on a stack request, so Ula came down and coached me while I did my erg. I did worse than last time. I did a 2k in 9:50. I had 9:30 last time. I feel like I just keep getting worse at rowing, not better, the more I try. They tell me to do stuff, and I try, but then I stop or something because my splits still aren’t low enough and my rate isn’t high enough, so my times are bad. Granted I only got about 6 good hours of sleep last night, but still, it seems like the more I do, the worse I get. I did the inhaler beforehand, and I’m not coughing as badly, still coughing, but my chest doesn’t hurt as bad either. My throat is really sore, but that’s just from breathing in cold air. I didn’t sign in for dinner tonight because it sounded bad, and neither did Ula, so we’re going to eat together. Ula is a good friend. I’m glad I have her here, and sometimes I still wonder if I should have roomed with her. Not that I can change anything now.
Well at least my essay is done, and I don’t have to worry about exercising for the rest of the night. I’ll probably get crushed in the tutorial tomorrow. Taylor said his essay wasn’t very good either. It was on why security is such a contested concept. Could it be any more broad? Oh well, I got something written and next week I don’t have to write an essay. In fact, only two more essays total for the rest of the term. Also two presentations and two sets of short answer questions, but only two more essays. And I don’t think I’m quite as overheated as usual. Try to look on the bright side, right?
After our outing yesterday, which took much longer than it should have because one girl didn’t show up because she had had a little too much fun the night before and we had to call another girl who wasn’t scheduled to come out to the river from Regent’s, we found out that we were having an erg session today. Hannah had sent out an e-mail, but apparently the group e-mails don’t always work. So rowing had cut into my essay writing time yesterday, and then it took a big chunk out of my time today. I went to church with barely anything written, and then hung out on a bench outside church and read for a half-hour. Then I walked with Becky and Hannah down to the boathouse with the ergs in it. We did 20 minutes at a fairly high rate, and we were supposed to be putting in more pressure too, but I don’t think I did very well. My distance was only a little over 3800 meters, and we’re supposed to have at least 4000. Then they switched our order and put Jenni at stroke, Becky behind her, and me behind Becky. So who knows, me being out of shape might push me to the back of the boat.
Toward the end my chest started really hurting again. I was coughing some, but not a whole lot, but my chest hurt. And I was overheated with my face all blotchy and red. Gotta love it. Ula asked if I was okay and I told her my chest was hurting, and then she got all worried about me and told me I needed to go to the doctor. I think I’m going to. I’ll have to call and make an appointment tomorrow morning. But the river is red flag again, so Hannah said we’re going to be doing a lot more ergs, and that’s when I get the cough/chest pain. When we’re out on the river, I’m fine, but it’s something about being inside or the workout from the erg or something. So we’ll see. The doctor may say nothing is wrong or maybe give me an inhaler. Becky has an inhaler and she said just go to the doctor and they’ll give me something. She said they’re really nice.
When I got back to my room, the headache started setting in, which it always does after I get overheated, but I just ignored it because I was concentrating on getting my essay done. I was actually afraid I wasn’t going to finish it. But I did. It’s not as long as most of my other essays, but he said to aim to cut a page off of our length from last time because he wants us to be really concise. The only problem with this is if you use graphs that take up a lot of room. But I got it down to 7 from 8 1/2, so hopefully he’ll be happy. Of course, I could have answered the question completely wrong and then my length won’t matter. I e-mailed it to him at 6:30, and then went to try to clean the kitchens.
We’re doing this thing where you can volunteer to clean the kitchens on the weekend and get paid 5 pounds. So I volunteered, but then this weekend has been crazy and I couldn’t get around to it until this evening. People have been cooking in the one upstairs, so I haven’t been able to do it yet. Celia, Verity, and I ate some pizza for dinner with strawberries for dessert, and then Celia showed me where to throw out the kitchen trash. And now I’m really wanting to fall asleep, even though I haven’t gotten all the reading done for my essay tomorrow. Have to clean the kitchen first, though, so I better go check and see if people are out of it now.
Yesterday I actually felt like I got quite a bit of work done, for a Friday. I still have a lot to do, but I went to the library yesterday morning and read some chapters in a confined book for my politics essay. Then I went to my lecture, which I think apparently is only for four weeks. So I don’t have a lecture on Fridays anymore, which means my Fridays are completely free, which is pretty crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever had a day with no lectures since I’ve been here. After my lecture, I came back to college and Sarah and I hung out in my room until lunch because it was nasty outside. Sort of rainy snow, so I didn’t feel like walking to a cafe. After lunch, I wasn’t quite as productive but I did get most of my econ textbook reading done and got some work done on my application for an internship this summer. Then we had formal hall, which was decent food and good dessert. After that, we went to the JCR to wait to leave for a party at the Kingston Road house, sort of like the Stanley Road house with Regent’s students living there, but it’s closer.
I thought we’d be leaving around 9, but we didn’t leave until later. So by the time we left, I was tired and didn’t really feel like going, but I forced myself to be social. There were lots of people there, and I met this really weird guy. I don’t know his name. But every time I walked by him, he would say, “Caitlan!” or “Caitlan?” and he sounded like he was on drugs or something, nice, but really weird. And then when I was leaving, he said I shouldn’t and I said I had rowing, and he said something about snowballs. Before I left people started dancing, but not dancing like people in the states do. I guess it was sort of supposed to be like a rave party, but it wasn’t really, just had weird colored lights. I had planned on leaving around 11, but then I got to talking to people who had just come in, and Kristie and Jennifer (G-town girls) were taking pictures. So I didn’t leave until around 11:30 probably. It was an interesting experience to say the least, and it reminded me how much I like my friends back home who are okay with just hanging out and not going to strange parties. It seemed like a lot of people didn’t really want to go, but felt like everyone else was going so they had to. Crazy culture here. Although I guess that happens in the states sometimes too.
So anyway, I came back to my room and called Kyle so I could be the first to wish him Happy Birthday Greenwich Mean Time. But then I started to fall asleep while we were talking. I’m really bad at that. So now I’m up, getting ready to go out for rowing by 10, and it’s rainy and cold so it’s going to be no fun. But then I’ll come back and take a hot shower and hopefully get a lot of work done. Aren’t my weekends great?
Yesterday rowing got cancelled because we doublebooked the boat and the boys had scheduled first, so the girls didn’t go out. Which was probably a good thing because my legs were so sore from circuit training, and actually they’re still sore this morning. So I had my tutorial yesterday, and it went pretty well. I found out that after this week, I only have one more essay left to do in there, plus a presentation and two sets of short answer questions, but that’s okay. He said my essay improved a lot. I got a 64, which is a mid 2:1, so that’s good. I got a 62 last time. Two points doesn’t seem like that much to me, but he said it was a lot better, so maybe he was just feeling sorry for me last week.
After that I went to the second-year mid-term meal. The second years always have a meal halfway through their course, so this is halfway through. Even though I’ve only been here as a real student for one term, since I’m doing the accelerated thing, I’m included. It was a good meal, brie for a starter, steak for dinner, and chocolate mousse for dessert. Some people went to a pub afterward, but Elsa and I and a few others came back to college. I was glad I wasn’t the only one coming back, and I got to talk to Elsa a little bit. And I figured I was going to have to wake up this morning for rowing, so I wanted to get sleep. We finished dinner at 10:30. People said it was supposed to snow, so rowing might get cancelled, but it didn’t seem that cold or seem like it was going to rain or snow or anything. But this morning, I looked out the window and there was a nice blanket of snow.
Hannah called soon after that and said rowing was cancelled because of the snow. We still have a tank session this afternoon though. So I stayed up anyway. I was already awake. I found a flight that I’m going to get for March. My mom got hers and my aunt’s and uncle’s last night, and mine, but I found the same flight over for cheaper, so I’m waiting to make sure I get a refund and then I’ll get my new ticket. Then I decided I needed to take pictures of the snow. It’s the first time it’s actually snowed a lot since I’ve been in Oxford, I think, even as a visiting student. So I took lots of pictures. Probably too many. I put them up on Flickr, so click on my link if you want to look at those and some other pictures from the term. The picture I put up was taken by me standing outside on my window sill, which is fun. The snow makes me want to find a wardrobe to Narnia.
Endorphins. Apparently I always get in a much better mood after working out, and am happier. Ula noticed it last Friday when she said she knew I didn’t drink, but I apparently looked happier and a little drunk, I guess. Drunk on water, I said. I had done my 20-minute erg before that. And last night when I talked to Kyle, he said I seemed very happy. So now I just say, “It’s endorphins.” So I guess that’s the benefit from exercising, which maybe outweighs the costs. Speaking like an economist there.
I was able to salvage it, but there wasn’t as much peanut butter on it in the end. I’m just glad no fire alarm went off. That would have been bad, it’s still fairly early in the morning. I had put it in the oven to make the peanut butter a little melty and crispy, but I left it in there too long, I guess. I think I’m eating better this term. I eat breakfast pretty much every day, and I eat when I’m hungry, so I snack a lot, which is maybe bad, but I’m also getting a lot of exercise, so I figure it’s okay.
Last night, I went to the circuit training, and I was the only girl from Regent’s who showed up, so it was me and six guys. There were a bunch of other people from other schools there too though. We first ran around the gym, then split into two groups where one ran faster and the other did ab stuff and then switched. Then we split into groups of five and went to different stations of sit ups, push ups, lifting dumbbells, jumping rope, running, stuff like that. I made it through and the guys were encouraging to me (Matt said I was the best girl on the team for actually coming out), although on the way home, I was trying to walk fast and my legs just wouldn’t obey by brain. I listened to my iPod, and stopped at Sainsbury’s and got some cereal, some juice, and some bread. I didn’t really need juice, but I really wanted some. So I splurged a little bit.
I had my tutorial yesterday, and it went pretty well until he asked me a question about Kosovo, and I just said I didn’t know. He said I needed to know, but none of our reading addressed Kosovo, and we were looking at the structure of NATO and I thought focusing on stuff since the Cold War, so I hadn’t read up on it. And I’m sorry, when it happened, I wasn’t paying attention to current events. So I think he was frustrated with me. I was going to guess, and I would have guessed right, but I didn’t. Then I came back to my room and wasted time. It’s always hard to get work done right after a tutorial. Then Ula and I went to our last business lecture, where we got our certificates that said we did it. So I have my first piece of paper with Oxford on it, that I can hang up somewhere, even if it is just for attending a lecture series.
My cough has gotten better. I took some cough medicine that I had gotten last term that I had forgotten I had. My mom described my symptons to my uncle and he said it sounds like I have exercise-induced asthma. Great. What good does exercise really do me? Puts me in a lot of pain and makes me sick. I’m not seeing the benefits. I think I’m going to skip the tank session on Friday. It will probably be during the time I normally meet Sarah for tea, and I think I deserve it since I did go to the circuit training. And if I don’t I’ll have done serious workout for 7 days in a row because we have an outing on Saturday. However, the weather is supposed to get bad Thursday, and now they’re afraid we’re going to get our winter now, so Torpids might still be cancelled. It’s such an unpredictable sport. But anyway, I’m supposed to row this afternoon and Thursday morning, and I think my legs will need a break by Friday. They feel like they need a break now. And tank sessions are used more for correcting technique, not so much fitness, I think, and I’m good at technique. It’s fitness that I lack. Okay enough justification. Need to get some reading done before lectures.
I don’t know if sweet tooth is two words. It’s not something I normally write down. But anyway, most people who read this probably know that I’m a salty girl. I like salty stuff and too much sweet stuff makes me sick to my stomach. Well not since I’ve been back at Oxford. All I crave lately is sweets. Whenever I’m hungry for a snack, I want chocolate, sometimes skittles. I ate my last starburst over the weekend and I still have some skittles, so I’ve made those last pretty long since that’s what I came over with. But I also had two snickers bars and 4 or 5 mini hershey bars. And they went pretty quickly. This past weekend, Celia and I got some double chocolate chip cookies for dessert for our Sunday lunch, and then I kept them in my room and I’ve eaten two and a half, and these are fairly big cookies. Plus I had a sugar-coated, jelly-filled donut on Sunday as well. And by the way, both those foods were referred to as “American Style.” I think they must just put that on any food that they think is unhealthy. Then the weekend before that, I got some cookies with chocolate-flavored chips (not chocolate chip cookies, mind you), two sleeves, pretty long, like maybe the length of one and a half sleeves of saltines. And I ate one sleeve already in just a week. It’s crazy. Although this morning, I thought I had gotten my salty craving back. For breakfast, I wanted macaroni and cheese (luckily I had some) rather than cereal or a donut. My cereal is sweet too. But then tonight I wanted more cookies. And I eat fruit all the time, which I didn’t used to do. Vegetables over fruit any day, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t know what’s come over me.
So anyway, I finished my second essay today, barely. Got it printed around 4:30 and it had to be in by 5. I could have taken this week as one of my weeks when I don’t have to write an essay, but I really wanted to save those for later and I already had quotes written out. I wrote it all after lunch, so in about three hours. That’s probably the quickest I’ve done an Oxford essay. So we’ll see if the tutorial is torture again. Still have to write my last one-page summary, but it’s hard to just work constantly.
I also got my econ collections back today. Not very good. Well, we had four essays and three I did okay on: 58, 58, 62, but the last one I got a 52. So the average was like 57. And my tutor wrote on the overall comments that he thought I should have gotten a higher mark, but that just made me want to say, “Well why didn’t you give me a higher mark then?” That 52 really hurt me. Overall it’s a high 2:2, which is decent, but I’d like a 2:1. I don’t think there’s much chance of me getting a first. Weird rankings, I know. And if you’d like more explanation, I can give it to you. But I’ll leave it at that for now. Better than a 3, a pass, a fail, or an outright fail, but not the best. I guess I’m about average. I don’t even want to know what I got on the politics one. I thought econ was my strong point. Oh well, I knew I didn’t have enough graphs and stuff.
Last but not least, I had rowing this morning, at stroke, in the freezing cold air, with my hands hurting because we can’t wear gloves or we’ll lose our grip on the blade. And we had to do some stretches of high rate, and I almost just quit. Ray kept saying, “Come on, Caitlan, you can do it.” So I must have had a bad look on my face. Other than one time where we all sort of lost rhythm or something, it went pretty well. I have stuff for rowing every day this week except Sunday. I need to learn how to adjust my work schedule for this again. Part of the reason I cut it so close on my essay was because I lost my whole morning to rowing. Time to buckle down I guess.
I finished my econ essay with an hour to spare. I know, I was planning on finishing it with a day to spare, but of course, that didn’t happen. I was quite productive yesterday morning, but the afternoon and evening didn’t turn out too well for studying. I did talk to friends, which was nice, but then I fell asleep around 9 or something, so I didn’t get all my reading done. I still didn’t get it all done today, but I got something written, and I probably couldn’t have used all I would have read if I had gotten it done. He gives us a ton to read. Which all reading lists are way too long, but he narrows it down and says this is the stuff we really need to read and it’s still a ton. I tried to be more structured in my essay, so hopefully it’s okay. I was looking at the schedule of when my presentations are, and 8th week, when you’re supposed to be finishing everything up, I’ll have a presentation, an essay, and a set of short answer questions. Luckily I won’t have an essay for politics. Although Chris, my econ tutor, did say in his last e-mail to remind him to clarify the presentations and essays arrangement, so maybe that means when we have the presentation, we don’t have to do the essay. We’ll see. I’m going to try to get some politics reading done tonight so I can get my essay written fairly quickly tomorrow, and then start all over for next week.
After my essay, I went down and did my 2k erg. That means we’re supposed to do 2 kilometers on the rowing machine at a high rate and pace. We’re supposed to try to get it at 28 strokes per minute, 500 meters every 2 minutes and 10 seconds or so, getting done in about 8 minutes. I got done in 9:34, not very good. Ula got it done in 9 minutes. I’m so out of shape, and I felt like I was going to die again. I fell down on the floor of the room and laid there for a while before I could get up to go to my room. And then I went and stood in a cold, sort of cold, shower for at least 10 minutes, and my face was still red afterwards. And every time I do a hard erg, I get this cough thing. My chest and my upper back hurt really bad and I just can’t stop coughing. It sucks. I work out and it makes me sick. It really doesn’t give me much incentive for keeping it up. However, I think I am rowing stroke. Hannah put up the list of who is practicing when during the week (much more organized this term), and she said it’s in order of where we’re sitting in the boat. So I’m at the top, rowing all 4 days in the same place, so I think that means I’m stroke. So yay for me. Although that does mean I need to get in better shape. After Hannah sees my time, she may think she should have put me somewhere else. I saw Celia after my shower, and told her I had done the erg. I had told her after last time how it made me cough and of course I was coughing again. But she said, “You did an essay and then did an erg? I could never do that.” It made me feel pretty intense (as Doug would say, if you still read this).
So I came back to my room and watched an episode of Veronica Mars and ate a mug of cereal. One bowl/mug left. That’s okay though. Celia and I got donuts today and I still have some hot cross buns left to eat for breakfast. I like cereal though. But it’s hard because milk goes bad more quickly here or maybe our refrigerator just doesn’t work very well. But anyway, now I’m just rambling. I have rowing bright and early in the morning, so I should try to get some more work done before I fall asleep and have to get up early.
I had my first outing on the river today, and it was great. Well, the actual outing wasn’t that great. I don’t think Hannah was too happy with how we rowed, but we had two novices, which makes things a little more difficult. But it was good to be back on the water. I was thinking I didn’t really cared if I kept rowing or not, but now I remember how nice it was and how it helped me deal with stress, even though it was stressful in its own way. I rowed at stroke, but Jenni wasn’t there, so I don’t know if that means anything. Tori, our cox this time, said it was good to have me back at stroke, and Hannah asked me how it felt afterward, which is what she did after the first time she put me at stroke, but again I don’t know if that means anything. I like being at stroke, but we’ll see how it goes. The main thing is that I like being on the river rowing. I’m really looking forward to more outings. We’re also going to have these things called circuit trainings, which is to get out fitness level up. I don’t know what it means, but I think it’s like really hard core cardio stuff for short periods of time from what Hannah was saying. Should be interesting to see if I can keep up. So I think I did okay, they didn’t say anything really specific about what I should improve on, so I guess that’s a good thing. There were some times that I felt I was doing terribly, but it was my first time back, so I’m not going to punish myself too hard. So I know this is my second entry in a day, but it was really good, and I’m just really excited to remember how much I like rowing.