England Journal

Rowing is over. Veronica Mars is over. Most of my lectures are over. I feel like school should be over. But I’ve still got three more weeks. Three more weeks doesn’t sound like much, but when I consider that I’ve only been doing school work for the past 5 weeks, it seems like a lot. I still have a lot I want to do before the term is over, but instead of doing work so I’m sure I have time to do them, I daydream. And sleep. I’ve slept so much over the past couple days. I get tired reading, and rather than pushing through, I think I’ve got tons of free time now that rowing is done and I only have two lectures a week, so I’ll just take a nap. Not good.

Yesterday I finally got some reading done before I went to bed, but I should have gotten more done. And my tutor from my first tutorial told me to just focus on one reading for my questions because apparently students get really confused on it. So I barely have any reading for that, and the concepts seem pretty clear to me, so I feel a little worried, like there’s some complex part of the concept that I’m missing, but then at the same time, I think, well don’t need to do much more for that. I have no motivation. I’m ready for Melissa and Christi to get here so we can go around Europe. I’m ready to come home. I’m ready to stop spending so much money. This term has been so expensive. But I’ve still got three more weeks of work and two more weeks after that of spending more money, although at least it will be the euro instead of the pound.

Brendan is coming this weekend, so that will be fun. And at formal hall, we’re having our own table for rowing to celebrate. Then the next week, I’ll have two essays and have to present one of them, and after that one more set of questions and one more essay that I won’t have to present. Melissa and Christi come the weekend after Brendan. And Final Fling is that weekend too. And we’re supposed to have another rowing dinner just for the girls, and take pictures of both teams together. And Jennifer, Kristie, and I want to get to Stratford one day. I still need to call the box office and see if we can get cheap tickets for King Lear. And I have to see if David Harper has gotten my Student Aid Report, so I can hopefully sort out loan stuff before this summer. And my thesis. Too much to think about. I need to take it one thing at a time, but then I just think I’ve got plenty of time to get everything done. I need to get my motivation back, and remember that I’m not done yet.

WE DID IT!!! We bumped again today. Totally awesome. We did it before Donnington Bridge again. Never had to race past the bridge except on the first day when we weren’t chasing anybody. It was an amazing feeling. I don’t even know how to describe it. I think we’re all still in shock a little. So now we’ll get blades (second time in Regent’s history for the women’s crew to get blades), which we have to buy so it’s a heck of a lot of money, especially in dollars. I’ve considered not getting one, but then I think, how many times am I going to race for my school at Oxford and actually do the best possible? And what a great conversation starter a big blade in my house will be when I’m older. So I think I’ll just spend the money. This has been a totally awesome experience. Definitely worth all the hard work, ergs, pain, stress, everything. I’m so happy. We also got thrown in the river. That’s what you do at the end when you win, throw in the cox and the captain, only when we threw in Hannah, everybody else pushed the whole crew in behind her. And I lost my flip-flop in the river, which was very sad. My favorite pair. But I guess it’s worth it too. Okay, I’ll put up pictures later. Yay!!

We bumped again today!! Not as quickly as yesterday, but still before the bridge. I need to get to bed, so I’m not writing more now, but just wanted to put it up here. Tomorrow, we race one more time, hopefully to bump again, and finish a good Summer Eights, the first regatta we will have finished this year.

I actually never see anything, but here’s a picture of yesterday, I think. We were chasing the boat with girls with yellow shirts.

Today, I got up early and worked on my essay for Friday. Then I went to my tutorial and got another essay back with no comments. He said it was better at least, but I still have no idea what his idea of a good essay is. He gave us a copy of someone else’s essay, but he said it was too long. He just said it had some good opinions in it. Anyway, I came back and did some more work, then made some pasta before heading down to the river to watch our boys. They were third in their division. And the second boat bumped the first boat, but then they didn’t get out of the racing lanes like you’re supposed to, and our guys couldn’t get around them, so they had to stop. Well then the boat behind our guys, who they had bumped yesterday, rowed past them and bumped them. So we were all really confused because we were just hearing this over commentary, but we were really disappointed that our boys had gotten bumped, but it gave us a reality check that it could happen to us too. In the end, we appealed and got it. So the boys weren’t officially bumped, but they didn’t get a bump either.

So we waited a while and then got out when it was our time to do so. We warmed up and rowed up past the bridge. We waited around a while and were much quieter today. We really wanted the bump. So our start is 18 strokes, Ray calls 3 draws (3/4 length, 1/2 pressure to get the boat moving), 5 winds (full stroke, with full pressure and bringing up the rate), 5 lengthen (really working on getting the full length out of the stroke, but still keeping up the pressure and the rate), 5 hands (concentrating on keeping our hands in the right place and balancing the boat while keeping the length, pressure, and rate). Then we do a few up-one-down-ones, which is where we slow it up the slide and bring the rate down a bit, but keep the pressure up. We settle into a race pace, usually for around 30 strokes per minute. Yesterday on one of our starts, we got the rate up to 37 1/2 stroke per minute in our start, which is higher than we aim for, but as long as we keep it tidy, pretty good. So today, we got 15 strokes in, and Ray told us to wind it down. We were all a bit confused. We thought maybe something similar to what had happened to the boys had happened to us. But no, the boat in front of us had conceded. We had just started our hands strokes, and we had already bumped. It was awesome. Although, then we had all this adrenaline and energy, and all we could do was sit there and wait for the race to finish before we went the rest of the way up to the river to turn around. But it was so cool. So we’ve bumped twice now. Two more races, two more bumps, and we can get blades. We just have to make sure we don’t get too confident, each day is a different crew, and we’re just taking it one race at a time. But, how cool would it be if I came home with a blade?

Well this morning, I woke up in a panic because I realized I had forgotten to renew my library books, which meant I had to walk to the library and would have to pay a fine. I was not happy. I was also very stressed about rowing, even more stressed about my essay due for Friday, considering I haven’t even started the reading, and feeling like my stay positive attitude was crumbling quickly. I got up and wanted to cry all morning, did a little bit under my sunglasses as I walked to the library. Didn’t really even notice that it was a beautiful day outside. I renewed my books and had to pay 80 pence, which isn’t bad, but it still made me mad at myself. Then I came back and finished my essay for tomorrow’s tutorial. He really wants us to keep it to 4 pages, so I was working really hard for quite a while to cut out as much as I thought possible before I realized that my fifth page was my works cited page, and it had started out 4 pages. So then I tried to add in a little bit so it didn’t look quite like 3 pages and a paragraph. Then I quit, e-mailed it, and made some pasta for an early lunch. I didn’t feel like eating, but we were supposed to carb-load before the race.

I sent Amanda and facebook message to tell her when we were racing and say I was having a bad day. She called me while I was making my pasta, and helped make me feel better. It really is nice to have an old friend from Georgetown around. I love all my new friends, but sometimes it’s just nice to have someone who had known you for a while call and tell you it’s going to be okay. So that made me feel a little better, and after I forced some pasta down, I headed down to the river to make sure I got there to see the boys race.

Hanging out by the river was nice. It was sunny, and everyone around was nervous, so I didn’t feel like it was just me. We put face paint on Ray and tied a red ribbon around his wrist to make sure everyone would know he was our cox. We all had matching shirts and looked like a team.

To explain this racing a bit, all the boats start a length and a half apart. Then when the gun goes, everyone goes off with a racing start to get the rate up and go really fast. You try to go fast enough to catch up to the boat in front of you, and “bump” them. Now this can be an actual bump where you hit the boat, or the cox of the other boat can concede if it’s clear that you’re going to overtake them. Once you’ve bumped or have been bumped, you stop and get out of the way until everyone is done. The boys bumped pretty quickly, one of the first to bump in their division. We didn’t see them, but heard that they had from the commentary. We all cheered and got excited and then started our team talk. When the boys got back to the raft, we switched blades, adjusted footplates, and got in the boat to go off.

Our situation was a little different because we were at the head of our division. This meant we weren’t chasing anyone, only being chased. It also meant we had to row the whole course and hope we didn’t get bumped. So when the gun went off, we did a pretty good start. And we rowed hard. We were ahead, but it didn’t seem like the distance was that much. And I was getting so tired, but then it dawned on me that the boat behind us had to be getting tired too. We were fine, we didn’t even wind it up at the end. Our coach, Simon, said he thought we were about five lengths ahead. Which is awesome. We did it in 5:40, according to Simon’s time. Since we didn’t get bumped, we had rowed over to the next division. We were in Division 5, and now we’re in Division 4. That also meant we weren’t done, but had to go on and row with Division 4 and try to bump. This time, we would start as the very last in our division. We got off the river and got to rest for about 30 minutes. Simon brought us popsicles, which were the perfect snack for in between races, cold, sugar, and liquid. By the way, it was quite hot outside in the sun.

When it came time for Division 4, we got back in the boat and went off again. We went to the very end, and parked it where we would start (well not really parked). Then there was a bit of crowding with everyone else trying to get in their spots, but we were already where we needed to be, so we just sat and watched. Then when the gun went off, we did our start. If we hadn’t settled into our race pace, Ray said we probably would have caught the team in front of us within a few strokes. Even without that, we caught them pretty quickly. It was a little confusing though. It looked like their cox conceded, so Ray started to say hold it up so we would stop, but then the boat kept going, so we started going again. We were on opposite sides of the river, so we wouldn’t hit them, but we practically overtook them before the cox conceded again. Then we stopped, and they tried to stop, but not soon enough, and they ended up running into us a bit sideways. So our boat still got hit. But we bumped, and that means we’re still in Division 4. If we stay there, which we should, that means next year, we have a fixed position and won’t have to do rowing on, which is great. It was the first time Hannah had bumped, and she’s done 9 races. It was exhausting, but awesome. So my day had gotten better.

You have to admit, we look pretty good, even if you don’t know what we’re supposed to look like. As we were rowing back, we had to show off a little bit. So just as we passed the boat houses, Ray called a hands-away, which is where you do a stroke and then just push your hands out and hold them there to make sure the boat is balanced and no blades are on the water. So we did that, and everyone cheered. It was fun. So we can’t get complacent. We have to bump three more times to get blades. But it would be so awesome if we could do that. I could bring home a big blade, how cool would I be? Haha. Okay, I need to start reading, and then I have a feeling I’m going to sleep well tonight.

Oh and there are more pictures up on flickr.

So apparently that link doesn’t work. So if you go to www.rowphoto.co.uk and click on Summer Eights or Eights Rowing On. Then you can click on anything of the links, by club or whatever, and it brings up divisions because the site doesn’t work right, so it doesn’t actually bring up the clubs. But we’re Division 5, and click on page 9, and that’s where pictures of us start.

If you want to look at pictures for Torpids, there are a few. On the sidebar of the same site, click on Torpids, and then we’re on the first page of Division 2.

http://www.rowphoto.co.uk/events.php?event=eights_2007&image=IMG_OXE07_1128.jpg&crew=All%20Rowing%20On%20Div%205
That’s the link for the official site for the first picture of us. Then just keep clicking next, and eventually you get to the close-up of me (absolutely awful, I just do not look good when I’m exerting energy) and then lots of the whole crew. I also put pictures from my camera and Rita’s camera on Flickr.

Rita left this morning, and I haven’t written anything about her visit. I’ve been exhausted the past few days. And when I could have written, I decided just to sleep or relax a bit. But here’s a quick rundown. Rita and Dani arrived Thursday evening. The bus from London didn’t take as long as I thought it would, so I was a little late picking them up. But then we came back to my room and had pasta and garlic bread for dinner, with double chocolate chip muffins for dessert. It was fun to talk to them and eat good food. The next morning, I got up early and finished my essay and went to my tutorial shortly after they got up. Then I came back and we had Regent’s fish and chips for lunch. Then we walked the long way to the river, so I could show them a bit of Oxford, though half the stuff you can’t go in unless you’re a student, so mainly they took pictures of the outside of buildings. We arrived at the river quite a bit before my race, because I’m required to. So after I showed them where we were, Rita and Dani went exploring a little more. Then they came back and cheered me on and took pictures. So I’ll have to post those soon.

The race went really well. Matt, the boys’ captain, said we looked really controlled and calm and even asked what rate we were going because we looked really good and he thought we might have been going slow. We went 29-30 strokes per minute most of the course, winding it up at the beginning and the end to about 35 strokes per minute, which is really good. We qualified second of all women’s crew, one second behind the first crew, at 3 minutes and 16 seconds. It’s crazy how tired you get when it’s just that short amount of time. We have another race today, but it’s head-to-head and a longer stretch. I’m not really looking forward to it, though I’m sure we’ll all feel good about it after it’s done. Then the big races start on Wednesday. Looks like we’re actually going to finish a regatta this term.

So after the race, Rita, Dani, and I took our time making it back to Regent’s, taking more pictures of buildings, going in a couple bookstores. But it was starting to get a bit chilly, so we headed back to my room to get ready for formal hall. Dinner was decent. I was sitting in between Rita and Amanda, two people I haven’t seen in ages, so I was trying to divide my time between them. Then afterwards we went up to the JCR and had strawberries and a drink called Pimms. I’ve always heard people talk about this drink, but had never tried it. So I did, just a couple sips. Nothing spectacular, but it didn’t taste much like alcohol, more like ginger ale, so I didn’t hate it. But I still just don’t have a desire. I ate lots of strawberries, though. We left early and went to the Eagle and Child, just to look. Then we came back and relaxed in my room and had another late snack of garlic bread.

Yesterday, we woke up a little after 9, and got ready to go to London. Rita put some pictures up on the internet so she could clear her memory card. Then we headed out. The weather wasn’t too bad, but the sun kept going in and out so it would be warm and then chilly. We took the tube all around, only got caught going the wrong way once. And Rita ran into a girl who graduated with Nicholas and went to Bellarmine on one trip on the subway, which was pretty crazy. We went to Hyde Park to see Peter Pan, which I had never done before, so that was cool. Then we went to the British Museum for a little bit, but didn’t stay long because we wanted to see other things. We ventured to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge (saw London Bridge too, but it’s not nearly as impressive), Westminster, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and then back to Victoria Station. We didn’t go into many places because they were either already closed or we would have had to pay, but we saw all the architecture. So then I showed Dani and Rita where to catch the bus back, and I headed on back to Oxford because I was going to go to this museum thing with Ula. But the bus back took a long time because a road had closed, so I didn’t get back until 9:45, and the thing was over by 11. So I’ll just have to enjoy Jennifer’s pictures because she ended up going with Ula. I also had a headache and hadn’t eaten much, so I made some pasta.

I woke up at 1:15 to go let Rita and Dani into Regent’s, and they came back and slept for a few hours. Then we woke up again at 5, so they could catch the bus back to London and get to the train station to get the Eurostar to Brussels. So now they’re gone, and I have two stripped mattresses in my room again. It was fun to have them here, really weird having people visit me just because that doesn’t normally happen. Sort of sad that they’re gone, but Amanda is still here, and Melissa and Christi will be coming soon, as will Brendan, hopefully. And this week is going to be crazy trying to get my essays done and being down at the river so much for Summer Eights. But hey, I only have one lecture this week, so there’s a bright side.

That’s all. I have to go to a tutorial now. But her blog is http://ritapeat.blogspot.com/ if you want to read about her adventures in England as well. Yay!

When I woke up this morning, it was raining. I walked to my lectures in the rain. But when I came out of my lectures, it was sunny! Pretty exciting. It was sunny for about 4-5 hours. Then, about 5 minutes before I had to leave for our rowing outing, it started to thunderstorm, of course, because we can’t possibly row when it’s not wet lately. I didn’t know what thunderstorms meant for rowing, but I knew rain didn’t mean anything, and there was a good chance that the rain might stop soon, so I headed down for the river anyway. I was soaked by the time I got there. My pants had become longer, sagging from being wet and muddy. But at least it wasn’t cold. By the time everyone had gotten down there, it had pretty much stopped raining. So we got out quickly because we had been delayed, and were trying to look decent because two Regent’s guys were coaching us. Simon, our normal coach, couldn’t come today. And with the Regent’s guys, we didn’t want to mess up because we would hear about it later. There’s always competition as to whether the girls or guys are better. (Definitely the girls this term.)

So we got out, did our warm-up and started going down the river, and something went wrong with Hannah’s footplate, so Ray tried to pull us into a raft (which means dock), but we didn’t do it soon enough, and we started to go towards the weir, which we haven’t done since one of our first outings as novices. Ray got us out of that, but then it was a little complicated to get back to the raft. We finally did, got the footplate fixed, and headed off again. Then we practiced a bunch of racing starts, and it was fine for a while.

Then, apparently Matt said something that made Emma, who is stroke now, mad. So in the next start, she went off really hard. She said it was because of this that Hannah caught a crab. I don’t know if that actually was the reason or not. The worst time to catch a crab (when your blade gets stuck in the water) is during a start because you’re really building up momentum, speed, and pressure, at a really high rate, so the blade can swing around really quickly and is hard to control. So Hannah caught a crab, and she tried to duck as it swung past, but she didn’t get low enough or didn’t do it fast enough, and her blade handle hit her smack in the middle of her forehead, which knocked her backwards so that the back of her head hit my blade handle. I tried to catch her head before it hit the bottom of the boat. I’m not sure if I succeeded. It happened really fast, and none of us really knew how to react. She laughed, the laugh that you do when you’ve just hurt yourself, and we all sort of did. But I know it had to hurt. And later she said she was seeing spots. I hope she’s okay. We went back soon after that, and she got out of the boat as soon as we landed.

Then we still had to get the boat into the boathouse. So Ray told Hannah to direct, and he took her place so she didn’t have to do anymore work. She kept saying she was fine, but I think it was good for Ray to help us bring in the boat instead. Except that Hannah doesn’t normally direct us, so it was a little confusing. And as soon as we got off the raft, and started toward our boathouse, another boat was coming out. So then we had to back up and wait, and then finally go in, so we were holding the boat for a while. And it’s pretty heavy. And Ray isn’t as tall as Hannah, so he didn’t hold the boat as high as she does, which doesn’t really matter, but it affected how I was holding the boat since she’s normally next to me. So we finally got the boat in, got out of the boathouse, and started back to college. We wear lycra, knee-length shorts for the outings and normally wear sweatpants over them. But all our pants were so wet that none of us put them back on. So I walked back in my lycra and my gilet, probably looked a little like an idiot, but hopefully more like a rower.