Rowing is definitely the top Oxbridge obsession. Everyone in Oxford (apart from me, it seems) either rows or cox, and by the time Summer VIIIs comes around, all you hear is rowing talk. Summer VIIIs is one of the big Oxford rowing competitions (the equivalent in Cambridge is called May Bumps, which actually takes place in June... Oxbridge people aren't that clever, you know). It is, in fact, a bumps race between all the colleges, with around 150 crews participating. Bumps races, again, are an Oxbridge tradition. This is how it works: there are thirteen boats in each division; boats start rowing at a distance of a length and a half from each other (a length being the length of a rowing boat), and then they have to chase each other with the intention of quite literally bumping the boat in front of them. It's quite a lot of fun to watch, and usually filled with drama of broken rudders! Broken ores! People catching crabs! (this is not a sexually transmitted disease, but rather when a rower, because of poor technique, loses control of his or her ore which then proceeds to either hit him or her in the face or sometimes groin, causing the boat to slow down considerably).
Summer VIIIs took place last week (from Wednesday to Saturday) and Wolfson did very well. I was there every day, runing up and down the towpath on the Cherwell to watch our six boats race. Both M and my lovely Russian were participating (M as a cox and rower, the lovely Russian as a rower), and lots of other people I knew, and I had lots and lots of fun. I, of course, managed over the course of four days to sunburn my face and get blisters on my feet from all the running, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.
See, until a few months ago I was a complete anti-rowing person (there are lots of them around!).
But ever since I've started thinking about the fact that I am going to be leaving Oxford soon, my attitude has changed a lot. I realise there are many things I did not take advantage of, for a variety of reasons. And so I am trying to enjoy every moment now, especially when it involves spending time with the people I love the most.
This is also partly because now my life in Oxford feels like a stolen moment. Let me explain... Today, whilst watching the streets go by from M's car, I realised that this is not my calling.
I know why I do not want to do a doctorate. I love my subject, and I find it fascinating, I truly do, but this is just not me. I do believe I have some amazing qualifications, and I could probably excel if I decided to follow this and keep doing it. But it doesn't feel very right anymore. I think I could have picked one of a variety of other subjects and done just as well, but the fact of the matter is, I don't have any particular talent for this. My path is somewhere else.
It's all about finding it now, and this somehow does excite me.