ONLY ONE MORE DAY UNTIL THE BIGGEST ROWING RACE OF THE YEAR!!!!!

SUMMER EIGHTS!

You can tell that I'm just a LITTLE bit excited.  Statistically, the men's team is supposed to dominate, so I really hope we keep our cool and bump a lot of boats!  Oh, and I'd love not to get thrown out of a boat this time, as well... my shin still has the scars from that last encounter.  I don't mind being chucked into the water after a victorious four days of bumps racing, however!  Bring it on!

Here are a few pictures of my team over the past year:

Rowing at the Bedford Regatta

Henley Head

Henley Head

Torpids Dinner

Last day of Torpids

After I got chucked out, at Torpids!

Friendship love!

As I approach my last 4 weeks here in England (wow, really?), I've been trying to spend as much time as possible with the great friends I've made.  We have some fantastic times, for sure.

Freya recently turned 19 and we orchestrated a lovely park picnic in her honor!  It turned into a very fun night.  Pictures for you!

Homemade sangria!

The most amazing DINO cake!

best friends!

Cambridge!


I traveled with my college dad, Robin, to visit Cambridge (where he lives) and get an up-close-and-personal view of the town and colleges!  His family was truly great.  They put me up for the night, fed me lots and dropped us off into town for the sightseeing.  First we went punting, which is a must-do in Cambridge, as the river runs along the back of the prettiest colleges (King's, Queen's, Trinity, Clare, St. John's) and gives a great view of Cambridge's architecture.  We decided to punt ourselves rather than get chauffeured, which is usually quite good in Oxford... but little did we realize that the wind had decided to go haywire and we were sent careening about in our tiny little boat with just the two of us for a good two hours!  It was fun nonetheless.  When we finally made it to shore, we visited many, many colleges.  I entered: Pembroke, Corpus Christi, Christ's, Jesus, Queen's, King's, St. John's, Sydney & Sussex, Peterhouse (oldest one in all of Oxbridge.. 1220) and saw the outsides of most of the others.  I didn't get to go into Trinity College, the largest of the colleges, because it was undergoing a fair bit of maintenance and students had exams.

The town of Cambridge is much different than Oxford, in that it's mostly just a 'town' that weaves its way about the colleges.  Oxford, though, is a city which seems to thrive both with and without the colleges in that it has its own way of life alongside the student way of life.  In Cambridge, though, the city doesn't seem to possess this second quality of being a different part of the colleges.  It is really quite lovely, though.  I enjoyed my visit immensely (despite the 3.5hr bus ride one way...)

Oh, and Robin's parents showed me the hospital complex where they work, which is amazing.  They're building HUGE new complexes to house the molecular biology units, etc!  There is also a brain repair unit at Cambridge... dream come true!  My personal tutor at Oxford sent me a link of a man with whom I might be interested in working with for my phD, and I saw this dwelling at Cambridge on our way into the town.  Very cool!

Here are the obligatory pictures:

Punting in front of the best view of Cambridge: King's Chapel

Corpus Christi

King's College

Quaint Cambridge street

St. John's College

King's Chapel organ & wonderful ceiling

King's Chapel shields (also a royal one, I believe)

King's Parade, a made street in Cambridge

PEMBROKE BALL!


"The Sands of Time" themed - AKA, different time periods represented in different rooms.  There was a speakeasy, victorian tea room, roman dining hall, disco, casino, war bunker, etc.  The ball was not as big as Catz, which was nice because we didn't have to fight crowds to get drinks/food all night.  We also saw some fantastic performers (search Out of the Blue, Oxford's male acapella group).  Here are a few pictures to commemorate the night!

oxygen bar!

tea room!

Taking advantage of a free (ish) week!  I only had one presentation due this week instead of the normal two essays, so a bunch of friends and I went out on the town for a bit of Oxford-style fun.

The Anne's rowing girls had a hilarious crew date (as in, one team goes to 'date' another team at a restaurant) with the Mansfield rowing boys last night and we ended up as the first ones at the Wednesday-night scene, Park End.  It was nice to finally go out again because the past two weeks of term have been a bit crazy and I haven't had time.  I definitely want to take advantage of the last few weeks here in Oxford!

Punting, punting, punting...

Twins!

80s dance-off!

my college dad.. 

The best prank St. Anne's College has ever seen....

To welcome back our good friend Sheldon from his hospital extravaganza:

5400 Post It Notes

10 Friends

2 Hours

1 INCREDIBLE ROOM

welcome back!

testing out the bed...

TERM TIME!

That's correct... Trinity Term has officially begun!  I'll be taking Mood and Anxiety Disorders as well as Cognitive Neuroscience this term.  I've already done quite a bit of work that will be covered in both of these classes, so I'm expecting this term to be mostly review business.  Ah well, I suppose it's never a bad thing to review the necessities!  I do have a very cool tutor for Mood Disorders (a 4th year phD student in psychiatry), so I'm thinking that we'll be covering some very recent therapies for disorders, which will be quite interesting.  I've already turned in two essays and have another two due next week... hoorah?!

Rowing has started up again in full force.  We practice Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays on the river, and then the boys have two days of erging workouts.  I'm very excited for Summer Eights, not only because we had a solid boat in Torpids, but also because we're gaining two of the rowers from the Oxford University Blues squad, which will make our boat even more incredible.  Go Anne's!  Summer Eights is another bumps race that will be happening in 5th week (first few days of June), so look for plenty of updates regarding that!

In other news, it's PUNTING season here in Oxford!  Punting is a fabulous past time that I soon hope to be taking part in.  Essentially, it's most comparable to gondala boats (a la Venice), driven by a large wooden pole that is pushed against the river floor.  Very cool!

We had our welcome back BOP (aka party) last night at the brand new club in Oxford, Lola Lo's!  It was 1920s prohibition themed, so essentially everyone went as flappers and/or gangsters.  Here are a few pictures of the night:

Al Capone style gangsters?

Lovely ladies!

... and Keir ages approximately 60 years in 5 seconds

past midnight... whew

Off to work on the essays of doom!