1. Light Blue v. Dark Blue
Remember when we went to Frisbee NATIONALS? You know what's more important, taken more seriously than the British National competition? Beating rivals Cambridge, of course.
Background on OX-CAMB sports Every year, the Light Blues (Cambridge) play the Dark Blues (Oxford) in every sport imaginable around this time in what they call Varsity. Playing in Varsity makes you eligible for a Blue, which as far as I can tell is essentially a cool status symbol: a designation recognizing your accomplishments as an athlete. Everyone takes getting a Blue very seriously here. The list of competitions is here. The uni that takes the most competitions "wins" Varsity 2012.
Most of the competitions take place these next two weekends, and both men's and women's Ultimate Frisbee played yesterday! We play both indoor and outdoor matches, and you couldn't have asked for a better day to do so. It's February and we're playing in shorts and t-shirts in beautiful sunlight. Didn't Michigan just get another round of snow? (snicker)
However, despite all our February photosynthesizing energy absorbtion, the women lost. I was actually captaining since our normal captain was off playing for Great Britain Frisbee (!), and we spent the last week recruiting enough players to play outdoors. But the men's team took home the glory for Oxford for the 3rd year running. And then the night ended in me doing a disc race. If you don't know what a disc race is, don't worry, you don't need to. If you do and you know me at all, you should be phenomenally impressed with me right now, and understand more fully why I'm still in bed with the lights off.
2. TORPIDS
Also this week was the term's boat races between the different Oxford colleges. The idea of Torpids is that all the boats line up in a line to start, and you try to bump into the boat in front of you before the boat behind you bumps you. If you bump someone, you move up a spot in rankings. The race takes place over 4 days, and if you "bump" someone every day, you get yet another Oxford status symbol called Blades (they like those here). It kind of works like constant power rankings; teams that are under-ranked should be able to bump a boat every day and move up in the rankings. Check out the cool chart of where the boats ended up, and check out all of those boats in the race! So many!
All the videos are online. I think now that I've tried rowing I really appreciate it more; it's really hard to have everyone stay in time, AND keep the boat level, AND keep rowing hard for such a long time (hey, 5-7 minutes is really long in rowing), all while your cox is shouting at you. Coxes have a tough job also to recognize how to take the turns and keep from going into the bank. One boat crashed the bank so hard that one of the rowers was thrown out, and another crashed in the gut (the start) and broke their boat. 10-14,000 pound boats (dear Americans, that's a monetary amount not a weight measurement), as a frame of reference.
3. Shrove Tuesday
Instead of eating fattening donuts on Fat Tuesday, the Brits eat pancakes. But let me clarify. A pancake is not a pancake. In England a pancake is a crepe. But the Brits get mad when I say that too; apparently a pancake is a smaller version of a crepe. Looks like a crepe in my book. And they eat them not with butter and syrup but with sugar and lemon, which I guess is just not fattening enough for my American taste buds because I thought it was rather bland. Yes I tried it so now I can effectively mock it.
4. Exchange dinners!
So, what do Oxford students do for fun? Mostly dress up and eat 4-course meals. Woooo, Party Central here. I will never understand why the dressing up part is enjoyable. Fancy clothes are uncomfortable for both sexes (I assume)! Why would college students who don't have to wear them continually subject themselves to doing so! You have the rest of your working life to do that! The way it works is through exchange dinners, where you invite another Oxford college (see here) to your college to eat, and then you get to go eat at their college where you dress up and schmooze and spill wine on your (or other people's) nice clothes. I really wish they made us wear funny-looking hats to get the true British experience, but they do make us wear our sub-fusc robes to add to the ridiculousness. Sigh. Despite my mockery, next week I'll go on my 6th exchange dinner this term. It is cool to see the other colleges and their dining halls (think Harry Potter, seriously).
TTFN. Hope your Sunday is filled with less essay-writing than mine will be. - LP
In America a pancake is a 'hot cake' or 'pikelet' or 'scotch pancake'. In England a pancake is a pancake. Where I come from pancake means something rather different (google pancake rocks!).
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