Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

So, I got to Oxford thinking I wanted to try some new sport. It wasn't realistic to expect that I'd be able to make it out to ride more than every once in a while (and, indeed, I still have only made it out once during the last month that I've been here; more on that later, since I do miss the horses). And I'm also the sort of person who needs to be physically active in order to stay sane... what to make of that?

During my first few weeks at Oxford, then, I signed up for and tried out a bunch of different things. Fencing -- fun to try, but I couldn't see myself staying interested for that long. Beagling -- ditto, plus the time commitment of getting out of Oxford every single Saturday wasn't for me. Triathlon and pentathlon -- seriously, I considered both, but hate swimming and running so that was kind of a big problem. Cycling -- would still like to try it, provided that I can get my hands on a bike. Squash -- a friend has been teaching me, which has been fun despite my hilarious lack of coordination, but a casual session once a week with good company is enough for me. Football/soccer and running and so forth -- no way, forget it, especially with an old foot injury that would surely flare up within two or three days of doing those things. I have yet to try some other sports here, such as the walking club (which goes on hikes in various scenic places across the UK) and cricket and croquet. Rhodes House has its own cricket team in the spring, so I think I will be in for that when it comes!

And then there was also rowing, which I'd told myself I wasn't interested in. I'd tried it during my last time in Oxford, during my quarter of studying abroad through the Stanford program, and while I enjoyed it I also got pretty tired of the early mornings and freezing cold weather out on that river. Plus I'm essentially deaf out on the water, since I can't wear my hearing aid/cochlear implant (because of the submersion risk if the boat were to capsize), and need to rely on lipreading the coxswain in order to understand what's going on. That got tiring and stressful, and I told myself I wanted to stick to cozier sports that I felt more passionate about.

Until I started feeling like I needed more athletic structure in my life, after all, since I was getting very bored in the gym and couldn't muster the motivation to go out in the cold every morning to do something else on my own. And until I got an email from the St. John's College Boat Club, desperately seeking female rowers for one of their novice boats. A lot of my Rhodie friends have been rowing, and have enjoyed it as a way to meet people in their college, whereas I still feel like I haven't met as many people from St. John's as I would like.

So, all right. I emailed the boat club captains back, and this morning I found myself out in a boat once again, floating with oar in hand, and then stretching out my body and starting to row. It felt like returning to a past part of my life at Oxford, and under the sunrise and the mist and the swirling clouds in the sky I can't say even the cold was that unpleasant. I'm trying it for now to see how it goes, so stay tuned...