This blog is dead

Let us never speak of it again.

Just got back from prizegiving

Who won two prizes? Oh yes it was me.

GENIUS ME.

In other news my wrist is rotting off.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! ! ! !!!!! omg

Here is a picture of my desktop right now

Don't care? Fuck you.

Hey check it out when I take the photo you'll be able to see me typing this. Cool man it's like a behind the scenes shot from your favourite mega-awesome movie set or something. Now I need to skip through my iTunes so that nothing embarassing comes up.

I think my choice is sufficiently filled with street-cred.

Yeahh.


Here you go (CLICK FOR BIGGER)

My mum got back from parents' evening

I'm a genius, apparently.

Just thought you should know.

Who are you? The constant reader.

I am now allowed to get away with sentences like the above because I am a genius.

It took me like four tries to type 'sentence' correctly. Christs sake. My fingers are rotting off on the 1209 word essay I wrote about English Language.

God, I am so smart.

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER

Oh fuck

I've been in America for two weeks. Did I forgot to inform you people? Woahhhh you must have been FREAKING OUT without the bloggy goodness of THWP to fill your lives. I can't believe I forgot about you. It's like that episode of the Simpons with Cape Feare when they went on the witness protection scheme and Marge was all upset and then Homer was like "Don't worry I cleared up all the loose ends" but then BLAMMO Grandpa is outside their house knocking on the door and wolves are chasing him.

Heh. That was a reference.

The article I wrote for a rowing magazine

ROWING REPORT

The rowing week begins at 12.35 on Monday with a run, which takes the
form of either a 4.1 mile dash or a 40 minute jog. Traditionally, this
overruns, giving us five minutes to get changed (we aren't allowed
into the lunch hall dripping sweat and smothered in mud), grab
something to eat – although usually at this point all that's left is a
tureen of runner beans and a single hotly-contested half-ladle of
crusty mashed potato – and sprint to registration.

The run is always exhausting and I spend the cosy post-lunch History
lesson snoozing, before topping up my energy levels with a cheeky
snack. I won't lie, my sneaky napping is a daily event; but I'm not an
isolated case. All boaties spend their days suffering increasing
levels of exhaustion (from the preceding evening's weights, ergo or
circuits), pain (blisters, sore muscles and cramps), or fear (the very
thought of a 5k test makes my heart miss beats and my chest tighten).
School itself degenerates into 'relaxation time between training'
which doesn't foster academic superiority.

After school on Monday, as on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and
Sunday, we run to the boat-club for a few hours on the water. The
Millennium Boathouse (which the Lady Eleanor Holles School also
occasionally uses) is an imposing creation of yellow concrete and blue
guttering, decorated with medals, pennants, results boards, and a
collosal picture of Steve Redgrave with a raisin stuck to his
forehead.

The time of year determines the boats and squads we're divided into.
Winter, the sculling season, features gruelling long-distance pieces
and endless preparation for summer selection. In January, (after a
seemingly arbitrary series of tests, seat races, anomalies,
disbandings and re-selections) the initial 1st, 2nd and 3rd VIIIs are
chosen. Each boat has their own coach, and there's a healthy amount of
competition between the crews to keep things scandalous. The times are
many when the 2nd VIII has outranked the 1st VIII, triggering a flurry
of spontaneous seat-racing.

Water training is a mixture of technical sessions, tests, pieces, and
long-distance steady-state in singles. However, the training schedule
is often thrown out the window for the infamous surprise trial VIIIs,
@s (8K sculling races), punishment ergos, or whatever crazy new
training technique Head Coach wants to test, be it muscular endurance,
super-fast-mega-weights, or milkshakes. This means that predicted
training times are always off – sometimes I don't get home until 7,
which can be a problem with homework. Usually, I don't find this an
issue as I wouldn't start work until 8 anyway, but it impinges on my
'lying on bed' time.

Rowing is a massive commitment, both physically and in terms of time
(we trained 42 minutes for every stroke taken during Schools' Head),
and it's hard to fit anything else around it. Certainly all
extra-curricular activities (DofE, sports clubs, jobs) fly out the
window, and pre-race bans on late nights, alcohol, mind-bending
narcotics and other pleasurable teenage pursuits mean that the social
life takes a knock. Meanwhile, it's hard not to feel unappreciated by
the rest of the school – 'boatie' is used as a term of abuse by pupils
and staff alike, and our major wins are often disregarded or
overshadowed by the closeness of the football team's near-losses.

However, we rowers don't care about this shoddy treatment. We show up
to training, happily suffering the weights, ergos, runs, and hours on
the water. We are proud of our devotion to naff hardcore music. We
ignore the mocking and enjoy the social stigma of wearing yellow lycra
while everyone else gets to wear yellow shorts. We do it because we
love rowing; for us it's far more than a simple school activity – it's a way of life!


THEY PUBLISHED IT