i guess you're wondering what the strange funny acronym the title is... it's actually Women's Eights Head of the River Race... this race was held on the Thames River (which i'm told is supposed to be pronounced Tam-s rather than Tames.. ;p)

Anyway, this is my second race outside Cambridge and a very different one from Bedford.. For two main reasons:
1. The Thames is sooooooooooooo much wider than River Cam... haha.. we can proabably fit 10 boats rowing side by side compared to just 3 on River Cam at the widest point...
2. The Thames is a tidal river... ie. it is affected by the tides quite significantly. So trick for me this time is to try and get onto the "stream" where the river flow is the greatest. Those who studied Geography before should know about this. But when you're actually on the river, all you can do is guess and feel... And it isn't also true that the outer corners have the fastest flows cos of deposition, etc etc.

So on the whole, it was quite a challenging river to cox. Lots of things to take note of. Very fun though. The race was a pretty big event too.. I mean even the Dutch NATIONAL team was there! and they were even in the same holding room as us. How cool is that! and there was also the Great Britain composite crew i think... And i suppose having 280 boats racing is also another indicator. ;p

After the race and rowing back to the boathouse we boated from... Claudia looking quite stressed still... Putney bridge in the background

A slightly better shot... Smiling crew.. Nice rowing.. (almost)

How did we do for the race? We came in 91st position out of the 265 boats that completed the race (4.8 miles i think) and 11th in the S4 category we were racing in (out of 65 boats in the category), so i guess you can say we did fairly well, although i'm sure we could have pushed harder though....

Anyway, I think Churchill College is like the VJ in Singapore in terms of college spirit. Everyone who was from Churchill is so passionate about Churchill. When we were racing in London, at least 3 people came to wish us luck and proudly proclaimed that they were from Churchill College before. And in terms of college spirit, i think we're pretty united too. I guess that's what you get from being further from everyone else. =)

Some other stuff that happened this week was the CUMSA End-of-term Bop which happened on Thursday and also the first event that my committee organised. I must say I was quite glad with the event and turnout, considering there was only two days notice, and everyone certainly worked hard to get their friends to come down for the event. =) And I'm so glad that I have the committee I have, because everyone has such good ideas and genuinely wants to make a difference. What more can i ask for? *grinz*

Tomorrow will be the dinner with DPM Wong in London, Tuesday will be our 2nd event - Film Night, Wednesday is the last day of term, and Thursday i'll be off to Arran! What a(nother) busy week!

[Anyway, i hope everyone is well and fine. I'm sorry i haven't had much time to chat with people online. There's so much work and things to do. I've also removed the cupids at the request of Pierre.. haha.. i hadn't noticed they were still floating around.. oops.. pun pun.. haha.. take carez!]