Silence and Sports

First of all, I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past at the Oxford premiere two Thursdays ago, and it was amazing. Best movie of the year.

Hipster Wolverine at the X-Men Oxford premiere

Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to talk sports.

Last Saturday, there were Dancesport Cuppers. It was a ballroom dancing competition that included people who didn't have to be on the varsity ballroom dance team, which was nice. I was partnered by the Oriel captain with this girl (again, I don't use names without very explicit permission):

The four categories of dance were Waltz (elegant), Cha-Cha-Cha (sexy), Quickstep (fast), and Jive (cheeky). We did jive, which has a basic step that's pretty much just the basic step for West Coast Swing, which I've learnt over the years from having well-chosen friends,  except that you always start on the back step and you need to lift your feet higher when stepping.

Waltz

Cha

Quickstep (Oriel's team was tiny this year and so
we didn't have a couple doing Quickstep)

JIVE!!! :P

The dances everyone did were prepared by themselves in advance. Every round except our last one, though, I fumbled and ended up having to recover from a missed move by improvising our way to a part of the choreographed dance we could make it to without looking unnatural! The couple from Oriel doing Cha made it to the finals, where they performed solo in front of everyone; my partner and I made it to semifinals! It was a ton of fun doing and I'm glad I did it. I'm going to try to do it again next year!

Now if only I knew that one freshman who can Lindy....

Even though my partner and I didn't make it to finals, we WERE apparently the most photogenic couple, so there's that:

Speaking of sports, this week was the big Oxford rowing competition! Each college was pitted against the other in a weird "bumping" system I'm not entirely sure I can explain adequately. That's why we have Wikipedia.

Whatever the system was, Oooooorieeeeeel!!!! Head of the River 2014!!!

I thought this was a protest at first, but then I realized it was the rowing team
carrying a wooden boat leading most of Oriel College back to college from the river

To celebrate our win, our rowing team took the boat proudly and lifted it to the heavens in the main Oriel courtyard!

Oooooorieeeeeel!!

And then they smashed it into the ground!!

...So much for next year...

And then they set it on fire.

I explained to several people there how it wouldn't have taken an entire hour
to burn if they'd used gasoline to help the process along.

The rowing team jumped across the burning boat a few times together.

If this were Mexico, we would've saved the boat for the last evening, after all the exams
were over, and made it into a massive bonfire. Am I right, A-Team?

I learned later that it wasn't actually the boat they used. Those are made of plastic. Apparently we had so much confidence in our rowing team that we bought the boat ahead of time. I guess you can do that when the team captain is (apparently) an Olympic medalist in rowing.

I noticed a sign on the lawn had been trampled over in all the excitement, and I took some time to commiserate with it in regards to its abandonment.

Instead of watching the game, I had been competing in Water Polo Cuppers! The night before, someone posted asking for volunteers to replace the members of the team who told her that night that they would have to row instead, and I, being the good sport that I am, volunteered. I felt confident that all my time spent working out in the gym, running long distance, and doing series of high-intensity sprints would make me in good shape for most sports. I'd certainly found that to be the case when playing a casual game of football two weeks prior. Sounds reasonable, right?

In fact, I nearly drowned several times. Perhaps it was because my legs were already really tired from the long distance running and gym work in the preceding days, but I had more difficulty staying afloat in the pool than I've ever had in my entire life. Someone suggested it might be because I've gained ten or fifteen pounds of muscle since I've last swum, much of which is upper body muscle, and as such, it costs me a lot more effort to stay afloat, which is the excuse I'm going with, because it's the only one that doesn't make me sound really out of shape. In any case, I'm glad there's no rule against holding on to the edge for extended periods of time, or I might not be alive to write this post today.

We lost, by the way.

I'm currently running a fundraiser to help support a friend of mine who shall go unnamed (as with everyone I mention in this blog) and her mission in Birmingham. The big "hook" was that for a day, I would finally shut up; no speaking, texting, messaging, sign language, or even nodding for twenty-four hours. I also used the promise of brownies and brownie recipes to incentivize people to donate (much like GLAdOS from Portal). We've raised quite a bit of money. I don't know if we're going to reach the goal of six hundred pounds (and I agreed that if we reach that goal, I would have to get my chest waxed), but I'm definitely glad I can help support my friend in this way.

Good grief; I actually do appear to be turning into Wolverine...

The day itself was fairly quiet ( :P ). I spent as much time out of my room as possible so that people noticed the admittedly huge difference. It was really boring most of the time. At one point I regrettably had to resort to a brief nod because I was buying something from Pret a Manger, and the woman behind the counter repeatedly asked me if I was eating away, and she wasn't taking a smile as an answer.

Meanwhile, the employees at Tesco's all dressed up in '70s garb one day to encourage shoppers to donate to fight skin cancer. After seeing this guy wearing a suit that I actually own, I felt compelled to donate:

I went up to this guy and asked him, "Excuse me, sir? Are you feeling ill?"
Confused, he responded, "No, I don't think so. Why do you ask?" To this, I replied,
"Because you look as though you have some Saturday Night Fever."

Finally, I'd like to introduce you all to a friend of mine and an avid reader of my blog. As you well know, longtime readers, I never use someone's name on this blog unless the person specifically gives me permission, something that has never before happened (because I never actually ask). But in this case, he actually requested a shout-out in my blog, and so I am now obliging. I'd like to go on the record of saying, though, that I first made him say the phrase, "I, [his name], give you permission to use my name on your blog, The Across-the-Pond Life."

Allow me to introduce you to...Will!!!!!

He seemed very surprised when I picked him up.

Going forward, I've got two more weeks until my first prelim, then I've got two weeks of prelims until I'm done with the year! I've been seeing my friends post photos of going to the beach for two weeks now, but I'm staying positive and not-at-all-jealous (maybe a little).

And CONGRATULATIONS, TKA CLASS OF 2014!!!   (Mark 16:15)

Happy hunting!

   John Khouri, Polo Wearer But Not Player