Personal

It has been an incredible term for rowing. I wasn’t satisfied with my position as “uncontrolled power” in the second boat so I challenged the head coach Rob Jeffery to trial M1. I made it!

Queens’ M1 dominated Lent Term, beating every other Cambridge college in every competition except Robinson Head where we came second (potentially due to changing race conditions). Bedford Head was brilliant as we completed the 2 km course in 5:59, beating our time earlier in the day by five seconds. Here are the complete results for this term:

Getting blades in Lent Bumps was a life achievement. My favourite bumps race was against Trinity Hall. We went out expecting a tough race, with a difficult bump around grassy corner. We hit them much earlier with a strong bump just after First Post corner. Our middle four are heavy enough to cope with the strongest streams and the power difference between the crews was obvious. I think they were expecting to last longer.

Until a video of that race appears, you’ll have to make do with the epic overbump on Fitz. Apparently this is the highest overbump since 1924. It was a scrappy row but we made it and that’s what matters in bumps:

I must also mention the hilarious crab by Queens’ M3 on the first day of bumps. John Baxter manages to cartwheel out of the boat around the 1:50 minute mark. He is then shockingly hit by stroke’s blade at the boat passes over him, leaving him pretty dizzy but thankfully without injury. Check it out:

The men's side of the boat club have won everything in Michaelmas. It's an astounding achievement and I was proud to be part of one of the results.

Here's a list of accomplishments in date order:

1. Top college VIII in Autumn Head 2009
2. First in both divisions of University Fours 2009
3. Top college VIII in Winter Head 2009
4. Top college in the senior division of the Fairbairn Cup 2009

This has to be the best Michaelmas ever for Queens' College boat club.

The Cambridge Computer Lab recruitment fair was a brilliant event, containing some of the most prestigious IT companies in the UK. I collected a lot of information about internships and career opportunities however a variety of companies also seemed to be distributing free promotional goods.

Black Rock Studio kindly give away a full copies of Pure on every gaming platform — no one outdid this and I wonder how this benefited them. T-shirts were the next best thing, although my branded collection may never see the light of day; conveniently, the only place where they are fashionable enough is the Computer Lab. Infosys provided an aluminium bottle that I am now using every day and Bloomberg gave out tough Rubik's cubes that only my friends can solve.

Google provided useful information on applying. They only interview on the phone and give candidates problems ranging from algorithms to general knowledge about common database implementations. They want candidates who can perform straight away. For some reason my friend and I saw the Google loot as the most valuable stash to get and we were more than happy with a Google Pad and Pen.

The Google Pad now acts as a cherishable erg log book.

After I finished my first year tripos exams I made the mistake of predicting the amount of points I scored. I learnt a valuable lesson from this: Tripos is unpredictable, at least when using the basic mark estimates that worked so well at A-level.

I estimated that I would get a 2.i overall thanks to a high mark in one Computer Science paper and the Mathematics papers. Instead I scored much lower in these two (solid 2.ii grades) and got a higher mark in Physics than I was expecting.

Natural Science is a very intense course and you have to have your head screwed on straight from the start. The combination of a gap year, state schooling and concentrating on rowing and socialising were my main disadvantages in Tripos. Next year the focus should be on performing well. Instead of grasping for air all year I can start level pegging with every other student and work just as diligently.

The secret seems to be to consolidate Michaelmas work over Christmas and Lent work over the Easter holidays. This leaves time to study the Easter lecture courses in enough detail to answer their questions in the examinations. This year most people scored around zero on the Easter courses Probability and Regular Languages and Finite Automata.

Another secret is to do some work.

Life is “frenzied, caring, fast, anxious, fun”. A wealth of feelings rush over me every day as I look forward to climbing in Wales and exploring Thailand. Then straight back to England to embrace further employment and start a new term at Cambridge university. The summer has flown by.

My viewpoint on the world is in flux at the moment. I just finished my first Marian Keyes novel, Watermelon, and The Game by Neil Strauss. Two vastly differing books that both end on empowering and passionate notes nevertheless. After a solid Christian upbringing, becoming atheist (thanks to the internet and Dawkins) and learning different perspectives on human interaction (from Ayn Rand, Marquez and others). I want to expand further and see the world from another new perspective. Reading is incredibly powerful yet slightly frightening when you consider how much a single book can change your personality.

Today I finished my contract at Premier Media Group. Over the last few weeks I was assigned to update the Christianity Magazine web application with some new features; I am especially pleased with the improved homepage. The last few weeks have also included a trip to Dorset with Jane’s family which was relaxing and a long, wonderful week in Italy on the Amalfi coast. I want to write more about these and include some pictures but there’s simply no time at the moment.

Here’s a quick preview from the Italy trip:

The view of Vesuvius from Pompei is beautiful and chilling; it is difficult to imagine destruction on that scale

Must get to bed now. I will be back from Thailand on October 10 to respond to the inevitable build up of emails.