Dearest readers, please forgive the rowing metaphors. They really are the only things I know how to write with these days. For the rowers among you, I don’t need to explain myself. For the non-rowers, this basically is the call that is both a boon and a curse. It means that the end is in sight, it’s so close it’s almost palpable. However, it’s also the time when a rower feels that there’s nothing left in his body: an indescribable fire rips through his legs, thousands of blades stab through his chest, all he can hear is the roar of his coxswain demanding he push harder and harder. The oxygen circles are becoming more distinct, and the distance between the head of the rower immediately in front of him is increasingly stretched out, as time and space are at the whim of the rower’s very ability to get oxygen to their depleted body.
Sound like fun? Not to the average person. It’s this part of the race that rowers fight for, to pass through that hole in the wall. Almost like Paul Atreides, the hero from Dune, who learns to pass through his fear, rowers come face to face with their own limits, but break them time and time again. This metaphor for breaking things doesn’t necessarily translate as simply to real life, but this is just about how I feel about the last few weeks of senior year. The end is near, uncomfortably near. On Wednesday, the classes officially rose after Spring Convocation, and I was started on a track to inevitable alumhood. Both speakers, Lee Zalben ’95 and Professor Livingston in CogSci, spoke about not having any idea what they would do after college, which made me feel a lot better about my current situation.
Since completing my thesis roughly two weeks ago, it’s been a real push. Getting motivated to search for jobs is a huge task. Many students here don’t realize that we have to go through the same doors as everyone else, despite coming from one of the nation’s most selective and prestigious schools. The corporate world is one that is gives no quarter, and the metaphor of birth is quite fitting here. At Vassar, we’re warm and comfortable. We’re fed, we’re safe. But come graduation, that uncomfortable and difficult push into the real world, we’re outside of the safety that has been our alma mater. Our ‘soul mother’ will always be there for us, but after graduation, we have to forge ahead to make our names in the exclusive Vassar alumni community.
Bah. Enough of these things. Full of scorpions is my mind, and empty is my stomach. Typical college student, no? But I am drawn again to reflections on transitions. As Daisy Chain co-coordinator, looking at my friends, as they have well become, dressed in their finery reflecting one of the college’s finest traditions, I remembered my days as an usher. The feelings came flooding back as we prepared them to march: I thought about how I would miss my senior friends and how I would feel two years from that day. The day came, and I felt helpless to the forces of time. My own senior Spring Convocation had come too soon. I almost cried. I wasn’t ready to leave this place I have come to call home. I’m not ready. But, like rowing, I have to step up and do what I’m supposed to do: I need to get over myself, get past my head, get past my fears and whatever pain may come, and push through. Just push through.
My senior project is coming along nicely; even though I haven’t been particularly diligent, I’ve been able to pump out some good pages of work with minimal sections for editing. Today, I found out how the Chea/Xie family around the world came upon our surname: a fiefdom in Henan province where there actually exists a Xie City. Once I found out about that, I put that down on my list of places I must absolutely go before I die.
This weekend, we’re off to Whitney Point, NY for the New York State Championships, my second-to-last race. Depending on the weather on Sunday, I have at most, three practices left with the team I love so much. Saturday saw the Men’s 8 enter the Petite finals after beating out RPI in the Men’s Varsity 8, with Marist as the eventual state champions. We had contact on Union for a good part of the race but failed to take them. After a somewhat disheartening race, the lightweight 4 went through to beast it out and take gold. The lightweights are the cream of the men’s team crop, embodying discipline and raw strength despite their scrawniness. The rest of the team envy them for their dedication, but are kind of glad we don’t have to starve ourselves, except for Peter Muhn who rows at 3 seat who’s kind of a bottomless pit. Today was the Petite finals early in the morning, as to beat out the pending thunderstorms. We went out on the water with an attitude to row hard and have fun, and as it was the last time Nick and I would be in the 8 (on top of having it be our last row in the 8 for the rest of season), we wanted to end on a high note.
We got off the line at a 44 on our high 20, settling into a 37/38. We had a lead on the Union boat! They must have been so confused. We kept our half/three-quarter boat lead on Union for the majority of the race, never slipping below a long and solid 36, and once we heard the wily call, “Welcome to the second thousand!” we knew we could take the Union boat. We passed them by the time the 500-metre mark was in sight, and we also began to walk on the Hamilton boat. With 15 strokes to go, we got up to a 38.5 to take Hamilton, eventually beating them by .38 seconds – our 6:29.16 to their 6:29.52. Union must have been confused. They beat us quite soundly yesterday, but today, we blew them out of the water. We got out attitudes right, and we were riding on the high of having our boys win gold. Now, back at Vassar, we seniors are really entering the 500m, and it’s the hardest thing in the world to keep that intensity up.
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