Clare at Cambridge: Clare Novice Regatta

So, as many of you know, Saturday was my first ever rowing Regatta (or race). It was a race run only for novices and it was run by Clare College (hence the name). The way it works is that the race is 800m and it's head-to-head, which is unusual as the Cam is really narrow. If you win, you move on to the next race, and you keep racing until the final.

We've been doing really well in our practices this week, so we were expecting to do quite well in the race. However, we lost our first race, which was pretty anti-climactic. All of the things that we'd been doing well totally went out the window, which was super frustrating. Now I remember why I don't play competitive sports, because it is so frustrating to have one chance and to totally screw it up. We have another race on Thursday though (this time it's 2700 m!) so at least we have another chance, and hopefully we've gotten all of the butterflies out of our system!

I sit bow (the FRONT of the boat, but since you face the opposite way it feels like the back), so I get to wear the race number. This time I really wanted to take it home, for obvious reasons:

Since I was kind of bummed, I didn't do much for the rest of the day. However, I dragged myself away from reruns of my new favorite British TV show (Downton Abbey) to go the MCR Guest Night in the evening. The theme was James Bond, and the night comprised of formal hall (with James Bond themed food) and then a bunch of entertainment after. There was karaoke, a chocolate fountain, and "gambling" run by the Churchill Casino. So all-in-all it was a nice way to end a pretty frustrating day.