Well, the first semester of year two has nearly come to an end-just one more exam and I'm done. I feel like a soldier returning home after a stint at the front line having been bunged up with a cold for about three weeks from this terrible weather and tendonitis in my hand (a strain caused from in my case rowing)-have taken a week off because of that and in good time, because of exams. I have to do the 2k test tomorrow though which I hope to do well in.
Saw the X-factor final last Saturday which is a really good talent, show like idols, not that I'm really into these things, but the talent displayed is incredible. I wander how many people that have great talent out there, but dont have the opportunity to use it? I think that if one believes they have a special talent in anything such as singing, speaking, writing etc then they must not be afraid to go to great lengths, in order to pursue it-success will come at a cost though and this separates winners from losers.
Leaving on Saturday and will be back on Sunday for a dose of warm weather and open space!
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Friday 5 December 2008
Pots, Parkinson, Wembley and Work
I won my first rowing 'pot' as they are called last week at the Wallingford head race (actually the town where we row). Oxford Brookes dominated all the races so much so that we were the only team at prize giving-a bit embarassing when every prize except one or two categories are won by the same club!! I was part of the novice 4 boat which raced the 5km upstream race-very wet and very cold, especially waiting at the start for 45 mins.
Michael Parkinson spoke at the Oxford Union on Tuesday and was interesting to get his views on the media, even though it is not my piece of cake.
I went to Wembley with a friend on Wednesday to watch the Barbarians vs Australia, which Australia won unfortunately!! It is an incredible stadium and so well laid out but there is a price to pay! a burger and chips is 7 pounds 60 and a pint is 3.80!! Good to be back in London again and going this weekend to see Lou and Bert, and then Caz and Bren on Sunday. Going to take the day off rowing. Had a massive weights session yesterday-5x50 for cleans, squats and bench pulls, after the run and jumps! took two and a half hours to finish.
Been working hard for exams which are just around the corner and then nearly time to go home on the 22nd!
Sunday 23 November 2008
weather!
My coldest day ever!! woke up at 7 am, for training and, very reluctantly got out of my warm bed to bike down to the sports centre-on the way I thought I was not going to get there, as it was, by my reckoning minus 10 degrees celsius, ice everywhere and I just had a fleece on and a pair of gloves. It literally felt as if the wind was like a knife, cutting away at my face! Anyway, finally got to the boat house to rig the boats up (we went to Bristol yesterday for another head race) and were told we were to do an outing! Once moving in the boat, however it warmed up and was pleased to be put in the top boat-wow, what a difference! I take quite a keen interest in the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, and read that for every stroke of the 600 stroke race, 2 hours are spent training for it!! that is dedication!
Ergo tomorrow morning at 7.30am.
Ergo tomorrow morning at 7.30am.
Wednesday 19 November 2008
November news
The last month has literall flown by, and I realised I havent written for nearly 6 weeks! Its ten in the morning, and am taking a break from my work and have decided to update my blog. Well, where do I start?
I was reading a book 'when markets collide' and came across quite an interesting idea... From the film Wall Street in 1987, a character Gekko played by Michael Douglas when addressing shareholders says ''The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed-for lack of a better work-is good. Greed is good. Greed works. Greed clarifies , cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms-greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge-has marked the upward surge of mankind''. The author was telling how the finacial industry is fuelled by this greed, but thats not the point-I feel it is what makes someone or some country great, and I am sure not everyone would agree with what he says, but if you think about it, to get somewhere you have to have this attitude-Barack Obama was greedy for the White House, as he was for money to fund his campaign, the British mens four was greedy for their olympic gold, and they got it,and Zimbabwe lacks the greed for change I think and therefore, it is not going to happen until they really want it to happen!
Enough of a lecture!!
I continue to be very busy in all aspects of life at university. I have a job 6 hours per week, working at the business school, doind course-work admin-not very stimulating, but very good pay and good hours. I will also be working at the BMW mini plant as a quality control auditor!! once or twice per month. There is a Zimbabwean friend in charge there and he let us know about the jobs, which is decent pay as well.
My work is really piling on-The last two weeks I have had many assignments to hand in, and exams in just under a month, so have to start working for that.
I have met some influential people over the past few weeks-Sir Stelios, the founder of Easyjet, David Davis, the tory MP who spoke brilliantly about Britain and the loss of freedom with respect to the detention period for terrorists which he much opposses. I have never really understood this, but... Blair wanted to pass a bill to keep terror suspects for 90 days without chrage, which is ridiculous (Austrailia is 12 days, Canada is 0 and USA of all places is 2 days. The bill failed (about a year or so ago) and the current law is 28 days which in itself is ridiculous. The government wants to take away civil freedom was the gist of his story. This was at the Oxford Union which I joined up to and is well worth the cost. The founder of Cobra beer (an Indian curry beer) Lord Billamoria spoke at the Oxford Business school which was interesting, and the winner of the British version of the apprentice Simon Ambrose spoke the other day. That is the really great thing about being in Oxford apart from anything else, is the quality of world leaders and entrepreneurs etc. that get invited to talk.
I am still rowing a great deal-about 20 hours per week and recently rowed at the London fours head which is a 7km race through the same route as the university boat race-Im sure you can imagine how hard that is!
Some of the ex-oxford brookes British olympic medallists came back to speak to us about their experience in Beijing about a month ago and that was really interesting. Steve Williams (gold), partridge, lucy and heathcote (silver) and some others came.
Internship job hunt is not going very well-no real response yet, and huge competition in a failing sector with, massive job cuts??!! Snowed the other day lightly, and gets dark at 4.30pm now, but not too bad.
I was reading a book 'when markets collide' and came across quite an interesting idea... From the film Wall Street in 1987, a character Gekko played by Michael Douglas when addressing shareholders says ''The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed-for lack of a better work-is good. Greed is good. Greed works. Greed clarifies , cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms-greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge-has marked the upward surge of mankind''. The author was telling how the finacial industry is fuelled by this greed, but thats not the point-I feel it is what makes someone or some country great, and I am sure not everyone would agree with what he says, but if you think about it, to get somewhere you have to have this attitude-Barack Obama was greedy for the White House, as he was for money to fund his campaign, the British mens four was greedy for their olympic gold, and they got it,and Zimbabwe lacks the greed for change I think and therefore, it is not going to happen until they really want it to happen!
Enough of a lecture!!
I continue to be very busy in all aspects of life at university. I have a job 6 hours per week, working at the business school, doind course-work admin-not very stimulating, but very good pay and good hours. I will also be working at the BMW mini plant as a quality control auditor!! once or twice per month. There is a Zimbabwean friend in charge there and he let us know about the jobs, which is decent pay as well.
My work is really piling on-The last two weeks I have had many assignments to hand in, and exams in just under a month, so have to start working for that.
I have met some influential people over the past few weeks-Sir Stelios, the founder of Easyjet, David Davis, the tory MP who spoke brilliantly about Britain and the loss of freedom with respect to the detention period for terrorists which he much opposses. I have never really understood this, but... Blair wanted to pass a bill to keep terror suspects for 90 days without chrage, which is ridiculous (Austrailia is 12 days, Canada is 0 and USA of all places is 2 days. The bill failed (about a year or so ago) and the current law is 28 days which in itself is ridiculous. The government wants to take away civil freedom was the gist of his story. This was at the Oxford Union which I joined up to and is well worth the cost. The founder of Cobra beer (an Indian curry beer) Lord Billamoria spoke at the Oxford Business school which was interesting, and the winner of the British version of the apprentice Simon Ambrose spoke the other day. That is the really great thing about being in Oxford apart from anything else, is the quality of world leaders and entrepreneurs etc. that get invited to talk.
I am still rowing a great deal-about 20 hours per week and recently rowed at the London fours head which is a 7km race through the same route as the university boat race-Im sure you can imagine how hard that is!
Some of the ex-oxford brookes British olympic medallists came back to speak to us about their experience in Beijing about a month ago and that was really interesting. Steve Williams (gold), partridge, lucy and heathcote (silver) and some others came.
Internship job hunt is not going very well-no real response yet, and huge competition in a failing sector with, massive job cuts??!! Snowed the other day lightly, and gets dark at 4.30pm now, but not too bad.
Thursday 9 October 2008
Italy and other news
The trip to Italy was really good-we flew Ryanair direct and was bussed to our hotel where we relaxed and then went for lunch and a light training session on the river Po (the main river that runs through Turin). For lunch we were treated to real Italian food; bread sticks, pasta starters then some sort of venison. The group (ten of us in total includin 8 rowers, a cox and we had one of the GB Olympic Brookes rowers as a sort of coach/team leader) went out into the town that night and then back to the hotel. Early breakfast and then another training session in the 16 year old, wooden seated, unfunctional steering, you name it boat that we were given, and then lunch again at the club. Just relaxed at the hotel before being driven through to the river for the race. We were told that there were going to be 30000 strong crowd there, although that wasexaggerated a tad, however there was an amazing display of fire-works just before we raced (nine o'clock at night!). We came third, out of three, but the other teams were really good and hadnt been pissing around all summer like us!). The Italians really treated us like we had just finished a 2k Olympic final, with a big concert at the end, and us going on stage to collect our prizes/flowers etc! We then went out to a club and 15 euros gave us unlimited drinks-we definitely took advantage of that, and getting back at 5 in the moning, and up at 7.30 to go to the airport was not the best thing I could have asked for... Anyway, arrived back at Stansted, collected my wallet which I stupidly left at Starbucks on the way out and returned to Oxford. Reall good weekend all in all.
Other than that, it hasnt been a great week-fell far behind in my work and now trying to catch it all up, university account suspended as the payment went into the wrong account so cant use any facilities, and was just about to send my application off to citi bank which I had been working hard on, when I got a message that 'application deadline has passed'. Not so sure now whether to do a placement year or not, may decide to just carry on with the degree... time will tell...
British economy doesnt sound good at all-FTSE down over 20% this year, banks going bust, will be interesting to find out what happens eventully. Iceland, a country, has gone bust!! we though Zimbabwe was bad?
Rowing training gettin harder by the week-only three of us novices still there from last year, and will be difficult to make a team for Henely next year, as we now with the senior squad, but, then again, always good to have a challenge. Today, we had a ten km run, which I improved my time on, then a big circuit session and endurance weights-not for the faint-hearted haha. Went to see the ex-CEO of the Economist talk at Said Business School afterwards talk on creating global media brands which was interesting-she gave examples of Scotch whisky (malts) and British newspapers, such as the economist, which have so much competition in the home market that when they go overseas, their product outdoes any domestic competition-we learn something new every day!
Went to watch Brookes Vs Oxford rugby yesterday at Iffley stadium (where Roger Bannister got his 4 minute mile) and Brookes just lost by one point through a 8th extra time drop goal!
11.30pm now and winter definitely coming fast-another six months of it to go through.
Other than that, it hasnt been a great week-fell far behind in my work and now trying to catch it all up, university account suspended as the payment went into the wrong account so cant use any facilities, and was just about to send my application off to citi bank which I had been working hard on, when I got a message that 'application deadline has passed'. Not so sure now whether to do a placement year or not, may decide to just carry on with the degree... time will tell...
British economy doesnt sound good at all-FTSE down over 20% this year, banks going bust, will be interesting to find out what happens eventully. Iceland, a country, has gone bust!! we though Zimbabwe was bad?
Rowing training gettin harder by the week-only three of us novices still there from last year, and will be difficult to make a team for Henely next year, as we now with the senior squad, but, then again, always good to have a challenge. Today, we had a ten km run, which I improved my time on, then a big circuit session and endurance weights-not for the faint-hearted haha. Went to see the ex-CEO of the Economist talk at Said Business School afterwards talk on creating global media brands which was interesting-she gave examples of Scotch whisky (malts) and British newspapers, such as the economist, which have so much competition in the home market that when they go overseas, their product outdoes any domestic competition-we learn something new every day!
Went to watch Brookes Vs Oxford rugby yesterday at Iffley stadium (where Roger Bannister got his 4 minute mile) and Brookes just lost by one point through a 8th extra time drop goal!
11.30pm now and winter definitely coming fast-another six months of it to go through.
Wednesday 1 October 2008
Start of Year 2
Arrived in the UK on the 14th September and had a warm introduction by having all my cigarettes, and all that my summer work pay went into taken away by customs! I took it on the shoulder and continued to Oxford for the second year and arrived at the new house at midnight where my housemate Kelly kindly waited for me to get back. The first week I spend getting everything in order, changing from marketing to economics which I find is a lot more stimulating, and also I feel that you are exposed to better teachers, and treated more like proper university students as opposed to marketing.
Rowing training started with a bang, with us all going on a 20km run round Oxford, which I completed in about 1hr 25mins, however I couldnt walk the next day! We go on a long run about once a week, do two 20min ergos free rate on a Monday, weights, water rowing and circuits all of which add up to well over ten hours per week! I am enjoying the challenge of it and will be interesting to see where I am this time next year.
I am reading the Undercover Economist at the moment, which I find really interesting-the author uncovers truths about business and economics, such as with fair-trade coffee, only about 5-10% of the extra you pay actually goes to the farmers, and the rest to Starbucks, as they are only obliged to pay the fairtrade dealer, not the farmers, and so make a killing out of customers that mean well!!
I have a numeracy test for economics next week which will be challenging, as it involves lots of algebra...
I am in the middle of getting my placement sorted, with cv's and the lot, and is clearly going to be a long task!
I am off to Turin, Italy, tomorrow for a rowing trip which should be good-all on the university, but have to get to the sports centre by 3.45am!
Rowing training started with a bang, with us all going on a 20km run round Oxford, which I completed in about 1hr 25mins, however I couldnt walk the next day! We go on a long run about once a week, do two 20min ergos free rate on a Monday, weights, water rowing and circuits all of which add up to well over ten hours per week! I am enjoying the challenge of it and will be interesting to see where I am this time next year.
I am reading the Undercover Economist at the moment, which I find really interesting-the author uncovers truths about business and economics, such as with fair-trade coffee, only about 5-10% of the extra you pay actually goes to the farmers, and the rest to Starbucks, as they are only obliged to pay the fairtrade dealer, not the farmers, and so make a killing out of customers that mean well!!
I have a numeracy test for economics next week which will be challenging, as it involves lots of algebra...
I am in the middle of getting my placement sorted, with cv's and the lot, and is clearly going to be a long task!
I am off to Turin, Italy, tomorrow for a rowing trip which should be good-all on the university, but have to get to the sports centre by 3.45am!
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