So. The 2006 Michigan Novice Rowing Roster's finally out- 32 rowers and 10 coxswains. 8 rowers and a coxswain per boat, and our first race's on 30th October. It's called "Head of the Elk" which sounds oddly Native American. Ooh. Wow I'm already looking forward to racing even though we've hardly moved an inch from the launching dock. But between now and then... I anticipate a great deal of hard work, much much more to come. Ironically, that's what I love the most about the idea of being in a varsity sport like this. Okay, everyone who knows me well can testify to the fact that i relish tough training. Even though I may cuss like nobody's business during the process, loudly make known my burgeoning violent tendencies to everyone in the vicinity, and wonder what's wrong with myself for always getting into such situations out of my own free will (like during change parade in army BMT, or casevac, or route marches, or getting stuck in a thunderstorm in the middle of mandai wilderness during navigation exercise, or cleaning my M16 after live range, or turnouts in full battle order, or field pack and bunk inspections, or a gazillion other things that perfectly sane people wouldn't even begin to consider, much less even do), I guess it's the satisfaction you get upon looking back and thinking about the fact that "wow! I actually made it through all this shit!" that is pretty much irreplaceable. And I love it.

It's going to be one tough year ahead, races along the way, different training programs depending on the season (you don't expect us to train on the lake when it's winter and all hell freezes over, do you now), varying lineups, erg time trials, weight training, loads of cardio... and it's all going to culminate in the NCAA Big Ten Championship Regatta at the end of April, followed by the Central Regional Championship Regatta on the 2nd weekend of May '06. There'll be selections for first varsity eight (top 8 rowers in the team), then second eight, and finally the varsity four. I don't plan to think too far ahead just right now- as my coach (she's incredible) says- just take everything one stroke at a time (like in rowing). Just get through the stuff you're doing first by fully applying yourself to it, and then you can figure out the rest as it comes. I saw this quote on the back of someone's high school running team shirt just the other day, and I thought it made a lot of sense. "Just think about how far you could go if you took another step for every time you thought you couldn't."

I guess it's just human nature- at times we think we've maxed out, we've reached the farthest we could possibly go, but in actual fact we're still yards away from the ceiling. Sometimes you need to distract yourself from the pain, the challenge, just grit your teeth and keep pushing. Another saying I've gotten from yet another person's high school running shirt (I don't know why I have such an affinity for reading the back of people's shirts, but you really learn a lot about life from them, especially here in the USA where you see perhaps just about everything you could imagine would take pride of place on a shirt): "Pain is the weakness leaving your body." It's all in the mind- it's the brain, rather than the body, that determines how far you go in the end.

Okay that's enough profundity to last me for quite a while. Anyway, I think I possess the dubious honor of being the shortest rower in all of Michigan Crew history. Simply put, I am a midget, especially when it comes to comparisons with the rest of the crew team. Everyone is at least 5'5" (about 1.65m) tall, substantially heavier because they're taller, which is of great use when it comes to carrying the boat down to the launching point. I've got some pictures of the launching docks in my Flickr album- it kind of resembles the floating pontoon at Kallang SDBA, except that it's bigger and definitely not as rickety. There's this very noticeable downward slant at my end when we're carrying the boat down to be launched, because I'm at the bow seat (the end which crosses the finish line first in a race, since rowing is done backwards) so I carry the bow end. And it is so bloody heavy when we're walking down the sloped boards to the pontoon, because all the weight is on my end since I move down first, and somehow I get kind of squeamish with US$26,000 weighing down on my shoulders at any one point in time. And our coach said something which I found quite amusing, especially the way in which she said it. "I know all of you are strong- whether you're a midget (raises eyebrows in yours truly's direction), or if you're a giant (points at this girl called Liz who's easily 2 heads taller than me and a lovely person at that), so I want to see all of you doing everything together. Teamwork!" Anyway she's an incredible coach- extremely motivational. I was really impressed by the way she took the effort to get to know every single one of the girls who tried out for the crew team, and remembered all seventy-five of our names (and last names). Even if she calls me Fang, like teeth, you know, Faaaaaang? Grrr. But it's cool. Haha! It's that sort of dedication and passion which emanates from her that really spurs me on even more to put in all that I've got, because it really helps to know that someone has faith in you (even if you ARE awfully small in relation to everyone else).

Practice times are a throwback to days in Raffles Canoeing- well, actually they're even heavier now. I've got practice every weekday from 3.20pm to 6.20pm, fortunately none of my classes make it such that I'm unable to go down during that time, because that's when we go down to Belleville Lake, 12 miles from here, for practice. U of M's boathouse is there- it's incredible, nothing like the minute rectangular-shaped patch that RJ proudly owned in SDBA, which housed our kayaks and paddles and smelly life jackets. This really is a Boathouse of standard. There's a locker room, a meeting room, ergometers, and the racing eights and fours are kept downstairs. And the whole team can't wait to get all the crew gear- the Michigan Crew nike shirts, jackets, the complete works. It's got to be earned through nothing less than hard work, which is definitely what I'll be putting in.

Go Blue!