Torpids Info - Truth Time

I have deliberately withheld some anxiety over this race from you, my dear readers and friends, because frankly it was an almost soul-crushingly heavy burden to bear.  Despite my involvement and dedication to the Hertford Boat Club my ability to enter the race as an official Oxford student was never certain.  In fact the probability of it happening was never better than a slim chance.  Previous students from Shimer who have taken part in Oxford athletics have never been allowed to compete in the official competitions because of our lack of "official affiliation", which was granted exclusively to matriculating students...until today.  

To be allowed to row against other Oxford colleges I needed to obtain a letter composed and signed by the Senior Tutor at Hertford which stated that they had fully accepted me as an affiliated international student.  Affiliated students are chosen by the college admissions committee.  These applicants are required to submit a complete college application and are judged  according to the rigorous admission standards that make Oxford one of the most elite schools in the world.

Although my academic credentials were always sufficient to earn me a place here there was no opportunity for me to submit my application during the admissions window.   I was left with only one chance to make this happen - to dedicate myself to the Boat Club with no reservations, always with the thought in mind that I could make this happen once I had proven to the right people that I belonged here despite having never been  officially reviewed by the college.

In a stroke of good luck one of the other gentlemen in the M1 boat last term was the treasurer of the Masters Common Room (MCR), which is the collective body of graduate students studying at Hertford.  Having struck up a good relationship with Mr. Geoff Nelson, the treasurer and fellow oarsman, he submitted my name to the MCR for a vote on whether to accept me into their ranks.  Although I am not a graduate student my age and dedication to Hertford athletics were enough to show the MCR committee that I belonged among the graduate community.  The vote was unanimous and I was accepted as an associate member of the MCR three weeks ago. 

Having pushed my unofficial affiliation to Hertford this far I was now ready to make the case to the Senior Tutor that I was eligible for a letter confirming my affiliation to the college.  This afternoon I was finally successful in securing that letter from the Senior Tutor.  I am now, according to all records, a full fledged member of both the Hertford Boat Club and Hertford College itself.  As far as I know this is without precedent in the history of the Shimer in Oxford program. 

The sky can only be doubling over in agony at the repeated punchings I have bestowed upon it in my exuberant jubilation.

We did it.  Thank you to everyone who helped me get here. 


With Love,
your boy Rob

***

 Torpids crews are official and posted online.  Find me in the M2 crew at the 4 seat!  Also, you can use this site to keep updated on the Torpids competition as it unfolds for Hertford in two weeks time.

http://boatclub.hertford.ox.ac.uk/racing/torpids/torpids_2011.php

Juan will be equipped with my digital camera so he can take pics and video of the live races.  Those will be posted each night.

Quick Updates

     Bit of an upset - I was placed in M2.  However, the captain and coaches explained that it wasn't for lack of athleticism or skill that kept me out of the M1 boat.  Of the three guys competing for the last seat in M1 my times were the best.  Since I'm only here for another two months and the team needs to think ahead toward summer eights and beyond, they want to get a team together for M1 that will be experienced rowing together from now on into the future.  Though this was a disappointment to me I understand their reasoning and am happy to take a place in the M2 boat.  In fact the M2 roster has been steadily getting more and more dangerous as the weeks have gone by.  We have an incredible array of oarsmen for this boat and I am proud to be a member of the group. I have been floating back and forth between the four and six seats depending on where the coaches want me on a given day and I like both spots.  The engine section is where I flourish. 

     The thesis is coming together quite nicely.  I have refined the project and have begun the writing intensive task of just producing a complete first draft.  As it stands now I am examining the metaphysical underpinnings, if any, that inform cosmological theories from Ptolemy to Hubble.  Got about 15 pages done so far, hoping to have 25 more done by the end of February.  The project is interesting and exciting and I am liking the work if not the workload. 

     Classes are going well also.  My tutorial with Hsueh Qu, a grad student at Hertford, has been the most challenging and intellectually rewarding experience of my academic life.  We have been studying the works of David Hume on various topics including: induction, liberty, necessity, free will, skepticism, the origins of ideas, modality, probability, meta meta physics and more.  Qu is an incredible student and teacher, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, able to quote Hume from memory and he has a wonderful disposition.  We meet once a week for an hour and it is the craziest 60 minutes of my week.  We launch into astonishingly fast paced discussions that don't let up until the last minute is spent.  It feels like all of my philosophical training up to this point has been in preparation for a class just like this.  This is the true way to learn - one on one with an expert, talking furiously fast and throwing ideas back and forth with rapidity and surgical proficiency born from close study of a text.  I love this stuff.