Week 2 Blues and my debut for the OURFC

I was not going to add to my blog this week but after a pretty arduous week of incomprehensible lectures and a solid debut performance on the rugby paddock today, I have decided to give myself a night off. One of my housemates who has studied at Cambridge commented that there they speak of 5th week blues while at Oxford they speak of 4th week blues. Given the accelerated nature of the MBA program I have been suffering from 2nd week blues. When you consider that after two weeks I have already completed 1/4 of my lectures you may begin to appreciate the intensity at which I am being taught. Many of my classmates who have been exposed to economics, accounting, statistics or finance during their undergraduate degrees have said that what we have covered in two weeks they spent a whole semester learning. Of course, having never been exposed to finance, accounting, economics and statistics before have no benchmark to work with. Hence, the source of my growing frustration. Which leads me of course to the solution, after all MBA's are mean't to be problem solvers. I will be applying the Club Loser* 'Less is more, more or less' philosophy. This means letting go of the urge to read and summarise everything and being more targeted in my approach to learning, only referring to texts when I reach a mental road block (this week I would say the whole bloody road is closed for resurfacing). I think the key for the MBA is to stay on top of the work so I have developed the following list of priorities.

1. Completion of the remaining 11 items of assement due in the next 6 weeks - yes, I said 11.
2. Reviewing lecture handouts and notes
3. Answer question sheets
4. Read the prescribed texts only as an aid to problem areas

Hopefully, this will release some of the growing pressure that has been building and will mean that I won't be living on 6 hours sleep a night for the next six weeks.

So apart from becoming quite frustrated and then chucking my hands up in the air and saying 'sod this' what else is news. Well rugby union has been a regular theme of week two. I watched the Oxford University Blues (the name given to the First XV) play a second division club called Pertemps Bees on Monday night. The Blues got away to a good start in the first half but the Bees buzzed back in the second half and bridged the gap before the Blues closed them out late in the second half. From a spectator's perspective a great game of rugby with high scores and a close finish. Perhaps the coach might take a different view though. Tim Walsh, a Churchie old boy, was on the injured bench for Pertemps so I enjoyed having a chat with him before the game.

As the Oxford University Greyhounds (Second XV) play on Wednesday afternoon's I trained with the Blues on Wednesday night and then with both teams on Thursday night. I was picked to play in an internal game today between the Greyhounds and the Oxford University Under 21's team (they don't get a cool name). I started at number 8 and played a pretty strong game considering I have no match fitness (or general fitness to be perfectly honest). Despite not being able to remember any of the calls (they have 10 times more lineout variations than I have ever encountered before) I played quite well in loose smashing it up four times in succession off the kick off, pinching some ball, cleaning out hard and making some good cover tackles. I was rewarded early in the second half with receiving the ball from a tap penalty inorder to crash into their forward pack. This 'loosened' the shoulder that I have been unable to sleep on since I ended my season with the Woollahra Colleagues in August. I immediately stuck my other hand up in the air and walked off. I am pretty sure this is just a minor setback requiring some physio. Plus from a tactical perspective I got to play an impressive first half before my failing fitness would have resulted in a secon half of missed tackles and knock ons. See, I am a quite shrewd old bugger! I think I have earned the respect of my team mates (who still look quite stunned when they realise I am 30) and more importantly the coach. The final score was 44-15. Plus, the good news is that my torn hamstring survived the game!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With improved fitness, I hope to put some pressure for a flanker position in the Blues as they have a talented and well entrenched No. 8 with South African rep honours. They are playing two short, quick flankers like Waugh and Smith, whereas I will be hoping the coach sees the potential benefits of sacrificing some speed around the park for height in the lineout and another ball running forward.

To stick with the Wallaby analogy, I would like to play a Matt Cockbain role. Given my age and speed I reckon I could do this very effectively for 50-60 minutes each game before they let the short nippy flanker on just as the players begin to fatigue.

Apart from study and rugby my other news this week is that my girlfriend and I have booked 4 days skiing in Chamonix just prior to Christmas. I hope to catch up with Geoff Morris and Phil Davis who will both be residents of Chamonix over the winter. These four days of skiing (in my case snowboarding) will be a highlight of our two week holiday during which we will spend time in Oxford, Chamonix, Annecy, Paris and London. I am really looking forward to the arrival of my gorgeous girl. Spending time with her is the best reward I could imagine after 10 long weeks of study during the dark, wet and chilly english winter.

Anyway, that is it from me. I am icing my shoulder and will read some lecture notes before heading out to meet a mate from my course for a couple of quite pints at the Bear. After a hellish week of study and a good game of rugby I reckon I deserve that much.

*Club Loser: most of you would know of Club Loser, but for those that do not, they are approx 10 very close school mates of mine who at the age of 30 are still proving that life is to be enjoyed no matter what the cost. Lads, I hope the trip down to Sydney for the ICC Supertest was a cracker.

Cheers,
Dougie.