At the outset, the situation seems awfully familiar. You, a machine and 2000 things to get through. In one case it's words, in the other it's meters.
The first 500 of both comes pretty easily - you wonder for a moment what could possibly happen that will make the next two thirds so difficult. They both start off with some semblance of a plan, which, half of the time, will disintegrate and the situation develops... The similarities end there.
For a start, I managed to waste at least ten free hours this weekend that I could have used to write my essay. I couldn't put off my 2k because I ended up sitting on an erg with coaches shouting 'attention, go' at me, with two other people either side of me doing the same thing. Perhaps this is a technique that ought to be employed more often for the weekly essay. Image, rows of students warming their fingers up writing practise introductions, before moving forward to the 'test laptops'. One final stretch of the hands, opening up a blank word documents, your plan fading away in your mind... and go...
Actually, that's an exam.
But in that kind of stressful situation, essays do get written - mainly because I just don't have the choice to stop, make myself a cup of tea, write a blog post (oops) and play pointless games of bubble shooter. A relaxed situation in which I have hours to write my essay simply encourages thoughts like 'I've got plenty of time to watch another episode of Outnumbered', or 'I wonder what the long-range weather forecast for Ely is'. All it's possible to think about during a 2k, however is 'oh god pain no why rate 10 strokes push 9 8 lost count what ahhh stop no keep going' (this is a genuine excerpt from my thoughts on Saturday)
There's a certain degree of certainty with a 2k test that I just don't find with an essay. At least when I sit down on an erg, I know it's all going to be over very soon. Sitting down to write an essay is a different beast entirely. I very much hope that it will be over in six hours, but it might be ten. I could be lucky and get it done in four, or I could end up hitting a dead end, writing a panicky email to my supervisor, not finishing it at all and sending in a list of bullet points. You can't just hand in a race plan and expect the coaches to kindly accept it in place of your seven to eight minutes of pain.
On the other hand, finishing a 2k often involves nausea, dizziness, and an inability to walk or talk for a few minutes, which compares pretty favourably to finishing an essay (sending an email, having ten minutes of frantic self doubt as I realise I haven't actually constructed an argument or included any references, and then relaxing on the onset of apathy). It's just maybe possible that the physical exhaustion of finishing an erg test is comparable to the mental exhaustion felt after an intensive exam, but it's worth taking into account that the 2k is also pretty mentally draining (or maybe that's just me being pathetic). Either way, the recovery period of an essay submission is negligible.
So, whilst I know that I'd much rather be sat in my room writing an essay and drinking tea than pushing my pain threshold to the limit sitting on a rowing machine, the evidence of this weekend suggests that I find the latter much easier than the former. How strange.
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