How to make a board game

1) Have an idea. If this idea is a rowing related monopoly rip-off, then this is the guide for you. If it's not, then ignore the rest of the instructions and do your own thing.

2) Design the outline of the board electronically. Work out how many squares there ought to be and the correct proportions.

3) Spend a few days thinking up ideas for chance cards and properties. Write them down.

4) Print off a prototype board

5) Look at the prototype. Think about how it could be better. Make those changes. 

6) Print off the chance, community chest and property cards. I created a property card template and then filled in the other details by hand, but you could also type up the individual properties and print them out.

7) Design the money. Decide you don't like it. Redisgn the money. Realise you need coloured paper.

8) Buy a pack of children's activity coloured paper for the money. Print off the money and have a moment of horror as you realise that you have set yourself the monumental task of cutting out somewhere in the region of 250 monopoly notes. Allow a sense of stubborn pride to kick in. Prepare yourself for a night of watching panorama on iplayer. End the evening fully up to date on current affairs and with a set of cut out monopoly money.

So much money

9) Print out the board on A3 sheets. Spend a considerable amount of time working out how best to position the overlaps.

10) Using a powerful combination of Prittstick and Sellotape, create a 45cmx45cm base out of card. Carefully line up the board, and stick down. Trim around the edges if required.

11) Get out all those sharpies you spontaneously purchased earlier that week and start colouring in, writing in place names and property prices. 

12) Print out some counters onto card. Consider drawing them before remembering a lack of artistic talent. 

13) 'Borrow' some dice from a lesser board game. 

14) Print out blades instead of houses and keep self entertained by colouring them in the colours of all the different cambridge colleges.

15) Find a group of willing test subjects (boatie friends) and entice them with the prospect of tea and cake. Play for a tortuous 3 hours by the end of which you never want to see a monopoly board again.

15) Decorate an amazon box as storage and perform the terrifying task of cutting and folding the board so it fits. Watch with dismay as the paper crinkles slightly and then decide that it doesn't matter all that much. 

The reason I dropped art in year 9 has never been more apparent 

16) Consider the possibility of CUWluedo. 

17) Consider your degree. 

18) Be satisfied with monoply.

Don't worry, be HAPpy

Today, I want to talk about the silliest paper in the history tripos.

This blog post started off with me actually doing work (gasp), but quickly descended into a search for the weirdest question the history faculty has devised in the past five years.

For the uninitiated, HAP stands for Historical Argument and Practice. It's an exam taken in the third year of the Cambridge history degree that consists of one essay in three hours. There's a choice of about 30 questions, which, considering how ridiculous some of the questions are, is probably a good thing...

I have a sneaking suspicion that I don't understand many of the questions because I've been rowing rather than studying, but either way, these are my ten favourite:

This is the point where I start to wonder if I've paid enough attention over the last year, but maybe historical explanation is, um, historical?

And I am paranoid about the lack of 'discuss' or other useful instruction at the end of this question. What does it mean? What do you want of me?

This is a totally reasonable question, maybe for a 300 page book.

Again, there is no 'discuss' at the end of this question. I suspect it's just a statement to reassure failed novelists who happen to be sitting the exam.

In great depth? With reference to the numerous historiographical waves? I'm not actually sure, I'm just fishing around for answers here. 

Is this 'Big Question' a question?

Best answers get submitted to the government, and the fellows who wrote the exam paper get their funding back.

I'm not sure if I want to laugh, cry, or stare blankly into the distance. I just... I think I'm missing some vital piece of knowledge about the historiography of objectivity. Or possibly the examiners were drunk.

This is just the historian's version of 'I'd rather be at Oxford than St Johns'

This type of question is designed to confuse and upset.

STOP IT NOW PLEASE


I'm going to go cry, reconsider my work schedule, and make an effort to go to lectures this year.


PS If you looked at any one of these and understood/started to construct an answer in your mind:

• I hate you
• No I don't please enlighten me as to how you gained this knowledge oh wise one

And we're off...

Trialling again...
After a summer full of flying (went solo twice, didn't crash, success), running around a training base firing blanks (didn't get too injured or sent home ill this time, also success), walking 100 miles (one small blister on the little toe of my left foot, huge success), and a couple of weeks relaxing at home and cooking for my family (haven't given anyone food poisoning yet, must try harder), I'm back in Cambridge for my third and final year.  

The 2015 Boat Race season is a particularly exciting and historic one for CUWBC. For the first time, the heavyweight women's blue boat will be racing on the same day, down the same course as the men. The lightweights and Blondie are still racing in Henley, but the chance to be part of the first squad to send a women's boat down the boat race on the same day is amazing. I was having doubts this summer as to whether I really wanted to drag myself through another year of sleep deprivation and pain, but less than 24 hours after arriving back in Cambridge, I was certain.

We were thrown back into training with a 2K test and an afternoon on an assault course, activities that epitomise the bizarre combination of 'fun' and hard work that comes with trialling. I'm now bruised, sore, and aching, but nevertheless feeling positive about this season.

New season resolutions:
-Stop eating granola
-Keep a better training diary
-Stretch at every opportunity (maybe not literally, might start to get a few weird looks)
-Enjoy the training. Even when it's 6am and cold and dark, my whole body is aching, my hands are raw and there are a million places I think I'd rather be, remember how special this opportunity is.

New methods of procrastination:
-Experimenting with different flavours of fruit and herbal teas (This will be worthy of a whole post in a couple of weeks)

The current tea collection

-Designing rowing themed board games (CUWBC-opoly is definitely happening)

It's a work in progress...

-Buying unnecessary stationery (there was a pack of 26 sharpies on offer. I don't need 26 sharpies. If anyone ever wants a permanent marker, I am your woman)


Watch this space for updates in how I try not to let my degree get in the way of rowing and flying, lightweighting endeavors, and more board games...

These boots were made for walking...

In the third week of July, I took part in the Nijmegen marches, also known in the Netherlands as the 'Vierdaagse', or the four day event. Walking 100 miles in four days through Dutch towns, villages and occasional countryside wearing uniform, including heavy boots and (should you have the misfortune to be of the male persuasion) carrying 10kg of weight not including food and water is, I'll admit, not everyone's idea of fun. For the majority of the walk; the 3am alarms, the swollen feet, the moment of doubt as to whether I was still in possession of my little toes, the chafing, the sticky sweatiness which starts around 6:30am and doesn't go away, the burning heat rash running from my ankles to the backs of my knees, it's not my idea of fun either. I would rather be sitting on a sofa watching Bake Off, or eating ice cream on a beach, or relaxing by a pool, or any number of other genuinely enjoyable experiences. I realised this the first time round, in 2013. And In 2014 I went back.

The atmosphere in the towns and the camaraderie on the march is unique. Having little kids run up to you asking for your autograph (no, really) and giving countless high-fives to enthusiastic Dutch people is pretty uplifting. The sheer scale of the marches - 43,000 people turned up on day one, and of these about 5, 000 were military from all over the place, all living in the same camp. As a group of German soldiers walked past singing 'it's a long way to Tipperary' on the second or third day brought home the extent to which we exist within an international, cross-cultural Europe. The reaction of the march organisers and participants to the MH17 tragedy was moving beyond words, but exemplifies the kindness and goodheartedness that lies at the very centre of the Nijmegen marches.

Nijmegen is addictive. I was chatting to a man one day who told me it was his thirty third time. Thirty three. It turns out he had first got into it through the met police, who regularly put in a team and can be found walking along with their traditional black police hats. He retired a while ago and his best friends from the police force were spread around the UK - one in Scotland, one in Northern Ireland, one still living in London. The only time of the year these friends met up was to walk nijmegen - and he assured me that it gets easier the more times you do it.

Crossing the finish line at long last was wonderful. It's not just about knowing that you have personally completed a challenging walk but more importantly that you've done it as a team - especially when that team has gone through moments of seemingly insurmountable adversity. Every single person who completes the march demonstrates some level of mental toughness and resilience, and a team made up of this kind of strong person is a very special thing indeed.

Yes, when it's halfway through day three and the whole team is tired, hot and suffering varying degrees of pain, it's very easy to denounce Nijmegen as a terrible idea, a masochistic exercise that serves no real purpose other than to demonstrate the fragility of the twenty-first century human when exposed to a hard day or two of walking. You can say, as many do, 'I am never doing this again. Ever.' And then on the final day, a couple of hours and a few glasses of wine past the finish line, you'll be counting down until next year... 

See you in 2015, Nijmegen.

Why I don't care about exams

It’s Tuesday 24^th August, 2010. I’m awake at 5am, refreshing my painfully slow internet on my Samsung Genio touch, trying to access the Edexcel online results from a room in RAF Valley. The page loads, and I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

When you’re predicted 10A*s, anything less is a failure. When you’ve already set your sights on studying history at a top university, coming away with an A at GCSE level is inconceivable. Until it happened. Now, I find it laughable, but back then? I just cried.  

I don’t think I’ve ever over-reacted quite as much (apart from that time someone in hall refused to pass me the potatoes whilst I was dieting, but that’s another story…)

I was upset because I somehow thought that my worth was inextricably linked to my academic performance. More importantly, I was upset because I knew that I wanted to go to a mythologised version of Cambridge, and this was a sure sign that I wasn’t clever enough. They’d never lower their standards to let in someone who only got an A at GCSE in the subject they were applying for.

I suppose that for some people, Cambridge is just a place you end up at on the way to somewhere else. It’s a place where a lot of people go, it’s a route into investment banking, into stand-up comedy, a chance to be accepted by the rest of your family. I know that I’m not alone in taking a different approach. I created a ‘Cambridge’ in my head. ‘Cambridge students’ were a class apart – they appeared as omniscient beings on University Challenge, or rowed down the Thames, or became famous comedians and actors. I’d look up famous people on Wikipedia and have a funny little list in my head ‘he went to Cambridge’, ‘she went to Cambridge’, ‘he was at Cambridge and studied history’... it’s embarrassing to admit it, but it has left me with the ability to match celebrities to their college – something that’s come in handy in a surprising number of conversations over the past couple of years.

I just really wanted to go to Cambridge. I knew it was a stupid product of my over-active imagination, and I was painfully aware just how hard and how fragile a dream it was, but it was my dream and I let it grow to the point where anywhere else would be a failure. This was in 2010. By the time I got round to applying for universities, I was a lot more sensible and could envision a happy future at any of my five choices.  

My Cambridge was not a means to a well-paying job in the City, or a road into further academic study, my Cambridge was an end in itself. What an end it’s been so far.

When I watched the boat race in the year I got my offer, it crossed my mind that I would be living in the same city as these people, not that I would be training in the same facilities, rowing with the same colour blades.  I know people who have done things like University Challenge, or been in Footlights productions. Occasionally (like, a couple of times in two years), a renowned academic even says something nice about my essays.

It’s time to refuse to define myself by a number attached to a couple of hours’ worth of frenzied essay writing. I cared so much about my GCSEs and my A levels because they were what would allow me to get into Cambridge. And now? Like I said, I’m not here because I want to walk away with BA (cantab) at the end of my name. I’m here because this is where I want to be. Right here, right now, with the crazy intelligent people, and the inspiring rowing people, and the eccentric supervisors, and the beautiful architecture, and the libraries, and just… the fact that it’s Cambridge.

Yes, I’ve been working for my exams, but now it's only insofar as I enjoy studying the past. There’s a very real possibility that I’m going to walk into a couple of my exams without having an awful lot to say, but that’s because my study is not a means to an end. I’m going to learn about the Jacobite uprisings because they’re interesting, not because it will get me a 2:1 (which, funnily enough, I don’t think it will – Jacobites haven’t appeared on any past paper that I’ve seen. Oops.)

I’ve been considering this position for a couple of weeks now, but this is the first time that I’ve properly attempted to articulate it. I don’t care about my exams, but the root cause of this is not apathy, rather a kind of transcendence whereby I can no longer justify psychological investment in fifteen hours of on-the-spot essay writing.

Now I just need to find a way to let my DoS know…  

The Boat Race

Disclaimer: this is just my interpretation of the whole boat race experience. Everyone else will have experienced/reacted/interpreted it in their own way. I'm also not addressing the question of why we lost for a number of reasons, but mainly because I feel like that's a conversation that ought to be kept within a crew. Also I have high levels of race amnesia so I can't really offer any worthwhile analysis anyway. 

It's really quite simple to describe how it feels to lose a boat race: shit.

The physical pain is taken for granted, my body has become fairly accustomed to feeling like it's been hurled into an inferno and had all the energy sucked out of it. For me, the psychological aspect was so much harder to know how to deal with. It's not exactly the 'pain of defeat', but the confusion and despair that came with that defeat. The sense of shock as I realised that I couldn't remember the race itself, and the inability to connect the incredible feeling of confidence that I had in the hours leading up to the race to the situation that I found myself in, 2000m later. 

It's a terrible cliche that losing is one of the hardest and most valuable ways to learn something about yourself. Before, I had assumed that this was just one of those things that losers say to make themselves feel better, 'you might have won the competition, but I came away with a deeper insight into my soul and a higher philosophical understanding of the nature of humanity, so who's the real loser now?'. From my experience, I'd say there's probably a bit more to it than that. 

Losing made me realise that the very act of racing is, in itself, a great privilege. It's one daring act of throwing everything out there with a high risk that you're not going to make it. It's extraordinary, exhilarating and exciting. I suppose it's quite similar to gambling for large amounts of money, only you end up with better abs and less chance of getting on the wrong side of an instant loans company... 

The Boat Race is 'just a race', in the same way that A-levels are 'just exams', or a degree  is 'just a piece of paper'. When you've invested that much time and effort into something, no matter what, it becomes of paramount importance, but when all that falls away you have to examine everything you're left with, and you realise that the whole process was about so much more than one race, and that your life is about so much more than this one process. It's always rather strange when your perspective changes. I've learnt that it's possible to become so psychologically invested in one particular outcome that it becomes inconceivable that anything else should happen - yet when that 'something else' happens, it's also possible to bounce back up with a deeper appreciation for all the other things in your life. Failure is no longer something to be scared of.  

I'm not trying to suggest that winning wouldn't also be a valuable experience. In fact, I'm convinced that winning would be utterly incredible and would result in at least a month of non-stop happiness. This hypothesis currently stands untested, so there's only one thing for it: I'm going to have to trial again, and I'm going to have to cross that line before Oxford. 

A poem for exam term

Crowded desk, hard wooden chair 

Clutching your last strands of hair

Pens and paper, books and notes

Rereading all the crap you wrote

Wish I'd done more in the vacation 

Could have learnt about taxation

Instead I left it all too late

Why do I procrastinate?

Library stints that last all day

Exams are still three weeks away

Perhaps it's time to have some fun

I'll settle for a low 2.i...