A local Tobacco Farmer

This athlete recent voted (according to her facebook profile picture). She firmly believes that a day in which matching socks are worn is a day which has been wasted. This trait makes her easy to spot in a crowd because her shoes, socks and other apparel are all likely to be pretty vibrantly coloured. A member of a significant minority, she is studying engineering here at Western. Originally, she comes from the small town just outside of London, known as mount Brydges where she grew up in a tobacco farm. This is lucky for her because it means she just escapes the label of being a ‘townie’. Unfortunately, it means she lives in a tiny little town. She was recruited off the track team to come and start rowing – and by recruited I mean poached but that’s just semantics. She enjoys being in engineering because she enjoys being surrounded by boys. Her facebook page seems to have an odd number of selfie style pictures takes with one Caleb McCleary. Some say that if she owned a wireless company, she too would urge the CRTC to take it’s time with new regulations owing to the fact that her companies contracts give her legal rights to all their clients coloured socks; and that if you give her an important job to do, she’ll skive off and play croquet. All we know is, it’s Kristen Bujnowski!

I may not be at re-rigging, I have an exam

This member of our team is proud to be able to touch her tongue to her nose. However, it may be difficult to acquire a demonstration of this talent owing to the fact that she is part of the infamous crew which was received the ‘disappearing act’ award. As part of the questionnaire which was sent around to all of us going down to Georgia in order to gain some useful information for each person’s biography; she responded in a similar fashion to the majority of the team – with a “Land Before Time” reference.  Anyway, her favorite dinosaur is Petrie the Pteranodon. She claims that she ‘may or may not’ be the subject of a tragically hip song, the operative words in that sentence being ‘may or may not’. Unlike most others for this trip, who responded to the question ‘what are you most looking forward to’ with something to do with, food, American stereotypes or Honey Boo Boo, she is most excited to be able to row and then not worry about falling asleep in class later. This is something that wouldn’t be a problem if we decided to practice at a ‘normal’ time, hint hint coaches. Some say that if she was mayor, she would have called something better than transit busses to transport her football team, and that she recently launched her own line of designer Tupperware. All I know is, her name is Alex Stefanovski

She's On The Hunt For Honey Boo Boo

After escaping the French speaking land they call Quebec, she lived in Richmond Hill for a while, before moving on to become a local about a year ago. She enjoys running, playing Frisbee and apparently having her belly rubbed. She has numerous athletic achievements, such as being the self-proclaimed world champion of the 50m sprint to catch the bus (this fact is unverified by the Guinness book of World Records at time of publishing). Another thing which she has self-proclaimed for herself is ‘Queen of the lawn grass’ I’m not quite sure what that means, mowing the lawn, lying on the grass or what?  She is hoping to chase down the ever elusive Honey Boo Boo while we are in Georgia. I say ever elusive, but that may not quite be true as after all she does have a TV show. Some say that she has an aptitude for sitting in snow banks and that much to the dismay of the UN Security Council, she has also been conducting her own nuclear testing.  All I know is, she’s Katherine Jones.

A little different post today

Taking a break from doing bios of each of the team members, today’s blog entry is instead going to discuss the annual Western Rowing ergathon (or ergaton). This is where we all head way down to South London (because there’s apparently no mall willing to host us which is located close to the university campus) to keep 6 ergs spinning all day long to raise money for the heart and stroke foundation. Members of our team often take the opportunity to perform some sort of feat of strength such as a marathon (or longer). After all, there’s nothing more fun than working hard, getting all hot and sweaty while breathing heavily while at the same time being sure to be able to last long enough on the erg to keep the ergs spinning all day. This event often attracts future recruits who want to take a turn on the erg – as shown in the picture below. After making an attempt at my personal 30km record, which I unfortunately did not manage to achieve, I find myself sitting here at home feeling rather tired, sore, stiff and dehydrated. Overall a really good event and lots of money was raised.  Here’s a link to a quick 2 minute time lapse of just under 3 hours of ergathon – shown in a space of about 2 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CftgkytseVU&feature=youtu.be

Notice: This photo was posted with the permission of the parent/guardian of the children.

Someone to keep us all under control

Measuring up to the height of one heavyweight male rower’s zyphoid process, she can speak English very fluently even though she hails from Montreal. In an ideal world, this coxswain would find herself enjoying wine, chocolate and a book; or everyone would have already bought their Gala tickets. She is known to have been quite irritated with a couple of the rowers on the lightweight men’s team when the borrowed her camera and successfully took over 600 pictures in under 2 hours at a regatta – 550 of which were not of rowing. On the lookout for low priced food and clothing, she is accompanying us to Georgia in a coaching capacity. Generally known for being highly sensible and organized, she is known to occasionally do insane things such as biking all the way from London to St Catherines for schoolboys. Her serial posting of vegan recipies to facebook makes us all suspect that she is actually vegan. Though, occasionally we all get invites to French club poutine nights from her, then again poutine is awesome. Some say that she’s seen Seinfeld 1 780 times, and for some reason she’s allergic to the Dutch, and there’s an airport in Russia named after her. All we know is, it’s Natasha Caminsky.

The Most Definitely Not Self Serving Autobiography

Today I am starting the team introductions, with my own. As per last year, one of the things I have been most anticipating is the opportunity to write this blog yet again. I was going to say that I will try my best to not make this blog post self-serving, and then realized that I will just do that. After all, we do or do not, as opposed to trying. Clocking in at a whopping 11.3 Stone and 188 000 000 nm tall, sporting an exploded appendix  and originally hailing from the fabled ‘best coast’, I now spend most of my time in London (the one where the Queen does not live). I only row in high definition, ideally near or under bridges; or other items of civil engineering merit. Ever questing for the All-Spark. Some say that I have recently been releasing pop records under the pseudonym of Lady Gaga, and that under my unisuit, there’s another unisuit. All we know is, I’m not called the Stig. I am quite excited to jump in my car and Roll Out for Georgia.