Last Senior Rowing

Yesterday morning, I was summoned from the depths of post-Senior Bar slumber by the earsplitting ring of the red phone in my common room and a persistent knocking at the door. Waiting for me there, in a full coach’s uniform of sweats and sneakers, was my House intramural representative. I was in pajamas, possibly still intoxicated, and late for crew practice.

Five minutes later, I was sprinting through the rain in flip-flops and spandex toward the Weld boathouse. But it was only after I had slid my feet into the damp footholds of the eight boat and grabbed hold of the oars that I came to my senses (as much as is humanly possible before caffeine) and asked myself: “What on earth am I doing here?”

We often speak of “senioritis” as a kind of short-term infection that afflicts second-semester seniors with crippling laziness, or at least a casual disinterest in all things productive. But this age-specific illness is also often characterized by an increased predilection toward most things unexpected, not simply abandoning books for booze, but really finding unusual diversions and activities. Sometimes these two pursuits are combined into masterful social experiments: look at the Last Senior Standing competition, or the wine seminars held throughout the upperclassmen Houses in the spring.

Since I arrived here, I have always had something of an aversion to organized Harvard activities or rites of passage, whether its queuing up at OCS for recruiting forms and Chex Mix or Harvard State Fair. Intramurals, of course, were no exception. Every year I volunteered for the basketball league, but was either tied up at The Crimson or, you know, eating dinner with my friends. I don’t like dodgeball, fencing, or ultimate frisbee.

But slowly, this resistance has broken down over the course of the year: I ran in the River Run in the fall, and though it almost killed me (my competitive spirit far outstrips my actual athletic ability, so much for high school varsity), I was hooked. In fact, I think it was my single-minded competitiveness that prevented me from partaking in the games beforehand, and it felt great to see my House masters, blockmates, and House babies all circling the Charles together.

Whether it’s in our relationships, our career paths, our course selections, or our studying and partying habits, many of us suffer from blind inertia, rarely questioning the path we’ve chosen. But it’s important, I think, to challenge that inertia before it’s too late: It’s for this reason, rather than for any athletic benefit, I swear, that I’m happy to participate in intramurals, even attend Senior Bar. It’s why I feel completely justified telling my friends to remain circumspect about long-term relationships, and why I grow indignant when people press me for some sort of five-year career plan.

With less than two months left, I hope my fellow seniors, myself included, take the time to challenge themselves: cutting classes is easy, but exploring aspects of Harvard previously untouched takes a bit of courage. To be fair, my senioritis has manifested itself this week not only in a willingness (okay, I was backed into a corner) to row crew, but also an inability to apply my brain and pen more pressing academic topics in the column, such as the ethics of laptop usage in class, questioning the value of study abroad programs, and activism on campus. It also takes me about five times as long to write a paper, but I digress.

“Isn’t this the time for us to just drink, lounge about, and sleep around?” one friend asked me the other day. Yes, this is our time to relax, but senior spring shouldn’t be all about drinking, lounging, and reminiscing. I never thought I’d play a team sport at Harvard, but today, I wouldn’t have it any other way, although I apparently misread the memo on waking up in strange beds; instead, I wake up in strange boats.

Rebecca D. O’Brien ’06 is a history and literature concentrator in Kirkland House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.