Sailing Sans a Sailboat

Let me preface this by saying, contrary to the title, that no Rhodes Scholar (or really, anyone else) was harmed in the making of this post.

Rather, the reason why I took some liberties with your cardiac health in the nomenclature of today's entry has to do with a tradition which, in true Oxford style, has changed immensely over a long period of time, and therefore rendered it somewhat incomprehensible in the modern world.

You see, historically, the 32 American Rhodes Scholars met in New York City every September to board what was not a sailboat (see, it was incomprehensible before!!!), but a transatlantic steam ship called the QE2 to make the four day journey across the Atlantic together. I'm assuming the Rhodes Trust felt that the best way to get the Scholars acquainted was to pen them all up together in a vehicle with literally no means of escape for four days, and hope that everyone made it to Oxford not too much worse for wear and inevitably acquainted with some of their peers.

Around 1980 --and I'm sure to the relief of Scholars prone to seasickness--the advent of air travel made it more expedient and cost-effective to cart the Rhodies overseas via jetliner. However, despite the equal inescapability of airplanes, six hours is a much smaller time frame for developing lifelong friends, so after a few years, the American Association of Rhodes Scholars (which is separate from the Rhodes Trust itself but also invested in us new Scholars) decided to put in place a few days of organized programming to give newbies a chance to get acquainted with each other, the Rhodes organization(s), and former Rhodes Scholars.

Today, the Bon Voyage Weekend, or "Sailing Weekend" as it is still somewhat stubbornly referred to by the old guard of scholars, is a five day affair in Washington DC culminating in an en masse flight across The Pond. And that brings me to the end of your weekly history lesson, and to Saturday afternoon, when I stepped off my flight from Charlotte at Ronald Reagan International Airport.

After a summer navigating the DC Metro system, I was confident that I could be both efficient and cost effective by taking the subway from Reagan Airport to the Dupont Hotel. What I hadn’t counted on, however, was doing so lugging a 40-pound hiking backpack and rolling a carryon bag weighed down by a backpack set ever so precariously on top of it. I was quite aware that I presented a ridiculous, and quite sweaty picture to my fellow public transport riders, but that point was ever so poignantly driven home when I switched trains and met a four year old boy who looked at me with wide eyes, pointed, and said (loudly), “MOM! Look at how big that girl’s bags are!” Luckily, we bonded over our mutual love for koalas, so we became friends, and I explained to him (more for the benefit of the adults looking at me as if I were a deranged sorority girl who packed that much for a quick weekend trip to DC) how I was moving overseas for two years, so I had lots of warm clothes shoved in those big bags.

Needless to say, by the time I made it to my room, I was flustered and frazzled and blazingly hot, so I had thrown the door open, dumped all of my bags, and was in the process of ripping my shirt off when my roommate poked her head out of the bathroom to see what the commotion was. In my usual suave manner, I froze, laughed awkwardly, and apologized for being sweaty and partially nude, and there was a moment when she was undoubtedly sizing up my sanity. However, I happened to luck out and be paired with Nina Yancy, an amazing woman from Texas who graduated from Harvard and happened to be good friends with Sophie, a fellow Harvard grad I’d bonded with in DC this summer. So she ended up giving the only response that was appropriate in my opinion, which was a hearty laugh. We chatted and cooled down (at least, I did), and I was relatively more composed by the time we had to head upstairs to officially kick off our weekend of spontaneously becoming best friends with 31 of the most overachieving college graduates in the country (no pressure).

I have to confess that my feelings toward my fellow Rhodies before actually meeting them were a convoluted mess of awe, jealousy, and terror. If you ever want to feel a simultaneous hope for humanity’s future and a huge sense of your own inadequacy, go Google the resumes of past and present Rhodes Scholars. There’s a recognized phenomenon within the Rhodes community that’s referred to as “imposter syndrome”: that is, the overwhelming feeling that the committee made a terrible mistake in including you in the ranks of the business-starting, multiple language-speaking, world-traveling, and baby-kissing Scholars. Before this weekend, however, I thought I was the only person who felt that, and fully expected to feel more out of place than a 6 foot 2 girl in Asia…not that I’m speaking from personal experience or anything.

What I found, however, was an amazing group of people who were, yes, brilliant and accomplished and definitely future world-shakers, but also overwhelmingly NORMAL. I wasn’t quizzed on my thoughts on Kant, Heidegger, or Rousseau, but I did chat with some of the girls over the wardrobe requirements of the weekend, and meet some guys who wanted to travel to the same European countries I was interested in seeing. We did have some nerd moments in our Aspen-style discussion of several texts intended to focus our first meeting on the callings of leadership, learning, and self-discovery all Rhodies describe answering in their time at Oxford, but I was struck most by how much I felt at home with the other students. As I told my sister, it was almost refreshing being one of the less nerdy people in the room for once!

Rather than give you a play-by-play of the next days, I will relate them to you as I remember experiencing them: a blur of cocktail receptions, nights out with the Scholars, delicious free catered meals, and a government shutdown. We had myriad opportunities to chat with the other Rhodies past and present, gaining insights as poignant from how to navigate the outdated Oxford bureaucracy to the best sandwich shops, and everything in between, as well as everyone’s plans, colleges, programs, hopes, dreams, aspirations, backgrounds, and shoe size. It was undoubtedly exhausting –I told my best friend Reagan that I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up in the middle of the night from a bad dream where the only words I could physically speak were “Rachel Woodlee, South Carolina 2013, Brasenose College, reading for an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies”—but also fascinating to see the breadth of experience and depth of knowledge within the Rhodes community. I met doctors, lawyers, senators, professors, business executives, artists, journalists, evolutionary zoologists, and (most fascinating to me) people who seemed to have amalgamated several of those categories into careers spanning as many disciplines as decades.

There were several moments in time that I do want to crystallize for you in the same way they are struck into my memory, so that none of us will forget them in the wash of name tag reading and house wine of the less notable social events.

At 2 AM, in a DC bar and after more than one but less than too many cocktails, laughing to the point of tears when several of us Southern Scholars, sweaty and hoarse, serenaded our less countrified brethren with a stirring rendition of “Wagon Wheel” at the top of our lungs.

Sitting between two contemporaries of Wofford’s newly retired President, Renaissance man, and all-around demigod, Bernie Dunlap, and trading stories and best impressions of a man who has been so central to all three of our Rhodes experiences. We took this picture to send to Bernie, but since we’re not quite sure if he checks his email on his mysterious island sabbatical, I shall include it here:

An entire table of Scholars, myself included, letting our food get cold at a noted restaurant, so mesmerized were we by Beth Shapiro (Rhodes Scholar, MacArthur Fellow, and badass mom of two sons) and her description of her work extracting ancient Neanderthal DNA and cross-referencing it with different Homo sapiens genomes to show that interbreeding took place in different hominid species in Europe, and leading to the discovery that the majority of modern humans of non-African lineage contain between one and four percent of Neanderthal alleles.

Meeting a Scholar about to finish a DPhil in International Relations whom I immediately admired for her gumption, intelligence, and superhuman work-life balance (she’s simultaneously planning a wedding, starting a new consulting job, and preparing to defend her thesis!), and hearing from her that she “not to sound corny and pretentious” saw some of herself in me.

Mocking the New Year’s Eve style countdown on CNN to the government shutdown, but then settling into a two hour discussion of the politics behind it until four of us shut down the bar as well.

Spending the first morning of said shutdown listening to noted former Senators Lugar and Sarbanes and current Senator Vitter talk about their personal political experience, careers, and thoughts on the motivations and remedies for the current gridlock.

I could go on, but you get the idea. By the time we sat down at a gate at Dulles to await our flight “across the Pond”, all busily calling our families and friends and scarfing our last true American food, I could legitimately look around at a group of people who were still amazing and world-changing, but also well on the way to becoming my friends. And I was more confident than ever that what awaits me on the other end of this flight will be a transformative, beautiful, difficult, and undoubtedly life-changing experience.

In all seriousness, however, before we get into all of that mess, I need to find a way to rearrange my legs in this middle seat so that I won’t require an amputation of an appendage due to insufficient blood flow. My rant against the hazards public transportation presents to tall people is another story for another day, but OW.