Abingdonian 2018

88 The Abingdonian James’s House In an era where mass and social media constantly expose us to the stellar successes of others, while not showing us the failures or thousands of hours of tedious practice which went into these, the risks are twofold: first, we ignore the sacrifices which go into any achievement, instead assuming that the successful individual has some God- given talent; secondly, we are in danger of becoming dissatisfied with our own successes: excellence becomes normalised as the new average. The House Abingdonian article runs the risk of doing similar, so I would like to preface the James’s House review of 2017-18 by saying that the accomplishments mentioned hereunder are, invariably, the product of a huge amount of graft and dedication– these guys are talented, sure, but it’s their talent for hard work which we should really celebrate. Having read maybe 5,500 subject reports this year, I would add that every member of the house should take pride in how far they have come this year. We should equally celebrate that unglamorous but vital work of striving to improve, day in day out. Whilst there are some mind-boggling achievements here, what has made me most proud of the boys this year has been their spirit of togetherness and collective effort. That we managed to supply more supporters for inter-house debating than our opposition meant as much as winning seven out of our nine matches; naming 23 road relay teams (before cancellation) meant just as much as our third years winning the House Challenge; filling a Ford Fiesta with donated groceries for the Food Bank collection meant perhaps most of all – and this was just one term! The Michaelmas Term started brightly, with our Lower Sixth clearly full of confidence (a potent combination of excellent GCSEs and shiny new suits) because they annexed the sixth form section of the house-room, turning it into what would ostensibly resemble a poker den whilst our Upper Sixth had their backs turned, busy gaining UCAS offers. Later in the term hard work would be further rewarded with Oxbridge offers for James Hogge (Cambridge, Computer Science), Angus Alder (Oxford, Mechanical Engineering) and Aravind Prabhakaran (Cambridge, Computer Science). The sixth formers offered real leadership throughout the term too, giving enthusiastic help wherever it was needed, and boy was it needed with House Singing! Having been struck by an epiphany whilst at a friend’s wedding reception, I was unusually confident of our song choice this year. It was in the bag. Two minutes into our first rehearsal, it was clear that We are Young by Fun was entirely unsuitable, with a ludicrous top note. It very much was not in the bag! To Thomas Morris, who did an incredible job as conductor, this is a public apology! Thomas was ably assisted by Daniel Rohll, Charlie Franklin (stunning solo in spite of a phone going off), Aravind Prabhakaran (on the piano for the umpteenth time) and Saxon Supple (whose impromptu 16-bar drum intro at final rehearsal nearly gave me a coronary!) – a huge thank you to them all. The second half of term saw snow storms, house-branded mugs designed by James Chaplin, and the least tasteful Christmas decorations the houseroom has seen to date, before concluding with the usual round of inter-house competitions. Here we managed to retain the prestigious rugby trophy (largely due to that competition being cancelled) whilst also excelling at lounge games (third overall in table tennis, second in pool and chess). Further success came with David Haar’s U14 badminton victory and James Chaplin winning singles table tennis. In the new year, James was promoted to Head of House – recognition for all that he had done during the previous term. His selflessness set the tone for what would prove to be a superb term. Highlights included the whole- house trampolining social and our third formers winning the House Challenge (squad from Isaac Mortiboy, Sukrit Kaul, Ludovic Benney, Saul French and Captain Ted Smethurst). Individual successes were hard to keep up with, but James Hogge taking top prize (and £1000) in the prestigious National Cypher Challenge and Howard Hawkes winning the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire’s Law Essay Competition were especially noteworthy. Harry Gale’s selection for the ISGA England Golf team was James Hogge