Hell Week, Part 2 – Thursday, Friday, Shabbat
February 20, 2013
Thursday was the most singing I’ve ever done in a single day. At 8AM I woke up as the singing was to begin at 8:45 for Valentines Day. I was scheduled from 8:45 to 4PM on Singing Valentines, whereby quartets comprised of PGC members would deliver Valentine’s Day messages in song, during class, to those whose loved one’s had donated a given sum to habitat for humanity. In four separate quartets, I raced from building to building, from class to class, singing my heart out for all “My Honey”ies, “My Valentine”s, “My Little Margie”s and to members of faculty, staff, and students. Highlights were as follows: singing at Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and Aunty Anne’s Pretzel’s and PGC members receiving free food from them. Singing for the elderly head of the Chemistry Department (Madeline Joillet) and of course singing for “her majesty” Amy Gutmann, President of The University of Pennsylvania. Embarassingly enough, a quote of me calling her, “her majesty” even made the Daily Pennsylvanian. I can only hope she didn’t read it.
Following all the normal shifts, I was then on a shift for Phone Valentine’s for those to whom we were unable to deliver in person. These included two good friends back home. Phone shift went all the way till 5:30 a which point I raced home, changed, ate a little something and then headed off to full rehearsal at the Zellerbach Auditiorium.
Rehearsal again ran well past midnight, and left me more than half dead. I think I’m truly beginning to understand the meaning of incorporeal.
Friday I thankfully had no classes, but to make up for the lack of things for me to do, of course, I had another walkshift at 10AM. I managed to quickly run out of Penn Glee Club flyers and so, while waiting for my shift to end, I decided to help out the Pan Asian Dance Troupe in advertising their show, “Revenge”. There I met a sweet girl by the name of Donna, who was somewhat bemused with my marketing techniques.
The afternoon was spent grading homework for CIS121 that I had thus far neglected, and I only just managed in time for our staff meeting. After the staff meeting, I had only just enough time for Kabbalat Shabbat, before I was off to the theatre for our very first performance!
It was well received, much the same with the matinee performance. However, after the two, I was thoroughly exhausted!
In the afternoon, there was the Glee Club Graduate Club reception, where we sung a few songs from our standard repetoire, however, unfortunately I was fairly out of practice with a number of the pieces.
Our final performance Motzei Shabbat, was filled with members from the OCP (Orthodox Jewish Community at Penn) and I felt very well supported. A few tears came to my eyes as I was asked to speak along with the seniors, on what it felt like to be partaking in my final show.
Following the end of the show, we had ‘strike’, taking apart the set and emptying the theatre. This took us till around 1AM at which point the cast party began. Mark Glassman and Erik Nordgren, an old alum and our conductor respectively were both present and helped add to the environment. Mark’s ‘roast’ was particularly entertaining, and though I wasn’t savaged quite enough, it was still hugely enjoyable. Finally at around 3AM, hell week came to a close and my eyes were laid to rest.
Shabbat – Day 193
February 17, 2013
This was my calm before the storm. The day was spent relaxing and preparing mentally for what was to be an intense and almost insane week. Lunch and dinner with Ariella, Aviva, Michal and co. was a good was to prep myself, but it was over too soon. After dark, I rushed to finish what work I could in the remaining hours and for once, caught an early night, knowing I’d struggle to get much sleep at all the next week.
Friday/Shabbat – Day 178/179
January 29, 2013
Friday with no classes was a treat. However, that’s not to say I was unoccupied! First thing in the morning I had a meeting with the lovely Miss Amy Miller, my academic adviser. She helped me out a great deal in trying to figure out what I was doing and where I was going and aside from that provided me a bit of an insider view into quite how Penn worked.
The rest of the afternoon was spent meeting with Professors and working on various things, a long lunch at Hillel and then TA training and our meeting. In addition to all that I managed to squeeze in the time to make a salad for a shabbat dinner I was hosting with two friends, Michal and Ben. My only issue was a lack of invited guests. Luckily enough, lunch at Hillel provided me with the opportunity to invite a new friend, Safi Aharoni to dinner.
Friday night came and service was pretty lovely. It was good to be able to unload at the end of the week and just chill! Dinner however was absolutely wonderful. The conversation was spirited, the food excellent and this made for an overall great experience. The next day I attended the ‘sleep service’ till around midday and from there went to lunch at Aviva’s and Michal’s room. This was again a fantastic meal and made this Shabbat one of my favourites since leaving the country. I then hung around with Aviva till late afternoon when we all headed back to Hillel for a few activities before the end of Shabbat.
Following Shabbat, I raced back to my room, procrastinated for a while and, then got on to some work for the rest of the night.