Friday/Shabbat/Sunday – Day 54/55/56
Posted on 19th September 2012
After arriving in on Friday I was forced to begin a mad rush to complete all of my work that was due before my arrival back at Penn. So out of my bag I grabbed my notes, grabbed my laptop and… rifling through my bag I couldn’t find my charger! This was particularly worrisome as my laptop contained all the most recent source code from my programming assignments (they were yet to be uploaded to the cloud).
This necessitated a trip to Best Buy to purchase a charger so that I could complete my urgent work. This turned out not to be a huge issue a Robin, Sarah’s mother, was going to Costco, opposite the tech store, to shop for Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year). I purchased the cheapest universal laptop charger in the store, checking for plug and power compatibility beforehand and returned with Robin back home to Sarah’s. Unfortunately when I plugged in the charger, my laptop still refused to boot! Oy Gevalt!
By this time it was well past midday and thus there was a mandatory stop for lunch before trying to figure out my next move. Luckily, Robin had forgotten to buy meat, so on our way back to Costco I took the non-functional charger with me and went to return it and buy a new HP branded one. However, despite my best efforts, I had left a piece of the packaging back home and thus was required to work out yet another seventy dollars in order to get myself back up and running. A return visit to Best Buy with the extra piece was then put on my ‘to-do’ list.
At that point, Sarah and her brother Zack, returned home from college and after a brief spell chatting, Sarah and I headed to the living room to put in some hours working before Shabbat.
Shabbat dinner was a peaceful family affair and soon after I was fast asleep. The sleep in fact continued till around midday the next, and meant that I woke up just in time for lunch. After that, it was time for a good hour and half walk around the area to get myself acquainted and to enjoy the pleasant weather. A shluf (sleep) in the afternoon rounded off the day. When Shabbat came out Sarah and I drove to see ‘Premium Rush’, a decent film with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, about bicycle messengers in NYC and we both enjoyed it, though it was nothing to rave about. Though I did think Joseph looked an awful lot like the properties manager from the PGC (Penn Glee Club) a lovely well dressed guy by the name of Devin. Returning home, Sarah and I talked till the early hours of the morning, while busily trying to get a little work done. Finally at about 2AM we called it in and headed to sleep.
Sunday was another trip to Best Buy to return the charge. After that, a good hour on the piano to relax a little and then again, a mad rush to try and complete all my work. Unfortunately I didn’t manage it all on time and now needed to talk to professors to try and obtain limited extensions to hand in my work Wednesday on my return to the states.
Rosh Hashana first night dinner was with Sarah’s Mother’s family. I was slightly overwhelming being introduced to so many new people at once, however, the food was delicious and, I had a great time entertaining and being entertained by her younger cousins. To them I exposed the fact that Sarah has an encyclopaedic geographic knowledge that includes every country in the world and their capitals. I also introduced to them a scoring system by which you could earn a point for finding a capital Sarah didn’t know. The sum of all our points by the end of the evening was a measly one. Trinidad and Tobago she had forgotten.
After a delicious dessert, it was time to go, however Sarah’s little cousin wasn’t too happy over the fact and made me promise to come back for Shabbat dinner another time. An evening well spent.