Shabbat/Sunday – Day 142/143
December 21, 2012
Shabbat I finally received some of the much needed rest I needed. With my family in New York, the day was spent sleeping, eating and reading magazines. After sundown it I arose from my deep slumber as there was not only work to be done but an unexpected journey to take. Of course, as my first act of freedom, I went with the family to see the Hobbit in 48FPS 3D IMAX at Loewe’s 34th.
Personally, I really enjoyed the movie despite a few minor gripes. In my opinion the VFX used on the dwarves or perhaps the makeup, was a little too visible in the format I saw, rendering them fake or almost cartoon like. In addition, it took some time to get used to the higher framerate and I’m still undecided on whether it has a place in cinema of the future.
However, despite these gripes, I felt the film stayed true to the character of ‘The Hobbit’ for better or for worse. Some critics have lambasted the film for its pacing and childlike character but the book itself is structured in such a way. It is a younger, lighter-hearted version of The Lord of The Rings, which, yes, does include lots of downtime between the action!
Overall my favorite elements were the portrayals of Radagast in Dol Goldur and the riddle scene between Bilbo and Gollum. One classic Hobbit and the other a good Peter Jackson addition. The scoring by Howard Shore was fantastic as always with a great theme in the song of the Misty Mountains. The movie was most enjoyable for me, particularly as a Tolkein fan, however I do see where the harsh reviews were coming from.
The late night was reserved for working on my final project for Ruby on Rails for which I had received an extension due to the time I lost trying to recover my visa forms on Friday. Till around 3AM I coded my heart out, and have actually made a decent webpage.
The next morning I needed a bit of a sleep in. It was also the day my brother Raph’s exam marks were due to come out. Thus much of the morning was spent lazily. However the afternoon was not to be my own as I was yanked out of the apartment to go shopping for a new winter wardrobe by my mum. In her eyes my previous clothes were completely unacceptable and so I returned two bags heavier from H&M with new things for the winter.
In the evening we went in search of some food and ended up at Raph’s choice, “Mr Broadway”, a Kosher meat restaurant where we shared a mixed grill as a family and I had some steak for the first time since leaving home.
On returning home I set to finishing my project and by the end I was rather proud. Still not perhaps happy enough to launch it publicly, but confident in my skills as a web developer.
Thursday/Friday – Day 140/141
December 19, 2012
Today was the first of my two exams, algorithms. Up at 7:30 to practice I felt decently good going in. The exam felt fine and though there were lots of tricky questions, it seemed alright overall. How naive I was.
The rest of the day was spent in crisis mode going mad over the physics exam which, till this point I’d barely had any time to study. I was so stressed that I decided to take a ‘short’ nap and get back to studying after. This name however, ended up running overtime to a good four hours. No good. The rest of the evening I was even worse than I was before, going completely nuts over the practice exams. At around eight PM I received my grades for the algorithms exam. Not good. I was quite upset by this and so I decided to take a run and clear my head a little. At 9PM I finally started working consistently and though I made some progress, I was sure it wasn’t enough.
Tomorrow I woke up at six thirty, before my nine AM exam feeling absolutely terrible and my nerves were completely wracked. I entered the exam in a state of near panic and with good reason, I was unable to wholly answer a single one of the exam questions! After exiting the exam room in near tears I was also forced to confront another unpleasant event from the last day, the burglary of my carry bag containing my forms to obtain a new visa. Quite distraught I left the exam building to find Kostas, my algorithms professor who always had a way of putting things in perspective however, he was busy with a skype call and couldn’t meet with me. I ran back to my room to try and prepare for my weekend in New York with Mum, Dad, and Raph. I distressed slightly during a goodbye with Steph, who gave me a little comfort from the awful day and then I raced to the 1PM bus to New York.
Long story short, it took absolutely forever. I only just made it there in time for Shabbat. 4:11 I made it to the building. 4:11 Shabbat started. Phew. From there it was breakdown then sleep.
Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday – Exams – Days 137-139
December 17, 2012
I had experienced multiple exam periods before, but none so stressful as what I experienced at Penn. Possibly one of the most stressful weeks of my life and, unfortunately I lacked the perspective to step back from it.
The week didn’t begin so badly, with a few major projects due Tuesday but no exam till Thursday. I thought all was well as I’d planned ahead and completed most of the projects. Monday held two PGC gigs, both of which were pretty awesome. The first of those being a performance at the top of the Huntsman building, on the eighth floor, never seen on regular occasions by students. One could tell the event was of higher status than some of the others by the flashy catering provided and the seemingly unlimited supply of pepper steak being carved up for the guests. Our performance however, was less than stellar and I’m not 100% sure we earned our keep that time. However, we had a chance to redeem ourselves later in the evening with the President herself, Amy Guttmann.However before that there was coding to be done in the break and candle lighting at Hillel with a brief appearance by President Guttmann.
Following her speech there was a performance, as below, by the Jewish acapella group on campus, the Shabbatones.
Following that it was again, a short period of study and work before a trip to the fantastic Presidential Holiday Party at the house of the President herself.
There was a line out the front reaching a decent way back and understandably so, for on the other side the beautifully adorned building was a back garden filled with desserts and holiday treats. However, the Glee Club was sequestered to a side room to await our performance.
We waited anxiously for the entire crew to arrive and when they did, we sang our bit before spending time mingling. It was during this period that I managed to snag a photo with the President, one for the wall.
After all this hubbub I planed to work a little and then sleep early. Unfortunately, a few small issues with my code ballooned out and ending up taking me till the early hours of the morning, programming in Engineering, Moore 100. Around me students with bleary eyes were all focused on the same goal. Completing the assignment by 10AM Tuesday. Many fell by the wayside or more literally, fell asleep.
Tuesday morning I slept through most of and the evening was spent in a mixture of coding and revising. Today was also the day that the family visited Penn and I spent at least a little time showing them around before my recital at 1PM where I sang fly me to the moon. Email me for a link to that video.
Different project this time and lots of math catchup for the algorithms course.I seem to be doing this more frequently, but another significant event this past week was another interview, this time for an on campus position of ‘Teaching Assistant’ or TA (tutor) for the algorithms course. This applied extra pressure on me to do well on the exam to prove myself. The interview in fact went excellently, and the interviewer Val Tannen, had a few words with me after that were most encouraging. It was then on Tuesday I received notification that not only had I succeeded in being offered a TA job, I was to be given a tutorial/section/lab to teach because of my strong performance. This made me nervous a little but I was more than happy to accept. In the evening I went for a delicious dinner with my parents before arriving back on campus a little after nine PM to get back to work. However at around ten PM I received an SMS from JHo, my Glee mentor, wondering where I was at auditions, and then it hit me, I had forgotten my audition slot half an hour beforehand for the PGC Spring Show! The moment I received that message I grabbed my coat, some sheet music and, sprinted as fast as I possibly could, over to Platt Student Performing Arts Center where I was the last person to have my audition and, though I was a little stressed out I felt it went relatively well.
Wednesday was a non stop day of study, almost without pause and the study went well into the night where I helped out a few friends with their questions. Unfortunately for me, I never remember that when I manage to help others for an exam, I often doom my own performance….