Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 168/169
January 18, 2013
Tuesday I was invited to the Phi Psi date night and went urgently looking for a date. To my luck I ran into a good friend from Penn Singers, Lauren Nagy, whom I asked and who agreed to accompany me. Physics in the morning was difficult again. I’ll be most glad when I’m done with electromagnetism but I think I may need to retake the course when I get home in order to be sure I’ve learnt the material well enough. After physics was my first singing lesson of the semester which was enjoyable as always. It provides me with an opportunity to have my improvement measured and the chance to improve further.
Following the singing lesson I attended the visit of the Australian Consul General to the University of Pennsylvania and heard him speak on how best to ‘bat for team Australia’. This inspired me to start a plan for an Australia student network across the Ivy League schools.
Then it was dinner and a quick change into a suit before Glee rehearsal. Unfortunately I could only linger for twenty minutes before dashing outside to run through the rain to the Phi Psi chapter house, where I met Lauren. There we socialized pleasantly with the other brothers, potential pledges and their dates before heading off in taxis to the venue. When we arrived at the venue, the first thing that struck us was the volume. The music was cranked way up high and it was difficult to talk to one another amidst the booming beats. Unfortunately this detracted from the experience as a whole and resulted in Lauren and I leaving a little earlier than we might otherwise have intended. As it turned out, this was my last event with the brothers. I was dropped from the process, which was completely understandable, and returned to life as before.
Wednesday I resumed compsci classes and unfortunately this meant returning to a very large workload. I was gifted by Professors Boon and Smith with two assignments, due the following week. With much else to do besides, the familiar stress levels from fall semester were returning. In the afternoon I set about completing various logistical tasks I had left, before Glee rehearsal at 5. After rehearsal I had a meeting with two of the other TAs for CIS121 in which we planned and wrote the homework for the week. Finally getting back to my room late I began work on the assignments and passed out somewhere around 2AM.
Sunday/Monday – 166/167
January 15, 2013
Sunday was another day of attempted recovery. Thankfully I was slowly getting better. I wrote a bit of a lesson plan for my lab the next day. Tried getting some more work done but I was sadly very unsuccessful. The afternoon brought dance rehearsal and unfortunately I was excluded from the vast majority of it due to my small role in the show. Sat on the sidelines most of the time. For dinner I got sushi by myself which, was most relaxing and something I appreciate doing as it gives me a little time out! Afterwards I baked cookies for my lab the next day and invited Charlie to come try them out. Success!
Monday (finally back up to date), I was consistently happy. I’m not 100% sure why the day was quite so incredible, but I was happy throughout. My lab went really well, classes were fine (though I almost well asleep in one) and dinner and glee rehearsal suited my tastes. I sung the first movement of the Brahms requiem (beautiful as expected) and got a hot chocolate with Steph Li. All in all a wonderful day.
Thursday/Friday – Day 164/165
January 14, 2013
The second I entered the classroom a sinking feeling filled my stomach and my intestines dropped a good foot. PHYS362. Electromagnetism II. Though I understood the class decently, I realized that it was going to be another semester of struggles for me. Hopefully it will be worth it in the end. I love physics, but electromagnetism doesn’t seem to be my cup of tea.
The rest of the afternoon I spent chilling with friends before going to see Zero Dark Thirty in the evening with a few Glee clubbers. When I exited the cinema and checked my email however, I received quite a shock! Phi Kappa Psi had invited me back for ‘closed’ rush. A process whereby prospective brothers were selected out of the pool of open rush for closer examination.
Some of the activities I involved myself in with Phi Psi included late night laser tag, with alcoholic beverages and pizza provided and, as expected from any self respecting frat, giant raucous parties. My behaviour was limited to the less raucous side and it was nice to see that respected by the brothers. At one party I went to in the evening, they had stations with ‘bombs’; high strength spirits, that one would drop into a cup of beer and scull. However, there was one brother that was promoting an alcohol free version at eat station, that was gladly accepted by one of the Muslim ‘rushers”.
Friday was a day without classes. My first ever in my University career. Now that was a change. I spent much of the day recovering from the previous evenings antics however in the afternoon I did have TA training and a faculty meeting (for the algorithms course I was to be teaching this semester). The meetings weren’t super productive however it was well worth the pay (far below Australian standards though!) plus I’m super excited about actually teaching a class (as of 13/Jan/2013 I’ve baked cookies for them).
Friday night was finally a chance to get back to the OCP community and to eat dinner and chill with a few close friends. Then a good dose of sleep.