Friday/Shabbat – Day 256/257 – Spring Fling

Posted on 19th April 2013

Now, I’m probably going to get shouted down for this, but I have to say, Spring Fling was one of my least favourite of my Penn experiences. This was probably compounded by the fact that I was still feeling pretty sick, but needless to say, my weekend wasn’t great.

Worst part of it all, being fling, my apartment was full with people of various shades, which wasn’t exactly idea for my recovery. Substances were downed, and loud music played, all over campus, and it turned out my apartment wasn’t exempt. Friday I spent much of the day working in the engineering building, trying to escape all the noise and fuss. I took plenty of rest during the day prepping for “Fling Feast” in the evening.

Fling Feast is an event arrange by the OCP as an alternative to the Fling concert and comprised of a lovely sit down dinner. Unfortunately Ariella ditched Louis and I over dinner (she had more ‘important’ people to sit next to) but the company was still lively and the food excellent. After the main course, a comedian was brought out who, for over forty-five minutes entertained us with clever jokes revolving around the experiences of Jews in college. It was by all measures a resounding success. For dessert all guests were given ‘magic berries’ and told to coat their tongues in them before eat sour foods with thanks to a little protein magic, suddenly tasted sweet.

Shabbat was awful. I felt pretty sick and my apartment was at times filled with unsavoury types, a number of times without either of my other roommates in the room. Every time I came back to the room during the day was another unpleasant surprise (aside from finding Priyanka Anand sitting on my couch at one point). I left for lunch at Hillel, nothing special. From there I decided to at least visit the Freshman Quad to see what ‘Fling’ actually was. I arrived there just in time for the Penn Glee Club band’s set, which was really fantastic.

The quad otherwise was a little underwhelming. Note so many people around, a decent carnival but nothing unbelievable. I hung around for a while with Glee people before deciding to head back to get some more R&R. On my way back I saw a Jew-crew heading down back towards the quad and they invited me to join them but I decided to decline having already seen what I needed to.

Back at home my room was full of people. So I wrapped myself in my blanket and went to sleep.

After Shabbat, I ate my dinner and then proceeded to hang out with Aviva, Michal and a mutual friend of our Ralph for the rest of the evening. That was a little more adventurous and a little more fun. Ralph has taste for the finer things in life and lived just alongside me in one of the other apartment buildings. We chilled and talked for hours and hours till I was ready for bed and then I headed back and closed my eyes. Thank heavens Fling was over.

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