Friday/Shabbat – Day 256/257 – Spring Fling
April 19, 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.
Wednesday/Thursday – Day 254/255
April 16, 2013
Wednesday I woke up even worse for the weather. My body was telling me it was time to get more sleep. I slept in a little and then at 10AM headed down to the Moore labs to work with Charu Jangid on some homework due later that day. She showed up pretty late as always but this time I had been expecting it and so wasn’t too unprepared.
Once the work was done we headed to class but soon realized that given that the TAs were lecturing, we weren’t going to gain much out of being there, so we headed out for lunch together. As we arrived at the counter of the chocolate artisserie, Charu realized that her wallet was missing and sped off to find it, leaving me alone with two hot chocolates.
By the time she got back (without her stolen wallet), it was time for my security class. Again, nothing special today but the professor mentioned that he wanted to speak to me again soon. I wondered about what but thought it would definitely be wise to go ahead.
Following that, I had a little time to get a little sleep, texting Joseph to let him know I was too sick for the first bit of rehearsal. At 5:30 I woke up for a quick dinner at Hillel before a Time to Shine Rehearsal. That was disastrous for me as it required me to exert my voie and certainly didn’t make me feel any better. Pretty much as soon as it was up I headed to bed, my work left stagnant on the table.
Thursday I wasn’t feeling much better and a little disappointed that I was sick at this time. Spring Fling, the most important student party of the year, was just around the corner and I wasn’t up to attending. The OCP was hosting a fantastic dinner and I was worried that I wouldn’t even be able to make that.
Most of the day passed in a blur, Physics in the morning, plenty of work in the afternoon, and another nap. I was intent on. Additionally Thursday afternoon we held another TA meeting in which plenty of work was divvied out. I got back to my room and set to work until a message from JHo arrived inviting me to go see Avenue Q with him. I gladly agreed to go and had a wonderful evening enjoying Vanessa Lam as Christmas Eve and Anya Lichtenstien as Kate Monster (the best performer of the evening).
After that it was back to bed in an attempt to recover on time for the weekend.
Monday/Tuesday – Day 252/253
As my workload ramps up, my time at Penn is slowly ramping down. I’ve started chucking out the things I don’t need and have arranged face to faces with a number of people I still stand to set things in order with. Though it may seem early, there’s a lot to be done in between now and the start of May. It’s a particularly weird situation because Penn is now starting to feel like home more than home in Melbourne. Probably a good thing I leave now then.
Monday things were pretty crazy as always. This was heightened by the fact that I was literally panicking over my Physics exam. I skipped all my classes and recitation was a little underwhelming, I just didn’t have the energy to make it as wonderful today. Hopefully my students forgive me. I count two sub-my-standards labs thus far in a semester of 14 weeks.
Monday night I took some time off the study for a Glee Club Gig at the Kimmel Performing Arts Center, the most important arts venue in Philly. We were performing on a sidestage for the acapella festival and ran a forty-five minute set. It was actually quite enjoyable but my mind was elsewhere. From there I raced back for a short dinner at Hillel before it was off to the music buildings for Brahms’ Requiem rehearsal. That went ok but again, my mind was on Maxwell.
I got back to my room and felt sick stressed and exhausted so I decided better to go to sleep early and work on the physics in the morning.
Tuesday I was up at 6:30AM studying for the test and things weren’t actually going as poorly as the could’ve. I was understanding the material even if I wasn’t exactly capable of drawing many unique solutions or new thoughts from it, at least I had the basic idea of what was going on.
A few hours later I headed off to the exam itself and sat down. From my perspective the paper was a disaster. Questions I had no idea how to solve and important things I had forgotten. I did my best and managed at least to write down a few things for each question on the paper, hoping it would be enough to scrape by.
My afternoon was planned to be a bit more free but unfortunately, the stress that I had caused myself with physics got the better of me. By now I was thoroughly sick. I went to my singing lesson with Brian and had to cease after my warmups. My body just wasn’t taking it. Unfortunately, the repercussions of the exam would last a while.
I went straight to sleep, only waking when it was time for another Glee gig. This was another internal awards ceremony for esteemed alumni. I could hardly croak out a tune, and during the performance my voice cracked audibly. I should not have been singing. Thankfully, Scott Ventre had my back, covering me as a baritone despite his lovely tenor sound.
Following that I escaped briefly for dinner at Hillel before it was back with Glee for the conclusion of board elections. Things were tough and tight but ultimately, I feel that strong candidates were selected for all the positions.
Finally, just past midnight, I was able to get to sleep, and try and aid my aching body.