In Which I Am Stricken
November 4, 2014
Today I woke up and immediately knew something was wrong. Some organism had crawled inside my through and dragged a spiny wire mesh along my throat causing inflammation and a little pain. Nevertheless I endeavored to do my best to keep my day as regular as possible.
First up, I read an interesting paper and wrote a quick report on it, before racing over to the music building for a few minutes practice before my lesson later that day.
Next was another great physics lecture on the Feynmann Path Integral, in which we derived classical mechanics from a particular beautiful formulation of quantum mechanics. It also presented us with a new form of integral (over a function space), and a beautiful time and space symmetric formulation of the principle of least action.
Following the lecture was a quick visit to the doctor’s office, followed by a meeting of IPOG (International Partners Outreach Group) – a Penn committee of all stakeholders in Penn’s global presence. While the presentations went slowly, it was worthwhile to meet with many important university administrators and learn about the varied roles they play at Penn.
My piano lesson was enjoyable as always but I felt I had so far to go, despite having worked hard the past week.
I took a nap in the late afternoon, in an attempt to kickstart my recovery process and woke up two hours later to do some research. Dinner was a meeting at Hillel with Joseph Ooi, to talk about security related projects and catch up a little before rehearsal.
Rehearsal itself that evening was very taxing on me due to my weakened state and so I left a little early to recuperate and so as not to do myself any more damage. After a few quick tasks, it was bed again, hopefully for a long sleep.
In Which I Experience Male Gazing
Today was a little bit of struggle. An early wake up followed by a few hours of study for algorithms didn’t help me stay awake during the days classes. Cryptography was still in a very maths heavy phase (as it would be for most of the remainder of semester) and that didn’t help my focus either.
I and a few other students left crypto early in order to walk the twenty minutes to the other side of campus where the algorithms midterm would be held. The problems on the midterm turned out to be interesting and fun, however I didn’t manage to solve them to my satisfaction and knew that it would be a close thing with getting a passing grade yet again. My latest machine learning homework came in with a more than satisfactory score so that made me feel a little better.
After all that, I would’ve liked to take a nap, however there’s no rest for the wicked and I raced off to an appointment at Penn Presbyterian Hospital. Wait times there were not great and a fifteen minute visit with the actual doctor took over two hours in total.
I had enough time for a proper dinner due to the cancellation of rehearsal (too many sick clubbers), grabbed my bag and walked over to the Zellerbach Auditorium for the Mr and Ms Penn competition. For those uninitiated, this was Penn’s annual bodybuilding competition. Luke was participating, so as a dutiful friend I attended with a few of the other PhD students. Never having been to such an event before, it was eye opening. I was a little frustrated with some of the misogynistic comments from the row behind, but otherwise it was very interesting. Luke himself put on a good show, decked out in little more than speedos and a small number tag indicating him as the third contestant. My favorite moment was when one of the girls did her routine to the tune of “I’ll make a man out of you” from Disney’s Mulan. I also had the chance to meet Luke’s girlfriend Emily, which was lovely.
Leaving a little early for choral society, I quickly called home. My next two hours were spent enjoying Haydn and Bruckner and when my day was finally over, spent an hour with a friend and then returned home to sleep.
In Which I Prepare For The Best and The Worst
November 2, 2014
Friday was mostly dedicated to preparing for the midterm. However, preparation went sub optimally and eventually resulted in me taking a significantly long nap. Pipers rehearsal in the afternoon was cancelled, and this didn’t help my productivity as I just went back to sleep.
Friday night I made it to shul on time, for a beautiful kabbalat shabbat. Unfortunately I couldn’t hang around for dinner as I was due to be singing for Amy Gutmann and some prestigious alumni for homecoming weekend with the Glee Club. The gig was a lot of fun and afterwards I had the chance to talk with some of the higher ups at Penn and a number of visiting dignitaries. After the gig I was well tired enough to head home and go straight to sleep.
The next day was all gigs again! We started off with a brief rendition of some Penn songs for the ‘old guard’, more elderly Penn Alumni. We then sung ‘Shenandoah’ for a memorial service and waited around outside for the service to conclude so that we could sing a closing piece. The memorial service ran late, and so I was picked as part of a quartet to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ while the rest of club went off to our subsequent gig. The quartet sung decently, however we lacked a little confidence given the surprise.
The following gig was less thrilling, just standard repertoire but finished in enough time to leave me to go home, each lunch and take a nap before the final performance of the day.
Our last performance was outdoors and the cold and rain, but the space we were in was almost like a natural auditorium and I really enjoyed singing a few choice songs with the alumni present.
In the evening, I relaxed at home, until at about 11PM I went out to the glouse to see if anyone was around and playing the game of thrones board game as promised. When no one was there, I detoured to Platt to pick up Pearl and walk her across campus to a party she was going to. I returned to my room and promptly went to sleep, only to be woken up at 1AM by a friend in need. I raced over to help them out, but ended up sleeping a little less than I had intended.
Sunday I slept in a little, before realizing I was running late and raced over to rehearsal for Penn Pipers. Rehearsal was ok, though we had a lot of work to do. After rehearsal I raced off to the PhD basement to study for the algorithms midterm. I realized that I was less prepared that i would’ve ideally liked to be. We studied for a few hours, and then exhausted I walked back home. After yet another nap, I arranged to eat with Rigel and Nikki, before celebrating our birthdays with our traditional whiskey.
Then again, it was back to my room to chill for a little, some more study, and then an early night before the midterm the next day.