Wednesday/Thursday/Friday – Days 204/205/206
February 26, 2013
Wednesday was another chance to catch up on a little sleep. I arose from slumber at a good ten-thirty, got reading for the morning and promptly fell asleep on my desk chair. Not much of a success. A nap during Networking helped a little and before I knew it I was back in rehearsal.
I am so glad to be back in regular rehearsal, with our regular repertoire As much as the spring show was quite the spectacular to behold, the music wasn’t quite to my taste. Unfortunately though, it seems much of my old favorites have quite left my head! Ah well, time to crunch down and relearn the good tunes.
From there it was another all nighter to write some more code! Hooray.
Thursday. Physics. Team meeting. Tired. Running out of steam. Need Shabbat. Played Piano. Fell Asleep.
Friday was a grading party. Due to the completion of the CIS-121 midterm by our students, we now had 106 papers to mark (Australian for ‘grade’). This meant from 10:30AM to 3PM I was sitting in a room with the other TAs pouring over paper after paper, marking question after question and dearly hoping that my recitation did well (they did!). One brief intermission was a quick visit to the careers fair to talk to a certain employer with whom I am interviewing in the near future. I’m quite excited as I’ve had a little more practice at phone coding interviews and am now a little more confident. Hopefully it all goes well.
After grading was our regular staff meeting (not so much fun) and our TA training session (not so exciting). Though, through the TA training I have made a few friends from the CIS TA body, in particular Amalia Hawkins and Harmony Li, both lovely lower level CIS TAs (the classes, not their skills).
Friday night I was back at Shira Chadasha which wasn’t as musical as usual but still not bad and then to dinner through Hillel ‘mix-em-ups’. My table was a little uninspired but it was still nice and afterwards I spent the requisite hours with Aviva, Ariella, Michal and co.
Finally my week was over and I could head to bed for sweet repose.
Recovery – Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Day 201/202/203
February 25, 2013
So began my third century of days at Penn. Though it may have been assumed that this week would be any quieter than the last, it was in fact, almost as tumultuous, albeit not in such an exciting way.
Sunday was first and foremost a day of sleep. After hell week, there was no way my body could tolerate even another few hours straight without sleep and so, my bed took me, clothes and all, too much needed repose. Then, it was down to work.
The first item that needed completion was more of the group project for networking, which unfortunately was going rather slowly. I thoroughly dislike group projects primarily due to a consistent imbalance in contributions from the various group members.
Alongside this, I needed to plan my recitation for the next day, and I spent a good hour wracking my brains for a way to make midterm revision fun.
At around 3AM I treated myself to bed, and slept right through till my lecture at midday on Monday. Thankfully I made it that far. However, recently I’ve felt attending lectures hasn’t been so worthwhile as the pace is thoroughly relaxed. That is not to say that the courses are ‘too easy’, as the workload is sufficient to bury even the most intrepid of code explorers.
Following Networking and Security, I headed down to CVS to make the purchases I needed to run my class (a bag of chocolates and some envelopes) and set about preparing. My lab this week was a ‘training camp’ for an upcoming ‘midterm battle’ the coming Thursday. Up on the board were a series of envelopes, one per two people. My ‘troops’ chose strike team names and then raced to the board to collect a mission for their team. In five minute increments they were then asked to solve the ‘mission’ within the envelope and return it back to base. For correct answers mission control responded with a ‘mission dossier’ (envelope) filled with a chocolate. For incorrect they received a message. Finally, following the completion of all the missions, there was a post-operational briefing, reviewing all the missions. From what I gathered, it was relatively successful, marred only by the addition of a number of students to the class, leading to a miscalculation on needed envelopes and missions on my part.
After class, rehearsal was cancelled so I went to a panel on Tech Internships with Vivian Huang, a fellow TA, and Louis, a friend from CIS-121 last semester. Then it was to a quick dinner before Brahms’ Requiem rehearsal in which both Thea and Steph Li were distinctly missing. Then back to work to finish off some more homeworks till 5AM.
Tuesday I let myself slip a little, though in such an enjoyable way. Following my torture hour of physics (taken my a substitute PhD student this class) I was walking back to Hillel and Sweeten Alumni House, with its Steinway, caught my eye. I was hooked and, for the next two hours, I was stuck in Sweeten playing to my heart’s content on a beautiful instrument. Later that afternoon I caught up for an hour on some sleep, before auditioning for a big upcoming Penn event (still a little secret). The judge for this particular audition was the wonderful Shaun Altman, fellow tribesman and founder of Rockapella. I have great respect for him and auditioned partially just for the opportunity to meet him! The audition went well, but it was definitely more a part for a low tenor, going up to a good F# on the high-end.
And, back to usual, Glee rehearsal, though, tonight was a meeting; a post-mortem for the show. Taking over three hours, we commented on almost every possible element on the show, from rehearsal to our director, nothing escaped unscathed.
Back to my room after for, you guessed it, another late night working. Boy, Penn students need more sleep.
Hell Week, Part 2 – Thursday, Friday, Shabbat
February 20, 2013
Thursday was the most singing I’ve ever done in a single day. At 8AM I woke up as the singing was to begin at 8:45 for Valentines Day. I was scheduled from 8:45 to 4PM on Singing Valentines, whereby quartets comprised of PGC members would deliver Valentine’s Day messages in song, during class, to those whose loved one’s had donated a given sum to habitat for humanity. In four separate quartets, I raced from building to building, from class to class, singing my heart out for all “My Honey”ies, “My Valentine”s, “My Little Margie”s and to members of faculty, staff, and students. Highlights were as follows: singing at Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and Aunty Anne’s Pretzel’s and PGC members receiving free food from them. Singing for the elderly head of the Chemistry Department (Madeline Joillet) and of course singing for “her majesty” Amy Gutmann, President of The University of Pennsylvania. Embarassingly enough, a quote of me calling her, “her majesty” even made the Daily Pennsylvanian. I can only hope she didn’t read it.
Following all the normal shifts, I was then on a shift for Phone Valentine’s for those to whom we were unable to deliver in person. These included two good friends back home. Phone shift went all the way till 5:30 a which point I raced home, changed, ate a little something and then headed off to full rehearsal at the Zellerbach Auditiorium.
Rehearsal again ran well past midnight, and left me more than half dead. I think I’m truly beginning to understand the meaning of incorporeal.
Friday I thankfully had no classes, but to make up for the lack of things for me to do, of course, I had another walkshift at 10AM. I managed to quickly run out of Penn Glee Club flyers and so, while waiting for my shift to end, I decided to help out the Pan Asian Dance Troupe in advertising their show, “Revenge”. There I met a sweet girl by the name of Donna, who was somewhat bemused with my marketing techniques.
The afternoon was spent grading homework for CIS121 that I had thus far neglected, and I only just managed in time for our staff meeting. After the staff meeting, I had only just enough time for Kabbalat Shabbat, before I was off to the theatre for our very first performance!
It was well received, much the same with the matinee performance. However, after the two, I was thoroughly exhausted!
In the afternoon, there was the Glee Club Graduate Club reception, where we sung a few songs from our standard repetoire, however, unfortunately I was fairly out of practice with a number of the pieces.
Our final performance Motzei Shabbat, was filled with members from the OCP (Orthodox Jewish Community at Penn) and I felt very well supported. A few tears came to my eyes as I was asked to speak along with the seniors, on what it felt like to be partaking in my final show.
Following the end of the show, we had ‘strike’, taking apart the set and emptying the theatre. This took us till around 1AM at which point the cast party began. Mark Glassman and Erik Nordgren, an old alum and our conductor respectively were both present and helped add to the environment. Mark’s ‘roast’ was particularly entertaining, and though I wasn’t savaged quite enough, it was still hugely enjoyable. Finally at around 3AM, hell week came to a close and my eyes were laid to rest.