Hurricane Update
October 29, 2012
Hurricane Sandy is about to pass through Philadelphia, I’m alive and well and will continue to post updates stating that I am so! More updates on my days to follow as class is cancelled for the next two days!
Update: The weather is stormier, and we’re all snug and tight in our rooms. Campus is mostly deserted but nothing scary yet.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 88/89
October 26, 2012
I woke up today to my final beautiful morning of holidays, again quite late. The order of play for the morning was to get another good bulk of work out of the way before enjoying my afternoon. I opened up my Ruby project and got so caught up in working I hardly noticed lunch time pass me by until, I received an SMS from Paul G. of the Penn Glee Club, wanting to know if I was free for a late lunch. Off to Sitar again we went!
In my interview with Paul I much enjoyed our discussion on mathematics, as with his talents in the area he had many interesting thoughts to share. Additionally, as a long standing oldman of the group he had a better insight into some of the people in it than did many of the others I had interviewed.
Following lunch I met up with Melody Cooke (of skateboarding goat fame) and went to go find an appropriate grand piano for her to teach me how to play and me to teach her how to sing. Unfortunately I was running a little low on time as I’d promised Alexis, a close friend from Hillel, that I would have dinner with her and Arianna. Dinner at Hillel was not nearly so exciting but, it was my last chance to chill before getting back into the routine as at 9PM there was the regular scheduled PGC rehearsal till 12.
One particularly exciting thing that came out of this rehearsal was the presentation of a new piece for our fall show. However, it was a piece that I know well by the name of ‘Baba Yetu’, an arrangement of the swahili text to the Lord’s Prayer, composed for the opening title of ‘Civilization IV’, a computer strategy game.
Wednesday the stress ramped right back up again as I received a number of major assignments to be completed within the next cycle of work. Of particular note was the release of the specification for PennOS, the operating system that I will be building for one of my classes. It is expected to take the remainder of semester and must be completed in group of four. It seemed very daunting. Additionally I received another physics problem set and another programming assignment for algorithms.
The evening was not nearly so exciting as I had another regular PGC rehearsal and what was meant to be a gig but without my dry cleaning that was a few hours late, I couldn’t perform. Following rehearsal I had an interview with Baker Beers, a lovely Texan guy who was really down to earth. Had a great and unfortunately too short meal before getting lost on my way to the Performing Arts Workshop where I had hours of work to fulfill for the Penn Signers.
I arrived half and hour late, sweaty and tired from running around looking for it but soon got to work with putty and a knife filling cracks in various items. Over the course of my two hours there I also had a lovely time chatting to Suzie from Korea who came to the US with a passion for performing arts, something she couldn’t satiate at home. After most of the time had elapsed I switched onto painting a door and was finally set free to go back to Rodin and work for as many hours as I could.
At 1AM I skyped a close friend from home and we talked for around an hour, making me quite happy, but very tired and before I knew it, I was back in bed and fast asleep.
Monday – Day 87
October 24, 2012
Today’s link is slightly scatalogical but is well worth reading for those who have ever wondered what happens when you flush a toilet from an airplane.
Monday wasn’t the most exciting of days, woke up really late and felt well rested for the first time in a while. My coughing has almost stopped and this has brightened my overall mood.
I’ve also been taking the free time as a chance to catch up on a good amount of work, particularly in the Ruby class and so much of my time today was spent on that and the Physics. After a few hours of work and a lunch and interview with Zack Costa.
I made it to Professor Mele’s office before the day was through and spent a while going through the problems with which I had been having trouble, that helped me out a lot.
The evening I played SupCom 2 for a while (giving myself a little break) and some piano before heading out with JHo and Paul (also from PGC) to go see Looper, staring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. My overall impression of the movie was that it was fun with fantastic concepts and design, however there were a number of glaring plot holes and at time it felt like it was overdoing the artsy thing in order to prop up its ‘real movie’ credentials. 7.5/10.
The rest of the evening was spent again with PGC members, watching the presidential debate in which Vanessa (our Canadian stage manager) and I complained about the focus on American exceptionalism in discussions of foreign policy. After a hug goodnight and a few more chips, it was off to sleep again for another day.