Wednesday – Day 75
October 12, 2012
My midterm was a disaster. Probably a combination of not understanding one of the questions correctly combined with having no idea what-so-ever on how to do another of them. At least now I know where I’m very weak. Electromagnetism is hard.
My algorithms class was nothing exciting, same for Ruby. Though I feel I’m slipping behind in that one simply because I have no time to study for it amongst everything else. Penn was recently ranked the worlds second most stressful institution and I’m certainly feeling it now.
There was the usual five to seven PGC rehearsal and I went for a lovely interview with Andrew, the baritone section leader, after, before getting back on to work on the operating systems project with Jonothan. Far too many hours had been spent on it with far too little progress and the due date was fast creeping up on us. Due to his illness we weren’t able to progress as quickly as we would’ve liked with me taking the brunt of the work for the first two weeks of the assignment period.
This heavy assignment work meant that doing anything for my birthday around that time was pretty much out of the question and the clock passed midnight with me hardly noticing. Thankfully a bit later Sarah notified me that I was in fact twenty one, else I might not have noticed. Then she presented me with the best possible birthday present, a video of many of the people I love and am closest to from around the world, recorded on YouTube each sending me a personal message. Another highlight was skyping with another close friend from Melbourne who along with a friend had sent me a few delightful presents. Quickly unwrapped to much joy were:
A Disney Song Book
a Binary Tie
and a fantastic tshirt!
These two events conspired to turn an otherwise unhappy evening into something rather nice.
Though, I was still up till far to late at night and had an early wakeup the next day.
Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Day 72/73/74
October 11, 2012
Sunday was a mad rush to try to get a little more work done before the chagim started again. In particular, studying for a difficult physics midterm that was later in the week. At eleven AM I woke up to work with Jonothan on our Operating Systems project and pounded away at that for a good few hours. Anil was away for the weekend and thus lunch was lonely by myself in the apartment (Hillel is closed on Sundays) and then back to pounding out equations.
As the sky darkened I found myself worrying more and more about the physics midterm and I’d later be proven to be right in my fears.
After chag came in, as per usual, I couldn’t be privileged enough to just be able to go to shul and relax. This time it was dance rehearsal with Penn Dance interrupting what otherwise could’ve been a quieter night.
Following that I read a bit of my books and went to bed.
Knowing the difficulty of the midterm ahead of me I decided to walk and listen in on my 9AM and 5PM physics tutorials/recitations/sections. Though I felt I understood the gist of the material being presented, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to repeat it under example conditions.
Other than that my day was spent at the Hillel as to be expected, eating and drinking and of course, kvetching.
At five PM was the normal PGC rehearsal, delightful as always, followed by a trip back to Hillel for Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah (another Jewish festival again!) at Penn was one of the best simchat torahs I have had. The energy and passion were fantastic, especially in the OCP (Orthodox Community at Penn). The hakafot (dance circuits) went for over three hours! Unfortunately I could only stay for one of the three as I had a rehearsal for University Choral Society up at 8:10PM in which I was singing a Requiem Mass. Quite the contrast to dancing around the Torah. By the time I made it back to Hillel at ten, things were still going on and people were sitting down for dinner. I joined them and then got a full nights sleep in prep for the upcoming midterm.
We will be back shortly…
Due to unprecedented amounts of work the blog will remain un-updated for another twelve hours or so, however, stay tuned for more updates!