Thursday/Friday – Day 140/141
December 19, 2012
Today was the first of my two exams, algorithms. Up at 7:30 to practice I felt decently good going in. The exam felt fine and though there were lots of tricky questions, it seemed alright overall. How naive I was.
The rest of the day was spent in crisis mode going mad over the physics exam which, till this point I’d barely had any time to study. I was so stressed that I decided to take a ‘short’ nap and get back to studying after. This name however, ended up running overtime to a good four hours. No good. The rest of the evening I was even worse than I was before, going completely nuts over the practice exams. At around eight PM I received my grades for the algorithms exam. Not good. I was quite upset by this and so I decided to take a run and clear my head a little. At 9PM I finally started working consistently and though I made some progress, I was sure it wasn’t enough.
Tomorrow I woke up at six thirty, before my nine AM exam feeling absolutely terrible and my nerves were completely wracked. I entered the exam in a state of near panic and with good reason, I was unable to wholly answer a single one of the exam questions! After exiting the exam room in near tears I was also forced to confront another unpleasant event from the last day, the burglary of my carry bag containing my forms to obtain a new visa. Quite distraught I left the exam building to find Kostas, my algorithms professor who always had a way of putting things in perspective however, he was busy with a skype call and couldn’t meet with me. I ran back to my room to try and prepare for my weekend in New York with Mum, Dad, and Raph. I distressed slightly during a goodbye with Steph, who gave me a little comfort from the awful day and then I raced to the 1PM bus to New York.
Long story short, it took absolutely forever. I only just made it there in time for Shabbat. 4:11 I made it to the building. 4:11 Shabbat started. Phew. From there it was breakdown then sleep.
Thursday/Friday – Day 133/134
December 12, 2012
The stress levels keep going up and up and up!
Thursday was the next major assessment in store for me with a ten minute singing test of the music I had learn for choral society. This consisted of about two hundred pages of music; Haydn’s Thereisenmasse and Vivaldi’s Magnificat, both substantial and fairly beautiful works. Thus, I spent much of today with earphones in one ear, the other listening attentively to my own pitching and music in hand, repeating certain passages over and over.
Other than that, I worked on tidbits here and there in prep for submission of a few larger project over the next week.
A highlight of Thursday evening occurred at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where small groups consisting of PGC members went around the wards to bring ‘holiday cheer’ to those who might otherwise be lacking it. And, though our singing may not have been our best and we were carrying our binders with us, people’s faces really did light up and they clamoured to hear us, some even getting out of their beds to sing and dance along.
Following that, from 7PM to 10PM was a dress rehearsal with the full orchestra for the next day’s choral society concert.
Friday was my final lecture in algorithms and final singing lesson. The singing lesson went excellently and I felt that looking over the semester I had made real progress which was a great feeling.
Friday night was shul at Shira Chadasha in Hillel. The minyan was lovely as always but still missing something compared to home. Hineni shout out to all of you. Afterwards I quickly scrambled for dinner with Aviva and Michal and a few others before heading out with Adriel Koschitzky, an orthodox soloist, to the choral society performance.
The performance I believe sounded pretty great, however I was way too nervous and started feeling sick partway through, partially due to the fact that I was struggling to hear anything other than my own voice, which made pitching somewhat difficult. However, it went well and ended well.
After the show finished I walked back with Aviva who had come to see the performance, Stephanie Li, and a friend of hers. Up to my room, I managed only a few steps before collapsing on my bed.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 131/132
December 7, 2012
Finals period is fast approaching. Though, for some reason it seems like it’s already here. I have so many tests and assignments due that I feel as if the exams crept up on me and then even passed by without a chance for me to jump on the horse. Tuesday saw the submission of my last Operating Systems homework, along with a final lecture that was a combination of revision and just fun presentations, to mark the end of semester. However now that that was over it was a bug in my algorithms code that was driving me to distraction!
The Glee Club rehearsal in the evening was quite enjoyable with more directors being trialled and more theatre sports and games played. Also, final prep for our concert on Shabbat, that though the music is perhaps not my favorite, I’m still looking forward to.
Wednesday saw me in two almost empty classes. Apparently everyone but me had already realized that midterms placed in the last week are in fact, exams by another name.
At this point in semester, every spare moment was spent working on something or other, jumping between the various things that needed completing.
Tonight after Glee Rehearsal I interviewed one of my favorite baritone personalities, Mr Mychajlo Kosyk, of a definite notoriety. It was a fantastic opportunity to get to know him a bit better and I was sorely disappointed when our time ran low and we both returned to our respective workloads. In my case this meant preparing for both the final physics assignment and, the OS final exam the next day. Needless to say, as much procrastination as work followed and I didn’t get all I wished done.