Sunday/Monday – Day 122/123
December 4, 2012
Sunday was a last day of quiet. One that I much appreciated. Most of today was spent in, after waking up too late to get much done! To add to this, Tammy’s deployed friend was visiting home for thanksgiving and she needed to spend at least a little time with him. On her return we started packing up things and a few more of her friends visited before everyone returned to their schools and homes. Again, I packed by bags and, was driven to the Greyhound Station by Tammy, with her friend Anthony, in tow.
The bus back wasn’t quite as good as on the way there, it was cramped and I hardly slept, working on the operating systems project for most of the ride. After waking up from a brief nap on one particularly unpleasant leg of the journey, I skyped one of my closest friends in Melbourne to wish her a happy birthday and we ended up chatting for ten minutes at 3AM while I was travelling along the middle of nowhere.
I arrived back at Market Street Greyhound Terminal perfectly on time, at 8AM. Just enough for me to catch a taxi back to Penn in time for my first class, algorithms. I struggled through what work I could and ended up missing Glee Rehearsal due to illness and tiredness from the bus ride combined with an urgent meeting for Operating Systems.
I went to bed far too late, coding well into the night, in an attempt to move the team along somewhat. This was going to be an unpleasant week.
Friday/Saturday – Day 106/107
November 18, 2012
The march of stress continues. I didn’t manage algorithms today and my singing lesson was cut short due to complete exhaustion. Though I’m equally as tired today while writing this, it’s for entirely separate reasons that I’ll get to later. Friday’s show ran well, nothing special there, and managed to get to shul and dinner as well.
Shabbat itself was somewhat more tiring with a Glee Club alumni reception alongside the shows. At least my now I was close to a few cast and crew members. I hardly managed to eat all day as too much was happening, and I know it wasn’t wise but in this case there were just too many issues. After the show finished late motzei Shabbat we began load-out/strike, clearing the set and packing up. This took a great many hours, and we were called from around eight PM to three AM. At three we had the cast party, however with all the work I was behind on from the last two weeks I couldn’t really partake part in it very fully and only stayed for a short while before heading to bed for what I hoped would be a good while.
Wednesday/Thursday – Day 104/Day 105
November 16, 2012
The slog continues. Today I made up the remainder of my workshop hours and unfortunately spilled a can of paint over my runners (sneakers), destroying them in the process. I managed to make it to algorithms this morning, but by this point the combination of coding, solving and singing was really taking its toll. Though my voice was slowly coming back, every day my eyes drooped a little more and I was a little less attentive in class.
Tonight’s rehearsal was much the same as the previous nights, though this time we entered into act two and I was even given a little more of a role with a cameo as the prison guard in a few scenes.
Thursday was the day of the show and, thankfully my voice was back. As I’m writing this a week later I admit that I can hardly remember the day, only to say nothing of note really occurred, the usual classes with a just in time submission of some physics work and more struggles with my code.
Finally tonight the show opened and, as per usual, I was running about like a mad man, performing transition and, occasionally delivering a few lines. However, the show also gave me the opportunity to bond a little more with the other cast and crew members, culminating in a pleasant dinner after the show in which I got to talk in depth to Lauren and Anais amongst others.
I needed my sleep tonight more than ever and thankfully, I received it!