Sunday – Day 308
June 3, 2013
Today was my last full day in the USA but it was packed, fun and exciting.
After a late wake-up I raced out to midtown to meet Susan Greenberg, a friend from Penn. After grabbing her, we walked to Milk and Honey, a kosher lunch place in the center of town and ate there with Ariella and Doniel Sherman. After lunch we set off for the NYC Israel Parade, a giant parade of thousands of supporters of the state of Israel, from those of far-left leaning politics to those on the far right, all gathered together in appreciation of the strong relationship between the US and Israel. I myself was marching with a contingent from Penn Hillel which was largely comprised of friends from the OCP. In the sweltering heat we waited over forty minutes before our contingent was called to begin marching and, in less than thirty minutes it was all over. Slightly anti-climactic but fun nonetheless.
After lunch Yoni, Ariella and I walked back downtown to meetup with Rina Krevat and Samantha Merritt, digital media design majors from Penn. In particular I wanted to see Sam as I had never had the chance I wanted to have a proper conversation with her. As we walked and talked I found that she was quite charming and was interested in many of the same things as I. I also found it awesome that she was interning for Google this summer and asked if I could have a tour the next morning, to which she cheerful replied in the affirmative. Yoni, Ariella and I then stopped for smoothies in a frozen yoghurt place, before heading off to the Apple Store to take advantage of their A/C and then FAO Schwartz to take advantage of their giant piano.
By then it was starting to get late and so we dropped Yoni off at a restaurant with his parents, picked up Ariella’s stuff from where her mum had left it in a hotel and set off to Brooklyn, to meet with another ‘Ariella’, a friend of Ariella Levine’s with whom Ariella Levine was to be staying. After a somewhat long trip, we made it to Brooklyn, only to be whisked off to the Five Towns, a very Jewish area of Long Island, for dinner at a ‘chinese’ place. My last good block of time with her. Dinner couldn’t have gone long enough and before I knew it I was on the train back, all by myself. As we pulled into the station closest to where I was staying with my cousins, I heard and then saw a raging thunderstorm outside and so was forced to sprint back to the apartment. I eventually arrived soaking wet, much to the amusement of the doorman, checked into my flight and am now going to sleep.
Wednesday/Thursday – Day 275/276
May 8, 2013
Wednesday and Thursday I spent the whole time enjoying myself. I wasn’t too worried about the security exam and definitely was not about to start studying so far in advance. These days I spent mostly in the company of people from Hillel, particularly Ariella and Louis. As the end approached, I became more and more aware of the importance of spending time with those I cared about.
Amongst other things, I spent time walking and talking with Hannah Dardashti which was very welcome given that she was one of the people I was most disappointed at having spent less time with. She’s a soft spoken girl from the suburbs nearby, who is known for thinking very deeply on all manner of things.
Yoni Wieder, another OCPer was also featured heavily in the weeks events. He wasn’t particularly talented at avoiding distractions in my form and hence was a joy to be around.
Thursday night, I made dinner for Madeleine Brown, Ariella Levine, Hannah Dardashti and Jacob Lincoff. Macaroni Cheese! Mum’s recipe with a crispy corn-flake crumb top. I was so worried about it going wrong as I had never made it before and additionally it was my first time making a white sauce. Thankfully, despite a number of errors on my part, it came out deliciously and I was well satiated for that meal.
Another late night chatting, Skyfall on my laptop, and then sleep.
Thursday/Friday – Day 112/113
November 21, 2012
Today was thankfully the last of the days of torture…
I arose today from my slumber hardly rested at all. I mas as well have not been in physics and, I missed my Operating Systems class to try and help out Deepthi and Jonothan, who, had unfortunately not completed their part of their assignment, the filesystem. Deepthi had been sick for a while and this had impacted their ability to contribute but it was still disappointing when it came time to demo our project and we didn’t have anything to show for a good 50% of it.
More than that I had made a tiny error in the code which prolonged the length of time it took for our demo to get started, another minor disappointment.
Friday we were given an extra chance to try and pass the filesystem requirement. Unfortunately we still didn’t manage to pull through and I received my first ever University fail. Not fun. Luckily though, it didn’t contribute to my final grade.
Today I also started recovering from the whole ‘balagan’ (mess) of the last three weeks and was ready to take some well deserved sleep.
The afternoon was spent with music, both in my singing lesson which, went splendidly and, with Melody Cooke, learning a little piano and teaching a little singing myself.
Shabbat dinner tonight was most enjoyable. Ariella Levine of the OCP (Orthodox Community at Penn) hosted all the Jews doing computer science related majors and minors and I got to spend time with a good number of very interesting people and meet a whole lot more.
Finally, after all that, I sunk into a stupor, not to wake for a long time.