Wednesday/Thursday – Day 254/255
April 16, 2013
Wednesday I woke up even worse for the weather. My body was telling me it was time to get more sleep. I slept in a little and then at 10AM headed down to the Moore labs to work with Charu Jangid on some homework due later that day. She showed up pretty late as always but this time I had been expecting it and so wasn’t too unprepared.
Once the work was done we headed to class but soon realized that given that the TAs were lecturing, we weren’t going to gain much out of being there, so we headed out for lunch together. As we arrived at the counter of the chocolate artisserie, Charu realized that her wallet was missing and sped off to find it, leaving me alone with two hot chocolates.
By the time she got back (without her stolen wallet), it was time for my security class. Again, nothing special today but the professor mentioned that he wanted to speak to me again soon. I wondered about what but thought it would definitely be wise to go ahead.
Following that, I had a little time to get a little sleep, texting Joseph to let him know I was too sick for the first bit of rehearsal. At 5:30 I woke up for a quick dinner at Hillel before a Time to Shine Rehearsal. That was disastrous for me as it required me to exert my voie and certainly didn’t make me feel any better. Pretty much as soon as it was up I headed to bed, my work left stagnant on the table.
Thursday I wasn’t feeling much better and a little disappointed that I was sick at this time. Spring Fling, the most important student party of the year, was just around the corner and I wasn’t up to attending. The OCP was hosting a fantastic dinner and I was worried that I wouldn’t even be able to make that.
Most of the day passed in a blur, Physics in the morning, plenty of work in the afternoon, and another nap. I was intent on. Additionally Thursday afternoon we held another TA meeting in which plenty of work was divvied out. I got back to my room and set to work until a message from JHo arrived inviting me to go see Avenue Q with him. I gladly agreed to go and had a wonderful evening enjoying Vanessa Lam as Christmas Eve and Anya Lichtenstien as Kate Monster (the best performer of the evening).
After that it was back to bed in an attempt to recover on time for the weekend.
Monday – Day 224
March 14, 2013
Surprisingly today worked out pretty well. Though I only got to bed at 5AM, I was up early, 3 hours later, for physics recitation! Not fun. However, it went decently well, material was understandable. Next was a few hours of work on the project, multitasking with completing all the rest of my homework due the same day. Thankfully, due to a few last minutes saves on my behalf, I rescued the security project from utter disaster.
Just in time made it to networking (where I promptly fell asleep), and security, which was now on the science of crypto. Following that, I had a phone conversation with a company for whom I may be working with over the US summer and the hastily prepared my lab. The lab itself went fine today, nothing special though and it felt a little underwhelming. I’ll need to correct that for next time.
Rehearsal for Glee had me pretty drained, and even though I was late it seemed to run for ages. Choral society pushed me even further, and I seriously considered leaving half way. Brahm’s Requiem just barely kept me going. Trying to get the project out took me another few hours and it was 3AM by the time I got to bed.
Recovery – Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Day 201/202/203
February 25, 2013
So began my third century of days at Penn. Though it may have been assumed that this week would be any quieter than the last, it was in fact, almost as tumultuous, albeit not in such an exciting way.
Sunday was first and foremost a day of sleep. After hell week, there was no way my body could tolerate even another few hours straight without sleep and so, my bed took me, clothes and all, too much needed repose. Then, it was down to work.
The first item that needed completion was more of the group project for networking, which unfortunately was going rather slowly. I thoroughly dislike group projects primarily due to a consistent imbalance in contributions from the various group members.
Alongside this, I needed to plan my recitation for the next day, and I spent a good hour wracking my brains for a way to make midterm revision fun.
At around 3AM I treated myself to bed, and slept right through till my lecture at midday on Monday. Thankfully I made it that far. However, recently I’ve felt attending lectures hasn’t been so worthwhile as the pace is thoroughly relaxed. That is not to say that the courses are ‘too easy’, as the workload is sufficient to bury even the most intrepid of code explorers.
Following Networking and Security, I headed down to CVS to make the purchases I needed to run my class (a bag of chocolates and some envelopes) and set about preparing. My lab this week was a ‘training camp’ for an upcoming ‘midterm battle’ the coming Thursday. Up on the board were a series of envelopes, one per two people. My ‘troops’ chose strike team names and then raced to the board to collect a mission for their team. In five minute increments they were then asked to solve the ‘mission’ within the envelope and return it back to base. For correct answers mission control responded with a ‘mission dossier’ (envelope) filled with a chocolate. For incorrect they received a message. Finally, following the completion of all the missions, there was a post-operational briefing, reviewing all the missions. From what I gathered, it was relatively successful, marred only by the addition of a number of students to the class, leading to a miscalculation on needed envelopes and missions on my part.
After class, rehearsal was cancelled so I went to a panel on Tech Internships with Vivian Huang, a fellow TA, and Louis, a friend from CIS-121 last semester. Then it was to a quick dinner before Brahms’ Requiem rehearsal in which both Thea and Steph Li were distinctly missing. Then back to work to finish off some more homeworks till 5AM.
Tuesday I let myself slip a little, though in such an enjoyable way. Following my torture hour of physics (taken my a substitute PhD student this class) I was walking back to Hillel and Sweeten Alumni House, with its Steinway, caught my eye. I was hooked and, for the next two hours, I was stuck in Sweeten playing to my heart’s content on a beautiful instrument. Later that afternoon I caught up for an hour on some sleep, before auditioning for a big upcoming Penn event (still a little secret). The judge for this particular audition was the wonderful Shaun Altman, fellow tribesman and founder of Rockapella. I have great respect for him and auditioned partially just for the opportunity to meet him! The audition went well, but it was definitely more a part for a low tenor, going up to a good F# on the high-end.
And, back to usual, Glee rehearsal, though, tonight was a meeting; a post-mortem for the show. Taking over three hours, we commented on almost every possible element on the show, from rehearsal to our director, nothing escaped unscathed.
Back to my room after for, you guessed it, another late night working. Boy, Penn students need more sleep.