Hell Week, Part 2 – Thursday, Friday, Shabbat
February 20, 2013
Thursday was the most singing I’ve ever done in a single day. At 8AM I woke up as the singing was to begin at 8:45 for Valentines Day. I was scheduled from 8:45 to 4PM on Singing Valentines, whereby quartets comprised of PGC members would deliver Valentine’s Day messages in song, during class, to those whose loved one’s had donated a given sum to habitat for humanity. In four separate quartets, I raced from building to building, from class to class, singing my heart out for all “My Honey”ies, “My Valentine”s, “My Little Margie”s and to members of faculty, staff, and students. Highlights were as follows: singing at Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and Aunty Anne’s Pretzel’s and PGC members receiving free food from them. Singing for the elderly head of the Chemistry Department (Madeline Joillet) and of course singing for “her majesty” Amy Gutmann, President of The University of Pennsylvania. Embarassingly enough, a quote of me calling her, “her majesty” even made the Daily Pennsylvanian. I can only hope she didn’t read it.
Following all the normal shifts, I was then on a shift for Phone Valentine’s for those to whom we were unable to deliver in person. These included two good friends back home. Phone shift went all the way till 5:30 a which point I raced home, changed, ate a little something and then headed off to full rehearsal at the Zellerbach Auditiorium.
Rehearsal again ran well past midnight, and left me more than half dead. I think I’m truly beginning to understand the meaning of incorporeal.
Friday I thankfully had no classes, but to make up for the lack of things for me to do, of course, I had another walkshift at 10AM. I managed to quickly run out of Penn Glee Club flyers and so, while waiting for my shift to end, I decided to help out the Pan Asian Dance Troupe in advertising their show, “Revenge”. There I met a sweet girl by the name of Donna, who was somewhat bemused with my marketing techniques.
The afternoon was spent grading homework for CIS121 that I had thus far neglected, and I only just managed in time for our staff meeting. After the staff meeting, I had only just enough time for Kabbalat Shabbat, before I was off to the theatre for our very first performance!
It was well received, much the same with the matinee performance. However, after the two, I was thoroughly exhausted!
In the afternoon, there was the Glee Club Graduate Club reception, where we sung a few songs from our standard repetoire, however, unfortunately I was fairly out of practice with a number of the pieces.
Our final performance Motzei Shabbat, was filled with members from the OCP (Orthodox Jewish Community at Penn) and I felt very well supported. A few tears came to my eyes as I was asked to speak along with the seniors, on what it felt like to be partaking in my final show.
Following the end of the show, we had ‘strike’, taking apart the set and emptying the theatre. This took us till around 1AM at which point the cast party began. Mark Glassman and Erik Nordgren, an old alum and our conductor respectively were both present and helped add to the environment. Mark’s ‘roast’ was particularly entertaining, and though I wasn’t savaged quite enough, it was still hugely enjoyable. Finally at around 3AM, hell week came to a close and my eyes were laid to rest.
Friday – Day 84
October 22, 2012
Friday morning I woke up not so wonderfully, but the weather was too nice and the workload too light for the day not to be wonderful. I made it through my classes in the day and had another helpful singing lesson! Rehearsal for Legally Blonde was cancelled in the afternoon, providing me with more free time to go do some pre-Shabbat shopping and just enjoy myself a little.
Shul was at chabad with a tiny minyan, turns out the entire OCP (orthodox community at penn) had left for fall break, which started today! Thus, I had not planned for food on Friday night, expecting to eat at Hillel which, unfortunately was closed. Thankfully Alyse, a Drexel student, opened up her home to me and I ate dinner with Arianna, Alexis and Zack, some of my favorite people at Penn. After a lovely dinner and a good walk with them it was time for a good, long, sleep.
Friday – Day 77
October 15, 2012
The dreaded lurgy hath returned! I’m currently quite sick and so don’t have the same amount of energy to put into blogging that I normally do. Lest to say, Friday was tiring. Evidently having a drink or two, working for a few hours and then sleeping for two more isn’t a wise strategy for good health. I barely survived Friday’s classes and then rehearsal from four to six nearly killed me.
Following that it was a quick performance with the PGC for International Ivy League students before swallowing a quick Shabbat dinner and going to meet Jonathan who was still struggling with the project. Due to Shabbat I couldn’t really code anything and so I helped him to find bugs in our code that was due at 10PM. Needless to say it was a bit of a failure and we ended up submitting a half baked project. Fingers crosses we still do ok.
After that we and a few other students went up to my apartment to drink a little of the Australian wine I had bought for my birthday and then after a glass each, all returned to get some sleep.