In Which I Return with A Nap
November 25, 2014
I’ve recently found myself getting tired a lot again of late. I’m not entirely sure what the reason is for it. Perhaps overwork, perhaps too much stressing, not eating properly, or being a little sick. However, on the bus ride home, it exhaustion quickly came over me and I didn’t wake until someone nudged me letting me know we were back at Penn.
Sunday evening was my usual time to spend a few hours working with Luke, and I was glad to be so effective with him. However, I couldn’t keep it up past 11PM and was soon fast asleep.
Monday wasn’t anything special, more lectures, the release of the machine learning homework and more rehearsals. The machine learning project was quite a lot of fun to get started on, and was competitive with a leaderboard keeping track of teams’ progress. Luke, Dagean and I joined forces and weren’t doing too badly as of the start of the competition.
Tuesday was no less hectic, with reading group, piano, and plenty of work. Rehearsal came too soon and as per usual by the time it was over I was completely zonked.
Yom Kippur – Day 62
September 28, 2012
Today I woke up feeling a little worse for the wear, and made it to shul (synagogue) at roughly 10AM, well after the 8:30 start. As could be expected, the majority of the day was spent in prayer, and much to my disappointment most of the tunes were different from those that I had previously heard, forcing me to learn new ones quickly.
In the afternoon I had a brief meeting with Joel Wittwer, the USA Exchange Adviser from the University of Melbourne, who was visiting for a few hours, in order to a) plan my future studies at Penn and b) help encourage Penn students to attend the University of Melbourne on exchange. Aviva Kolosky came with me, and by the time the session finished, we were both so tired that we decided to go for a short walk before returning to mincha/neilah.
Breaking the fast after shule was so so, with the food at the Hillel for once not being so excellent. Thus, afterwards, I made a little sandwich in my room and worked for a few hours before falling exhausted to sleep again.
Tuesday – Day 61
Today was a mad rush! Erev Yom Kippur (the evening before) and I had still so much left to do, plenty to arrange and even more to eat. By this point I was feeling rather ill, with little voice left, and was severely sleep deprived due to the combination of retreat and hours of work.
Thus, I dragged myself through the day, through the various meetings I needed to before heading to Hillel for Seudah (feast) with Michael Altit, a Jewish friend from Sydney. (For those Hineni-ites following, he is best friends with Dee Smith’s sister). After that it was up to my room to prepare punctuated by a brief trip to the fourth floor to borrow a shirt from another Jewish guy below.
Michael and I walked along Locust Walk together at around 6:00 for the minyan at 6:15 and as we did so, many other Jews around us walked too; all to Houston Hall where the orthodox service was being held. Kol Nidrei was packed. I estimate around four hundred student, alums and family members attended the service and as a result there was a strong musical feeling to the service with everyone singing with great fervor. A few Israeli’s left when Ma’ariv started but otherwise it was still packed right through.
After shule I chatted for a while to Aviva Koloski, a new friend from the Hillel and, subsequently realized I need to go to PGC rehearsal. Though it may not have been a particularly traditional thing to do on a Yom Kippur, I figured acapella singing is one of the few things that are actually permitted on the day and so excepted myself to leave. However, this turned out not to be so wise as rehearsal ran for five hours, and with a sore throat, no food, no drink and no water, I felt like I was about to perish by the end of the musical marathon.
I trudged back up to my room, lay my head down on my pillow and, instantly fell asleep.