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.
In Which I Prepare For The Best and The Worst
November 2, 2014
Friday was mostly dedicated to preparing for the midterm. However, preparation went sub optimally and eventually resulted in me taking a significantly long nap. Pipers rehearsal in the afternoon was cancelled, and this didn’t help my productivity as I just went back to sleep.
Friday night I made it to shul on time, for a beautiful kabbalat shabbat. Unfortunately I couldn’t hang around for dinner as I was due to be singing for Amy Gutmann and some prestigious alumni for homecoming weekend with the Glee Club. The gig was a lot of fun and afterwards I had the chance to talk with some of the higher ups at Penn and a number of visiting dignitaries. After the gig I was well tired enough to head home and go straight to sleep.
The next day was all gigs again! We started off with a brief rendition of some Penn songs for the ‘old guard’, more elderly Penn Alumni. We then sung ‘Shenandoah’ for a memorial service and waited around outside for the service to conclude so that we could sing a closing piece. The memorial service ran late, and so I was picked as part of a quartet to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ while the rest of club went off to our subsequent gig. The quartet sung decently, however we lacked a little confidence given the surprise.
The following gig was less thrilling, just standard repertoire but finished in enough time to leave me to go home, each lunch and take a nap before the final performance of the day.
Our last performance was outdoors and the cold and rain, but the space we were in was almost like a natural auditorium and I really enjoyed singing a few choice songs with the alumni present.
In the evening, I relaxed at home, until at about 11PM I went out to the glouse to see if anyone was around and playing the game of thrones board game as promised. When no one was there, I detoured to Platt to pick up Pearl and walk her across campus to a party she was going to. I returned to my room and promptly went to sleep, only to be woken up at 1AM by a friend in need. I raced over to help them out, but ended up sleeping a little less than I had intended.
Sunday I slept in a little, before realizing I was running late and raced over to rehearsal for Penn Pipers. Rehearsal was ok, though we had a lot of work to do. After rehearsal I raced off to the PhD basement to study for the algorithms midterm. I realized that I was less prepared that i would’ve ideally liked to be. We studied for a few hours, and then exhausted I walked back home. After yet another nap, I arranged to eat with Rigel and Nikki, before celebrating our birthdays with our traditional whiskey.
Then again, it was back to my room to chill for a little, some more study, and then an early night before the midterm the next day.
Fall Break – Sukkot
October 20, 2014
Following two disastrous midterms, one of which I may or may not have failed, I finally had a few minutes to myself. Sukkot (the festival of booths) and Fall Break. Given my server issues and how far behind I am post wise, I’ll spare some of the details but needless to say despite the large workload I was presented with for the break, I did manage to get a little sleep over the first two days.
Meals were mainly at Chabad with Rabbi Levi and Nechama Haskelevich. Nechama was from Melbourne originally and as a result of my presence and that of another guest, we ended up with a substantial Aussie presence in the sukkah, which automatically made me feel much more at home. Gedaliah, the other visiting Australian, was a fascinating character. The holder of multiple masters degrees and a worker in the NYC financial work, Gedaliah had grown up in Melbourne and had most recently completed an ultra-marathon in the Sahara Desert.
For both the first and second days I pretty much slept the entire time, reading my textbooks in between. I quite looked forward to the dinners, and it gave me a reason to get out of bed. However, the rest was most certainly appreciated.