Tuesday/ Wednesday – Day 189/190
February 10, 2013
Approaching two hundred days… I’ve already been gone more than half a year now. I’m definitely missing home. Despite all the opportunity there are some things that can’t be found at Penn. To the people in Melbourne I love, don’t worry, I’m coming home eventually.
Tuesday was a bit of a nightmare. I accidentally pulled an all nighter, preparing work for the next day. As the hours grew later and later, my work remained unfinished and I just keep pushing myself harder and harder. Rehearsals meant I had only arrived back to my room at around midnight and was already tired.
Wednesday was my first ever OCR experience. ‘OCR’ for those of you not from the states, is ‘on campus recruiting’, a method by which pre-professional students, desperate to be noticed, flirt with companies of (sometimes ill) repute. A fancy way of me saying that it’s essentially on campus interviewing for the financial services industry. This means everyone dressed up in suits, desperately trying to stand out by blending in. My interview however was for a technical position at a firm that though financial had a number of good notes to their name. Again, if you want to hear more about it, send me a message. For the meantime, I’d rather keep my experiences interviewing with various companies off the public avenue. The interview went well and was mostly enjoyable. I struggled over a few questions but overall I felt I made the right impression. Following that I pretty much slept through my afternoon classes, being still short from the previous night.
That evening I stayed mostly clear of working too hard, as I was a little burnt out from the last few days. To that extent I decided I would go visit a certain friend in Rodin, who had a tendency to clean whenever I came over. I sent her a message asking if she was free and she said she was just on her way back and that she’d shortly send me a text. That done, I decided to work for a while in the Hillel and, after twenty minutes when it closed and I still received no text, I headed to Rodin. There I ran into another friend who I had reason to believe was avoiding me and so, to side-step any discomfort, I removed myself from where I was sitting and went downstairs to see if the pianos were free. Unfortunately they weren’t but I did run into one of the vocalists from Dischord (a college acapella group) who had greatly impressed me at one of their performances and let her know as much. So I sat down to work for a little until my power ran out. Still receiving no message, I decided to text the girl and find out what was going on, she as per usual, was awfully busy and hadn’t time for me yet. Thankfully though, at that moment the piano room was freed up and I had a little time to play before I received a message at 11:30 that my friend was finally free.
I went up to chat with her and she made me tea, before letting me know that she had something to tell me. She struggled a bit with it before it came out that she’d been seeing someone and was both nervous and excited for it. Just as she’d gotten that out of the way, there was a knock at the door and, who was it but the boy in question! She giggled madly, and I smiled politely, tea in hand as the boy at the door walked in a little bewildered and nonplussed. I stay round to befriend him for a while before heading back with a smile on my face, happy for them both.
Shabbat/Sunday – 153/154
January 1, 2013
Shabbat was super relaxed and gave me the opportunity to get through a whole stack of books! I consumed four over the weekend of various qualities. All thrillers. For some reason I didn’t quite have it in me to tackle anything more serious.
Sunday on the other hand was pretty exciting for me because I got to hang out with Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, a good friend from home. First stop of the day was to MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art in midtown Manhattan. We spent a good few hours there, and though it wasn’t the cheapest gallery on offer, it was well worth it in my opinion.
Of particular note in the gallery was ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch, around which a thick crowd gathered to take photos. Amongst the pieces I enjoyed most were those of Rousseau and Monet. However, aside from the large collection of paintings, the museum also had varied displays on contemporary art.
From there we went to eat lunch, some yummy Sushi, and then to the Eugene O’Neil Theatre to see if we could get Ariel in for the evening’s production of ‘The Book of Mormon’. Unfortunately we didn’t win the ticket lottery, however, we did manage to secure tickets to a performance of another show, ‘Bare’. The show followed the story of two young gay men in a Catholic high school. One who wanted to ‘come out of the closet’ and the other who was ashamed of his sexuality and feared the repercussions of making his identity public. Overall the show was excellently written barring a few clichés that ultimately spoiled it for me. The music was upbeat and pop-py in the first act, with a number of good tunes, however in the second darker act, the music tended a little to the melodramatic.
Overall, worth going to see, especially with tickets priced at the $30 mark.
After that, did the usual and headed home on the subway for a good nights rest.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 152/153
December 28, 2012
Finally back in a low stress environment with the girls, Sophie and Tzippy (my little cousins) and, though I don’t celebrate it, this made the perfect Christmas. After waking up at 9AM and spending a little time mucking about with them, we headed off to the Museum of Jewish Heritage near Battery Park.
The museum was quite enjoyable, though we hung around a while longer than was strictly necessary to cater to the girls wishes. After that we went home and baked cookies together (from premade cookie dough this time, not as much fun!) and read stories before dinner and bed.
The next day was dreary outside, with ice, sleet, rain and snow pouring down onto the frozen New York Streets. Thus, I spent much of the day inside with the girls, playing the usual games and taking a little time to myself to read and nap.
In the evening I decided to brave the inclement weather in order to catch up with an old friend from Melbourne working in the city, one Elyse Borghi. Over a vegan kosher dinner we discussed America, politics, feminism and college life and as always she was most enlightening.From there we tried walking in the rain to one of many pop up speakeasys that are experiencing a revival, but unfortunately they were full up, making us somewhat fed up of being soaked and chilled to the bone. Thus an early night for both of us, we made haste to get to the subway and home.