In Which I Am Stricken
November 4, 2014
Today I woke up and immediately knew something was wrong. Some organism had crawled inside my through and dragged a spiny wire mesh along my throat causing inflammation and a little pain. Nevertheless I endeavored to do my best to keep my day as regular as possible.
First up, I read an interesting paper and wrote a quick report on it, before racing over to the music building for a few minutes practice before my lesson later that day.
Next was another great physics lecture on the Feynmann Path Integral, in which we derived classical mechanics from a particular beautiful formulation of quantum mechanics. It also presented us with a new form of integral (over a function space), and a beautiful time and space symmetric formulation of the principle of least action.
Following the lecture was a quick visit to the doctor’s office, followed by a meeting of IPOG (International Partners Outreach Group) – a Penn committee of all stakeholders in Penn’s global presence. While the presentations went slowly, it was worthwhile to meet with many important university administrators and learn about the varied roles they play at Penn.
My piano lesson was enjoyable as always but I felt I had so far to go, despite having worked hard the past week.
I took a nap in the late afternoon, in an attempt to kickstart my recovery process and woke up two hours later to do some research. Dinner was a meeting at Hillel with Joseph Ooi, to talk about security related projects and catch up a little before rehearsal.
Rehearsal itself that evening was very taxing on me due to my weakened state and so I left a little early to recuperate and so as not to do myself any more damage. After a few quick tasks, it was bed again, hopefully for a long sleep.
Monday/Tuesday – Day 80/81
October 19, 2012
Monday and Tuesday were both huge work days!
Monday I was up early working on a physics problem set before the recitation (tutorial) at 9AM and struggled with more electrodynamics. At ten was my usual algorithms class in which we finally covered mergesort, which was good for me as I had an interview scheduled for Tuesday in which I’d expected I’d need at least one sorting algorithm.
Tuesday also had scheduled a midterm for my operating systems class, but distracted by the Physics and interview prep I hardly had a chance to study for it.
Monday night was the usual rehearsal timetable, first a few hours of Glee, followed by an hour break to catch dinner and then two hours of University Choral Society. However, I was feeling so sick at this point that I notified Joseph Ooi, in charge of the roster for Glee Club and, let him know I wouldn’t be making it that night.
Dinner was at Hillel with a bunch of the Glee Club guys including Scott Ventre, who told some fantastic stories about his prior years at college but, before he could finish I had to run off to choir rehearsal. I walked to rehearsal with Thea Walton, a lovely girl from Perth and had a fantastic catch up with her. Rehearsal was filled with my coughs and I was so glad to get back to my room and too sleep.
Tuesday was a bit of a nightmare and full of stress. In terms of the physics work, I only managed the most basic set of questions. For the Operating Systems exam I found little more time to study and the test was significantly harder and longer than I expected. After Operating System, I had rehearsal till 7PM when my interview was.
The interview was a great experience with challenging but satisfying questions that though I didn’t feel like I answered particularly well, I at least showed the way I approach questions which I thought was too my advantage.
Following the interview there was the awful 9-12 PGC rehearsal and again, I felt too sick to make it to all of the rehearsal and ended up leaving at 11PM to get an earlier nights rest.