Thursday/Friday – Day 213/214
March 6, 2013
Thursday morning was a complete and utter disaster. Yet despite this I really really enjoyed my day. I woke up on three hours of sleep to go to physics, definitely a bad idea, and from there, straight to my demo and assessment for my networking group project. Needless to say, we didn’t go too well, failing a number of the more difficult tests. I was a bit cut up.
The afternoon however was awesome. First up was a PGC gig singing to the board of trustees, as one of their number was retiring. We were hailed with large smiles and for me, a wink and a smile from Dean Keytack of Rodin. After that I gave Melody Cooke a call and headed over to the music building to find her practising her singing. After a while with the piano, I walked with her while she polished off a few errands and then presented to her the piano in Sweeten Alumni House (a beautiful Boston grand) before running out to Lover’s and Madmen for a hot chocolate and her lunch.
After a few hours of chatting it was a quick dinner and then another gig for the larger dinner for trustees and donors. Though our performance number was short (SATB version of the Red and the Blue), the mixed company of males and females (provided by the girls of Quaker Notes) was somewhat revelatory. Following that we got changed and a few of us went to a sushi bar where some of the guys did ‘sake bombs’ (don’t even ask). After that it was back to my room for one of the longest night sleeps I’ve had since leaving home. Perfect.
Friday I woke up somewhere around midday, coded a little in the afternoon, chatted to friends, prepared dinner for the evening, read a little and then went straight back to sleep. The way I needed my holiday.
Thursday/Friday – Day 112/113
November 21, 2012
Today was thankfully the last of the days of torture…
I arose today from my slumber hardly rested at all. I mas as well have not been in physics and, I missed my Operating Systems class to try and help out Deepthi and Jonothan, who, had unfortunately not completed their part of their assignment, the filesystem. Deepthi had been sick for a while and this had impacted their ability to contribute but it was still disappointing when it came time to demo our project and we didn’t have anything to show for a good 50% of it.
More than that I had made a tiny error in the code which prolonged the length of time it took for our demo to get started, another minor disappointment.
Friday we were given an extra chance to try and pass the filesystem requirement. Unfortunately we still didn’t manage to pull through and I received my first ever University fail. Not fun. Luckily though, it didn’t contribute to my final grade.
Today I also started recovering from the whole ‘balagan’ (mess) of the last three weeks and was ready to take some well deserved sleep.
The afternoon was spent with music, both in my singing lesson which, went splendidly and, with Melody Cooke, learning a little piano and teaching a little singing myself.
Shabbat dinner tonight was most enjoyable. Ariella Levine of the OCP (Orthodox Community at Penn) hosted all the Jews doing computer science related majors and minors and I got to spend time with a good number of very interesting people and meet a whole lot more.
Finally, after all that, I sunk into a stupor, not to wake for a long time.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 88/89
October 26, 2012
I woke up today to my final beautiful morning of holidays, again quite late. The order of play for the morning was to get another good bulk of work out of the way before enjoying my afternoon. I opened up my Ruby project and got so caught up in working I hardly noticed lunch time pass me by until, I received an SMS from Paul G. of the Penn Glee Club, wanting to know if I was free for a late lunch. Off to Sitar again we went!
In my interview with Paul I much enjoyed our discussion on mathematics, as with his talents in the area he had many interesting thoughts to share. Additionally, as a long standing oldman of the group he had a better insight into some of the people in it than did many of the others I had interviewed.
Following lunch I met up with Melody Cooke (of skateboarding goat fame) and went to go find an appropriate grand piano for her to teach me how to play and me to teach her how to sing. Unfortunately I was running a little low on time as I’d promised Alexis, a close friend from Hillel, that I would have dinner with her and Arianna. Dinner at Hillel was not nearly so exciting but, it was my last chance to chill before getting back into the routine as at 9PM there was the regular scheduled PGC rehearsal till 12.
One particularly exciting thing that came out of this rehearsal was the presentation of a new piece for our fall show. However, it was a piece that I know well by the name of ‘Baba Yetu’, an arrangement of the swahili text to the Lord’s Prayer, composed for the opening title of ‘Civilization IV’, a computer strategy game.
Wednesday the stress ramped right back up again as I received a number of major assignments to be completed within the next cycle of work. Of particular note was the release of the specification for PennOS, the operating system that I will be building for one of my classes. It is expected to take the remainder of semester and must be completed in group of four. It seemed very daunting. Additionally I received another physics problem set and another programming assignment for algorithms.
The evening was not nearly so exciting as I had another regular PGC rehearsal and what was meant to be a gig but without my dry cleaning that was a few hours late, I couldn’t perform. Following rehearsal I had an interview with Baker Beers, a lovely Texan guy who was really down to earth. Had a great and unfortunately too short meal before getting lost on my way to the Performing Arts Workshop where I had hours of work to fulfill for the Penn Signers.
I arrived half and hour late, sweaty and tired from running around looking for it but soon got to work with putty and a knife filling cracks in various items. Over the course of my two hours there I also had a lovely time chatting to Suzie from Korea who came to the US with a passion for performing arts, something she couldn’t satiate at home. After most of the time had elapsed I switched onto painting a door and was finally set free to go back to Rodin and work for as many hours as I could.
At 1AM I skyped a close friend from home and we talked for around an hour, making me quite happy, but very tired and before I knew it, I was back in bed and fast asleep.