In Which I Go Out On the Town
October 13, 2014
The next day was another long sleep in. More board games and relaxing and then a walk back to Chabad fourty-five minutes away. The Friday night service was pleasant but not nearly as wonderful as the Rosh Hashana ones. Dinner however, was even better than the time before. More new friends and a few more exciting occurrences.
The first amusing moment was when the Rebbetzin moved me from my seat to ensure that I wasn’t sitting amongst women other than the one that was ‘mine’, ie; Rocky. This was already a little amusing however, it escalated far more when the Rabbi started to give a speech about welcoming ‘the new couple in town’ and Rocky yelled out “we’re not dating!”. Her face turned bright red as the Rabbi addressed her and informed her that he was in fact speaking of a couple on the other side of the room.
The other great moment of the night was the sing-off, initiated by the Rabbi when he discovered that a number of people in the room were semi-professional musicians. First off we heard a little upbeat pop music, followed by a rap about a guy’s movement towards Judaism. I then sung ‘Fly Me To the Moon’, that was very well received. Following me, the Rabbi’s son sung a song by Jewish RnB artist Matisyahu and Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim, which almost brought Rocky to tears. However, the highlight of the night was the performance by a man into his eighties singing “How Lucky Am I” to his wife, crooning beautifully with the voice left to him at his age.
After many hours hanging out, we helped reset the room for services in the house the next day and then walked back to the apartment, tired again, but happy.
The next day we continued our track record of sleeping in, Rocky missing her Yoga class yet again. When we woke up, we madly prepared for lunch as guests were to be arriving at 1PM. I was excited to meet some of Rocky’s friends and she told me about them as we prepared. Just after the o’clock, there was a knock on the door and a average height, blonde girl walked in the door with a smile. I soon learnt here name was Jeannine and from her accent guessed she was Dutch. I asked her and she seemed pleased that I was able to figure out where she was from correctly without any more guessing.
Next walked in two Norwegians, Erik Ericsson and his girlfriend whose name escapes me. She was a little worried about the lack of meat at our meal but they had both brought beer along so that at least we’d be ‘doing something right’.
The final guests to arrive was an apartments worth of guys with whom Rocky had stayed before she was able to find a room. They were all relatively chilled, though didn’t stay for too long after lunch.
Following the meal, everyone left sat around to play Settlers again, with Rocky narrowly missing out on the victory, which instead passed to Jeannine. I had originally assumed that she was around Rocky’s age, but learned soon after the game that she was in fact only a few months from my age and not yet a PhD student.
After the game, Jeannine was the only one who hang around, and we chatted for a few hours until Shabbat ended. When it did, Rocky suddenly went into overdrive getting dressed up fancily and arranging plans for the evening. We weren’t told exactly where we were going but she pulled Jeannine and I into an Uber and we were off. After a somewhat meandering route, we arrived at a fancy apartment at the party of one of Rocky’s friends. I won’t spill all the details publicly but it was quite exciting and again, we met many new people.
The View from the Apartment
Next destination was a fancy restaurant with a few celebrities on the loose around us. We stayed a while, having drinks of various varieties while I chatted mostly to Jeannine (Rocky was off at the center of attention). From that location we were whisked off again by Rocky, this time to a club with a line that wasn’t moving anywhere fast. After a little maneuver pulled by Rocky and her friends, we were soon inside. Clubs definitely aren’t my normal destination, but I had a fairly good time despite that. After we danced away a few more hours, it was back in a cab home and given the time Jeannine came back too.
From Left: Jeannine, Me, Rocky
Back at the apartment we chilled for a little while and Rocky brought out her guitar. We sang a number of songs to Jeannine, ranging from Missy Higgins to a really nice mashup of ‘Radioactive’ and ‘Pumped Up Kicks’. Finally, after about an hour of music we were all ready to drop our heads and fall fast asleep.
Thursday – Day 48
September 10, 2012
BREAKING NEWS: Shaanan was accepted into the Penn Singers, the premier Light Opera/ Musical Company at Penn. As such he was partying tonight and didn’t have time for an extensive post.
Today was an all new set of classes! First up was Electrodynamics I, a post-vector calculus, Junior level physics course (PHYS320). The class was full of around forty older kids and not particularly warm and friendly. The material was difficult and the lecturer got right into it. Homework was set immediately, a series of vector calculus revision exercises that taxed my brain a fair amount. I will need to get plenty of help with that.
Next up was Operating Systems, a slightly larger class (CS380) with around fifty students. The class required an advanced knowledge of the C programming language and our first assignment was handed out immediately: writing a shell for the Linux operating system. Difficult but doable.
Finally was my random class Russian, which today went well, learning a bit more of the alphabet and the difference between the two kinds of vowels, hard and soft. Stay turned for more details.
The afternoon I coded away at the Operating Systems project, not even stopping when it was time to leave for my night activity at 6. I knew there was a second bus leaving and decided to wait for that instead.
At 6:30 I headed downstairs for ‘The Rodin Sophomore Cruise’. The bus arrived at the port at around 7:00PM and after a minute we were informed that the second bus had in fact refused to start and that we might be waiting a bit longer till we set a-sail. Half an hour passed and the remainder of the supposed attendees didn’t show. Rumours passed around and it was eventually made clear to us that the original bus too had gotten stuck along the way. Finally at around eight thirty, the last of them arrived and we finally left port. The cruise was most enjoyable and I even got to dancing, after a little prodding. Highlight of the trip was meeting a very friendly girl by the name of Stephanie from my building too and a musician by the name of Rigel from my floor.
After we returned it was quickly back to my room and, exhausted I was soon fast asleep.
<RODIN CRUISE>