Wednesday/Thursday – Day 97/98
November 12, 2012
Today was back to the usual grind and it was harder than usual after such a long break! The work suddenly piled up again, with assignments coming in from all fronts. To top it off, by this point I was low on sleep, and had been trying to spend as much time with Dad as possible. I barely scraped through my classes today, thoroughly distracted and on my phone for much of them. I only barely made it through the goodbye, and this further stole away my focus.
The evening brought another onslaught of rehearsal and the announcement that the show had been postponed till Friday to allow us time to prepare and tech the show, which despite the hurricane, was coming together quite well. In addition, we were to add a matinee show to our offerings, and hope that the theater would fill up despite the late announcement.
Another part of my day was walk-shifting on Locust Walk, handing out flyers with such slogans as “You think my accent is awesome? Not as awesome as the Penn Glee Club Fall Show” and “Kiss me kangaroo and pickle me ginger – this is something mate, that you don’t want to miss”. Exploiting my accent turned out to be highly profitable and I managed to turn over one hundred flyers in thirty minutes. A record.
Rehearsal tonight ran again very late, with more chances to get close to everyone and enjoy the music and dance. Vanessa Lam, our stage manager and a wonderful, short, Canadian girl was having a hard time keep it all together as madness converged on the theatre, setting us all on edge.
Again, another late night of work followed and very little sleep.
Thursday was much the same, but by this point hell week was really starting to hit me. Physics and Operating Systems, my two harder classes, we both today, and I almost slept right through them. I pushed through some of my remaining work due Friday and slept an hour during the day before again, hitting the rehearsal block at 6. With Dad gone, rehearsals were even harder as I had no good excuse to take me away from the action (not that I so much regretted it). Our performance was improving radically and some of our songs were really getting to the point of excellence. Even our few dance numbers combined with Penn Dance had reached an acceptable level of performance.
Finally, at 1:03, I returned to my room, talked deliriously to Mum and Esther, a close friend back home, and got to sleep around 3:30.
Tuesday – Day 95
Dad was meant to leave today but judging from the look of things outside, no one was moving anywhere fast. As much as the hurricane overnight had left much of Philly safe and sound, the streets were still empty and much of the city was closed. Thankfully, including Penn. I spent the majority of the day again indoors working on the physics problem set due the following week.
After a good number of hours of hard work I received an email, rehearsal was back on in the evening from 4PM all the way past midnight. As much as I enjoy rehearsing with the PGC, so many hours is a bit much, especially on such short notice. However, the long hours did provide a good chance for me to get to know some of the people in Penn Dance a bit better. Of particular note for his awesomeness is Jon Diamond, a linguistics major of great intellect, matched only by his sleek movement and agile frame. His performance of ‘O Death’ wowed us every time and his friendly demeanor made him a pleasure to be around. Of note from the Penn Dance girl side is Jaynie Anguiano, a biology major, who was probably most comfortable with PGC, out of the entire dance crew. She too, is incredibly friendly and a pleasure to work with.
During the course of the evening I did take a larger than usual break for dinner with dad, and though he didn’t have so much time this evening, I was grateful for every minute.
After finally getting home around 1AM, it was hard at work for another hour before finally some sweet sleep.
Sunday – Day 79
October 17, 2012
Until such time as I am in better health, I am going to be spending a little less time writing the blog and a little more time sleeping.
Sunday was another mad day of working and rehearsing, the main issue being the physics problem set due on Tuesday. Along side that, I had prep for an interview on Tuesday night and an Operating Systems midterm that I felt I had little to no time to study for.
On top of all this, today’s rehearsal for Legally Blonde was scheduled from 1:30 to 6:00 with a PGC and Penn Dance collaborative rehearsal set from 6:00 to 9:00. As you can imagine, by the end of this I was quite drained and didn’t quite have the energy to keep going.
I was so stressed out that I even let myself slip a little and played forty-five minutes of a game called ‘Supreme Commander’ that I used to play in Australia with my friends. Immediately after that I switched off the lights, set my alarm, and fell fast asleep.