In Which My Calendar Is Abused
September 16, 2014
Today’s schedule was fairly intense, with my first scheduled break appearing at 11PM.
The morning was a fierce bout of work, aiming to complete some of my homework for physics and machine learning (which was taking far more than the expected number of hours). I was realizing that my skills in probability and statistics left much to be desired for graduate coursework. The lineup following that was my usual physics class, which I had now resolved to understand but not to complete all the homework for.
After a quick lunch, it was time for a fuller piano lesson. For forty-five minutes I had a great time learning new chord progressions and a new song, felt like with a bit of practice and some guidance I’d be able to make progress much more quickly than I had previously been doing. Unfortunately I had to truncate the lesson for a meeting with the dietitian, which, while helpful, provided me with advice that I found very hard to follow. My schedule was really too hectic and I needed to do something about that before anything else.
From the appointment I set about arranging an event for the CIS PhDs in mid October. I had to fill out a whole bunch of forms for room bookings and to get permission to serve alcohol at the event as Philadelphia and the University regulations were quite tight.
After finishing a few more hours in the lab, I went to the Graduate Student Center for an event with Graduate Hillel, and met a few nice new students, who though small in number were high in quality. There was a fairly even gender balance however it was highly slanted towards Masters and Professional degrees with me being the only PhD student in the room.
Dinner was a little more relaxed this evening, but following it was a full three hour PGC rehearsal that lasted until 11! I worked until a little after midnight before sinking in to bed from a busy day.
In Which I Am Overcome
September 12, 2014
Today’s discovery was really that I had been taking too much on. In between Glee Club, visiting all the career fairs, research, Hillel, involvement with computer science and a whole lot of other commitments that had not yet started, I had well and truly put myself in an unfeasible position. This was most evident from my lag in the physics course and the feeling that everything was a bit out of control.
I had a full load of classes from 10:30 to 3PM and subsequently attended the security reading group. It was good fun, but I could feel myself slipping behind on homework. No sooner had I sat down to complete some of it than it was time for rehearsal, Glee Club as per usual. When I was all danced out, a quick dinner at Hillel and then I was off again to Fisher-Bennet for more rehearsals! This time for the University Choir singing Dixit Dominus and a few Bruckner motets. Rehearsal started late and ran late. By the time I got back to my room I was wholly exhausted and hadn’t even started on my assigned work. After a long night up at the computer and solving equations, I realized something had to change.
In Which I Whine and Dine
September 9, 2014
The next few days were high on work and thankfully a little lower in outside commitments. I solved a few more problems for cryptography, got to work on some physics and managed a few last logistical things.
Wednesday night held the ‘whine and cheese’ reception for PGC, an event that since the introduction of strict liquor laws for those under 21 has been sorely lacking in wine, replaced with ‘whine’. With guest appearances from alumni and our honorary members, this event and subsequent rehearsal was most enjoyable, despite my harried appearance, racing back from the engineering buildings after some failed experimentation.
Thursday was kind of nightmarish with my discovery that the physics assignment with the printed due day of the next Thursday was in fact due that morning at 10:30AM. After a quick discussion with the professor it became clear that in the first class, which I had missed due to enrollment issues, he had informed the class of the error. I was granted an extension, however, I now had two sets of physics assignments due for a weeks time. Both of which would require many hours of work. At this point I considered dropping the course but decided after some thought that given my passion for it, it was not worth dropping it at the first sign of trouble.
The other significant event on Thursday was the Engineering Careers fair which I visited primarily for the purpose of visiting Connie Ho and Amalia Hawkins, two Penn Alums that were there recruiting and friends of mine from before.
Thursday night I stayed in to cram as much physics work down my throat as possible, meeting some success but not sufficient. It was going to be a long week.