In Which I Suit Up For The Heat
September 8, 2014
Today was boiling hot and stiflingly humid. I dressed for the weather in the morning and attended physics, trying my best to make friends with a few of my classmates.
After class I walked back to Hillel for lunch and during my meal received an urgent text message. I was required at Platt Performing Arts Center for Glee callbacks, so that I could help demonstrate quartet singing. This required me to dress up in full suit and bow tie, which given the sun beating down, was not the most ideal of outfits.
Following my dress change, I speed walked over to Hill House to meet a potential piano instructor for lessons this semester. The first meeting went pretty well and I was looking forward to actually learning to play properly for the first time. However, the entire time, I was sweating in my outfit and must have looked quite amusing to the instructor who was in jeans and a tshirt.
Much of my afternoon was spent singing the same song over and over, trying to maintain nuance for the different auditionees. After that was over, I had a brief break for dinner at Hillel, followed by Newman night. A ritual of induction that I won’t go into on this forum.
The night ended surprisingly early with our intro social event starting ahead of time. This left me a few moments to gather myself before another nights rest.
In Which I Overcommit
September 4, 2014
Today was my first physics class. I was excited to begin quantum mechanics, yet, when I arrived it turned out I had already missed a full hour of class the previous day. Unbeknownst to me, while I was sorting out my enrollment, the first tutorial slot had already been filled by a lecture! However, given the fact that I had just recently completed my degree in physics, it was not to difficult to catch up on the few bits of linear algebra revision I had missed.
Following the lecture, I returned to Hillel for lunch and browsed the student activities fair. The student activities fair was a giant array of tables and stalls set out along locust walk, with every student group represented. I signed up to pretty much everything, wanting to gather information on all the opportunities available on campus. In retrospect I probably signed up to a few too many and would later start un-signing myself from a number of clubs that I prematurely joined.
At 7PM I raced back to my room for the ‘hall meeting’ in which I met the ‘graduate associate’ for my floor, an adviser from the graduate body who provides pastoral care and support to all the residents. The meeting was uneventful but not un-enjoyable and Karen, the GA was very relaxed. Soon after I sprinted over to the Annenberg Performing Arts center for a sound check to arrange an upcoming concert, and following that to Ware College house for another hour long gig. This gig was particularly high on energy and the numbers that I wasn’t in all sounded excellent and were highly entertaining.
The following day was mostly empty and I spent much of it in my lab, reading papers and getting some homework done. Other than that, the usual running around to arrange my new life. I took a nap in the early afternoon to rid myself of the last vestiges of jetlag and subsequently it was time for Shira Chadasha at Hillel. The service that evening was particularly beautiful but also packed full with people. I’d estimate over one hundred and twenty people had crammed into one small hot room, all singing, all dancing. Dinner was at Hillel again, nothing special to report, but I hung around for a long time to chat with a number of old friends.
Before going to sleep I made a quick pitstop at the ‘glouse’ (glee club house/residence), said a quick hello and then was fast asleep, not to wake till late the next morning.
Sunday/Monday – Day 258/259 – #TheNextBigThing
April 21, 2013
A week behind again! Somehow this keeps on happening. I’ll have to do my best to reconstruct it!
Sunday was Fling recovery and I was up early to ensure all my work was completed. I had a stack of things to get through. Had to prepare for recitation the next day, a submission for my security class, final project for networking, physics and no end of stuff for my students! The only break in the day came in the form of my study with Shlomo Klapper, but even he was exhausted.
Monday – I was up early in the morning, around six am to try get ahead of some physics work for my recitation at nine.Things didn’t go too badly but I found the material a bit beyond me. Seems to be a theme in this course.
However, this morning was also an exciting event for me. Samsung was launching an advertising campaign on campus and as part of it they were giving away ten Galaxy Cameras to students on campus with high ‘Klout’ scores and I was privileged enough to be one of the recipients. Thus at nine, I rocked up to their booth in Houston Hall with my photo idea and was handed a brand new camera, replete with 3G functionality and a full Android (Jelly-Bean) operating system. Not a camera-phone but a phone-camera.
The image quality on the beast wasn’t particularly good but it was sooo much fun taking it round and making skype calls from my camera. I received plenty of weird looks but there isn’t much I enjoy more than being the galactic source of some oddity.
Next up was Networking and then Security. The security topic this time was social engineering. I in fact had made plans for a class wide demonstration of this, but that has to be kept under wraps until tomorrows post. Needless to say it was decently clever but slightly mean. I spent the hour after preparing for my recitation which today was to be located at a slightly different place from normal, Kiwi Frozen Yoghurt! I had decided to take out my entire class given that it was the last chance I had with them outside of the following week’s exam revision session. Semester was fast drawing to a close.
PGC rehearsal and choral society were after, with choral society running really late given that this was our final regular rehearsal before the big concert on Saturday night. An early night after I finished my physics was well in order, my voice still wasn’t up to scratch.