Friday/Shabbat/Sunday – Days 221/222/223
March 13, 2013
This post concludes the rather uninteresting series of posts on my Spring break, but had I known how quickly my workload would ramp up, I would’ve opted for another few days of the mundane.
Friday was a day of physics, which I’m pleased to say, is clicking a little more for me. I’m still a little worried about my outcome in the class but I think I can cope with it. Thinking I had a little time on my hands, it being break and all, I played some Mass Effect 3. This poor usage of time would later prove to be a large mistake. Hillel being closed for Shabbat again meant I was once again alone cooking myself a little home meal, in this case, instant chicken soup, a little challah and some sushi. Not a bad meal, but it was missing something. Perhaps the lack of Aviva, Michal and Ariella was taking its toll.
Shabbat was even quieter, I slept most of the day, did a little reading of a newly acquired book by the ever eloquent and mysterious Douglas Hofstader (of Godel Escher Bach fame) and after nightfall, watched ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ (not bad, standard action film) and worked more on CIS 121.
The next day was also the birthday of two people very dear to me, Adi my brother and another close friend from Penn (who I know is reading this!). Calls and cards were in order, but unfortunately I saw neither of them that day.
Sunday I toiled away on Networking with my team, finding a few more holes in our implementation, worked on trying to finish up the 121 project (that didn’t happen) and then at around midnight, started on 551 which I thought was due Wednesday. At around 2AM on of my teammates for the project was getting pretty depressed, I asked him why he was so down about the project. It was then I learnt it was due at 1PM the same day. So much for getting a little extra sleep that night. I was up till 4AM coding. Engineering Hell. And the project still wasn’t in working condition.
Uncompleted tasks due Monday as of 4AM that day:
- Finish Algorithms Project
- Finish Networking Project
- Finish Security Project
- Finish Physics Project
- Prepare Algorithms Lab
- Start Networking Homework
One of life’s more difficult moments.
Spring Break – Shabbat/Sunday/Monday – Day 215/216/217
March 7, 2013
To my dismay Spring Break hasn’t exactly worked out to be the party I thought it might be. I had grand plans, to travel to Florida or Canada or DC or at worst NYC and Boston, however reality sought to intervene. As manager of the final project for CIS-121 I had the responsibility to ensure a project, complete with specifications, documentation, sample code and tests was available and ready for activation by the first Monday following break. This meant that for the first few days of break, my mind was still completely focused on the work ahead. Shabbat was reading through algorithms textbooks and papers, looking for suitable material. The night was writing a plan. Sunday was mostly coding, sleep, eating and more coding and, unfortunately Monday was much the same.
However, one upside of all of this is I’m free to set my own schedule and additionally, I have been taking breaks for nice meals and catching up occasionally with friends for a few hours. I watched a film ‘Date Night’ with some of the guys from Glee, went to a wine and cheese evening with the same, and, also saved a little time for myself to play piano.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 182/183
February 1, 2013
The next two days were most notable for the lack of sleep I received for the duration of the period. In this case it was my security homework keeping me up. Tuesday I woke early to write up my physics homework which unfortunately left me exhausted and falling asleep during the lecture that morning. Not good. The afternoon had me taking a nap and then preparing my homework for the next day in security and trying to get a start on the work due the week after. I made very little progress. Hillel ended up sucking away a fair bit of time as well and finally it was rehearsal time again, nine to midnight. I didn’t get to bed till around four AM.
Wednesday was a bit of a disaster too, given the little sleep, however I made more progress on work, even completing the security assignment for the following week. Though this was after much delirium and za’atar wedges. The day was unremarkable, practically fell asleep in my lectures, not stimulating stuff. Just networking protocols. Rehearsal in the evening was decent. A piece we’re singing that I absolutely adore is ‘The Choir Invisible” by Ron Harris (as here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ELK2Bg4XaQ) and I’m looking forward to putting up a recording of us eventually. Another highlight of today was the arrival of my tap shoes! For those reading this from Penn I can’t help but urge you to come see the spring show so that I may have an audience for my *cough* excellent *cough* dancing.