Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Day 72/73/74
October 11, 2012
Sunday was a mad rush to try to get a little more work done before the chagim started again. In particular, studying for a difficult physics midterm that was later in the week. At eleven AM I woke up to work with Jonothan on our Operating Systems project and pounded away at that for a good few hours. Anil was away for the weekend and thus lunch was lonely by myself in the apartment (Hillel is closed on Sundays) and then back to pounding out equations.
As the sky darkened I found myself worrying more and more about the physics midterm and I’d later be proven to be right in my fears.
After chag came in, as per usual, I couldn’t be privileged enough to just be able to go to shul and relax. This time it was dance rehearsal with Penn Dance interrupting what otherwise could’ve been a quieter night.
Following that I read a bit of my books and went to bed.
Knowing the difficulty of the midterm ahead of me I decided to walk and listen in on my 9AM and 5PM physics tutorials/recitations/sections. Though I felt I understood the gist of the material being presented, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to repeat it under example conditions.
Other than that my day was spent at the Hillel as to be expected, eating and drinking and of course, kvetching.
At five PM was the normal PGC rehearsal, delightful as always, followed by a trip back to Hillel for Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah (another Jewish festival again!) at Penn was one of the best simchat torahs I have had. The energy and passion were fantastic, especially in the OCP (Orthodox Community at Penn). The hakafot (dance circuits) went for over three hours! Unfortunately I could only stay for one of the three as I had a rehearsal for University Choral Society up at 8:10PM in which I was singing a Requiem Mass. Quite the contrast to dancing around the Torah. By the time I made it back to Hillel at ten, things were still going on and people were sitting down for dinner. I joined them and then got a full nights sleep in prep for the upcoming midterm.
Thursday/Friday/Shabbat – Day 69/Day 70/Day 71
October 7, 2012
Thursday was a day of hard work, particularly in terms of learning sheet music. With performances all weekend and my cough only starting to go away, today I kept my nose down.
However, I did take the liberty of visiting a number of the sukkot constructed on campus to take photos and show the vibrancy of Jewish life on campus.
This Sukkah, the ‘Secret Sukkah’ was concealed in a less prominent location and represented the makeshift sukkot constructed during the holocaust that were hidden and disguised to prevent nazi detection.
This sukkah was constructed by J-Bagel, the Jewish lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning group on campus!
Also, because I get so excited by them, here’s a squirrel:
Squirrel?
In typical US fashion, even elements from completely foreign cultures must be Americanized at some point and testament to this is the Homeland Sukkah.
UPenn Engineering, in living up to their nerd reputation constructed an appropriately themed sukkah, the Sukkah Enterprise, themed after Star Trek.
The two major campus organizations for Jewish life were also represented, with the very large Hillel Sukkah (three of them) and a single smaller Chabad sukkah.
Here’s a Sukkah I didn’t quite understand….
Finally, one of the most popular of all the Sukkot was the T-Shirt sukkah of which many people took photos!
As you can see, the weather in Philly is changing pretty rapidly. Temperatures are dropping and the rain is coming in.
Friday however was an exception. Twenty-seven degrees outside and I was all dressed up in my suit. Today was quite possibly the biggest performance of my life. The Penn Glee Club had a gig scheduled for CCTV – Chinese Central Television, the government owned station. It was estimated that over one hundred million people would eventually see this performance and as a result I was somewhat nervous, this being my debut gig too! Fortunately, this morning I was feeling well recovered and was only left with a slight trace of the virus I’d had for the last week or so.
We got on stage and the performance went very well except for my accidental half second solo during “I can see clearly”. Luckily I don’t think anyone noticed. After the performance I rushed off, thirty minutes late, to my algorithms class. I tried to enter quietly however the professor stopped the class to comment on my suit, remarking that he was pleased he wasn’t the only one dressed up.
Following that it was off to receive two vaccinations to complete my immunization compliance. I was due for MMR dose 2 and meningitis. One of the vaccinations, I can’t remember which, burned a fair amount and I felt a little dizzy for a while after, followed closely by a short bout of nausea.
Lunch was a PGC interview with Theresa, one of the band members for yet another PGC interview! From there I went to my singing lesson that again provided some great new perspective and the late afternoon saw me catching coffee with Robbie Berg, co-member of the Penn Singers and head of the Reform Jewish Community at Penn. After coffee we left together for rehearsal and as soon as that ended I raced off to Hillel for shul!
Starting Friday night was the UPenn parents weekend in which all the parents of student were to stay on or near campus in order to visit and experience a taste of life at Penn. Unfortunately for me, my parents could not make it and so I, along with all the other orphans, were asked to wait a few extra hours before being invited for dinner at Hillel, as the space was already taken up by the families.
Deciding to ditch Hillel, I followed Aviva Kolosky and her boyfriend to Chabad, where the graduate students were having their Friday night meal. The atmosphere was nice and the food quite good, catered by the Rabbi’s wife, who was in fact Australian and used to live just around the corner from me back home.
At around eleven I walked back with Michal (Aviva’s roomate), Aviva and her boyfriend and went into their apartment to chill for a little while. I stayed far later than I expected and by the time I made it back upstairs to my own room I was exhausted and feeling quite sick and dizzy.
Waking up on Saturday morning I felt like death; nauseous, exhausted and soon found I had something of a temperature. I guess the shots combined with my prior illness had overwhelmed my system a little. I dragged myself to the PGC breakfast where grudgingly I performed a few more songs with the group and as fast as possible retreat back to bed where I remained fast asleep till around six pm. After Shabbat came out I worked with Jonothan Leung, a hall-mate, on our operating systems project and then caught a thankfully, earlier night.
Tuesday – Day 67
October 4, 2012
The second day of sukkot I enjoyed far less than the first. Tuesday’s I have electrodynamics, the course that I struggle to catch up in. As a result I decided to attend the lecture and listen in. The lecture was just as difficult as always compounded by the fact that I wasn’t writing any notes! To top it all off, the midterm was announced… one week away. I was suddenly inspired to ‘get my study on’. Other than that lunch in the sukkah was lovely, saw a few people I haven’t in a while, then studied in my room till havdalah.
After sukkot, I worked hard to prepare for my midterm, before PGC rehearsal at 9PM. The rehearsal from 9-11 was pretty much newmen only and as a result worked well for us. I finally feel confident with a good few of the songs and found which ones require more focus from me. The 11-12 rehearsal was not quite so productive. In fact, a number of the oldmen commented that it was their least productive ever. However, a highlight from it was being told who my mentor was. JHo, Jonthan Ho, an awesome tenor, agreed to mentor me for my time at Penn and presented me with a book on the history of the Glee Club and a few of their albums on CD. He, much like I, has a love of barbershop harmony, and is an all round excellent (and musical) guy.