Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Shabbat – Day 124/125/126/127/128
December 5, 2012
You probably noticed that I’ve practically rolled the entire week into one. I can assure you, that’s how it felt to me. One giant, long, torturous day. Tuesday I was not yet fully aware of how my week would good, so I woke up at a decently late hour before physics at 10:30AM. However as the day wore on and the Operating Systems group got together it became clearer and clearer that we weren’t on track to finish the project. Tuesday night also marked the long glee rehearsal, from nine to midnight. However, even after completing that, I had to walk the twenty minutes to the engineering buildings to work till around five AM. Wednesday I was already out of it, and didn’t attend my algorithms lecture in order to scrape an extra hours sleep. I did make it bleary eyed to Rails class, but with so little focus, I may as well have been in bed. After Glee rehearsal, 5-7, it was another full night coding, five AM again. Thursday I was up at 7AM and was barely hanging on to the remaining threads of life, and the file system component of our OS was still nowhere near to being done.
By this point I was getting a bit aggravated and irritable with some of my other team members, which was not wise, and this further exacerbated the various existing problems. I did make it to all my classes Thursday, which was a miracle if I might say so. Thursday night however, was one of the worst things I have ever done to myself: nineteen hours straight of coding. We worked through the night, and didn’t slow, even as the sun began to rise, in the Rodin ninth floor lounge we pounded away at the keys and scratched our heads, as others scratched theirs in amazement as they woke up to see us the same way we were as the night before. This was surely an intensity of work not matched by any course at Melbourne Uni.
Friday morning, I was death incarnate. I reaped my way through what lines of code I could, before dragging my hollow body across Locust Walk for a final presentation of the lines that had so drained my life. Though our demo was passable, I knew that our code was a mess and our team in shambles. However, finally, it was over. I trudged back in the direction of Rodin and was caught on my way to my room by lunch at Hillel. However, I didn’t last long there, and soon I was wrapped up in bed. To stay there for twenty seven hours. Fast asleep almost the entire time. And just like that Shabbat disappeared.
Monday/Tuesday – Day 116/117
November 26, 2012
Monday was meant to be preparation for my big Physics midterm on Tuesday morning! Unfortunately despite my best efforts, I failed to get in all the study time that I deemed necessary, spending too much of the day picking at my other work in an attempt to avoid the more difficult subject. My main consolation was that at least my other work was completed!
Something that I previously forgot to mention was the Glee Club/Penn Dance Semi-Formal that had been announced which required me to source a date from the numerous people at Penn. The rules were a free-for-all, any date was acceptable, man, woman (or sheep in the case of Thomas Nance). As a result I was running through the list of my friends at Penn for someone who would most appreciate coming. My first thought was to Caitlyn Garcia, one of the girls living in Rodin who often worked at the front desk. Many a time I had been given the opportunity to chat with her on my way in and, after many hours spent together discussing the wonderful place that is Australia, she decided to apply for exchange to the University of Melbourne! So hopefully some of you will get to meet her next semester 2. Anyway, after spotting her at the desk in the morning as I was coming in from shopping, I decided to see if she’d be interested. She responded that she’d be very eager to come but that it was pending checking her calendar. Unfortunately for the both of us, it turned out that the very same evening was her sorority’s formal and thus after securing another evening for us to go out, I searched for someone else to go with. The next female friend I came across was Stephanie Li, of choral society, as I made my way there and this time I had a little more success. I greatly look forward to attending the semi-formal with her.
Choir this evening combined with glee rehearsal nearly killed me but I managed to learn a good amount of music and had another good walk with Steph following the end of it. Then it was back to my room to cram for the physics.
Tuesday was defined by the exam. I woke up earlier than usual, 7AM, to get in some early morning prep, eat a full breakfast and, get my mind working. I really made some progress in the hours before 10AM and felt nervous but somewhat under control as I headed into the exam. I sat down, looked at the paper and, panicked. I had no clue how to do two out of the three questions on the paper. Thus, I tried by best on the first and sat without a pen in hand for another few minutes while I tried to figure out how to approach the other two. Thankfully, after a few tense minutes, the insight came to me. Now pen in hand I attacked the other two problems and though I wasn’t confident I managed to carry through with it properly, I was relatively sure that I had at least given enough to get a decent mark.
The rest of the day was a celebration, despite the remaining work for me to do! Immediately after I finished classes at 5 I went to Mad Mex a Mexican bar with Molly to slurp down a margharita (in my case a mini one, in her case a good half litre). We ended up staying there until rehearsal time and were joined by Justin and Steven from PGC!
After rehearsal I managed to convince myself to work a little more but ended up taking a well deserved early night. Success tastes sweet. Even B grade success.
Tuesday/Wednesday – Day 110/111
November 19, 2012
But first a note I missed from Monday! Following the interview I had a rehearsal that slipped my mind, for the University Choral society. Following the end of rehearsal I ran to catch up with a friendly face I remembered from the very first week of semester, a Ms. Stephanie Jane Li of Alberta, Canada! We walked back from choir together and made plans to go out for coffee in the near future as one too many of our interests aligned.
Things just keep ramping up and up and up! Today I found little time to breathe and eat amongst the piles of equations and lines of code littering my life. I was so hard at work today that I didn’t even leave my room for classes, catching up on them through textbooks and friends. Rehearsal from nine to twelve didn’t help much either. However, I did take a little break to eat dinner with a somewhat distraught Molly who’d been having a bit of a rough time. On my return from dinner I was met with a lovely surprise in the Rodin Lobby as, gathered there were a few members of the Philly Orchestra, performing for students and a few staff members. I admit, I did lose a little homework time by sitting down to catch a performance of a Dvorak piece for string quartet. Then it was back to the room to work until my eyes drooped and I fell asleep at my desk.
Wednesday was a little bit of a nightmare, I spent pretty much the entire day working on the kernel. After Glee Club Rehearsal, at 10PM, it was clear we weren’t going to finish in time for the milestone tomorrow. Thus, Charu and I headed down to the engineering quadrangle to work into the wee hours of the morning. After ten hours of straight coding, it finally compiled and ran properly, and I was so surprised I almost didn’t believe it. By this point it was 5AM and I almost collapsed where I was, however, I somehow managed to stumble back to my room and fell asleep almost immediately.