Thursday/Friday – Day 213/214
March 6, 2013
Thursday morning was a complete and utter disaster. Yet despite this I really really enjoyed my day. I woke up on three hours of sleep to go to physics, definitely a bad idea, and from there, straight to my demo and assessment for my networking group project. Needless to say, we didn’t go too well, failing a number of the more difficult tests. I was a bit cut up.
The afternoon however was awesome. First up was a PGC gig singing to the board of trustees, as one of their number was retiring. We were hailed with large smiles and for me, a wink and a smile from Dean Keytack of Rodin. After that I gave Melody Cooke a call and headed over to the music building to find her practising her singing. After a while with the piano, I walked with her while she polished off a few errands and then presented to her the piano in Sweeten Alumni House (a beautiful Boston grand) before running out to Lover’s and Madmen for a hot chocolate and her lunch.
After a few hours of chatting it was a quick dinner and then another gig for the larger dinner for trustees and donors. Though our performance number was short (SATB version of the Red and the Blue), the mixed company of males and females (provided by the girls of Quaker Notes) was somewhat revelatory. Following that we got changed and a few of us went to a sushi bar where some of the guys did ‘sake bombs’ (don’t even ask). After that it was back to my room for one of the longest night sleeps I’ve had since leaving home. Perfect.
Friday I woke up somewhere around midday, coded a little in the afternoon, chatted to friends, prepared dinner for the evening, read a little and then went straight back to sleep. The way I needed my holiday.
Recovery – Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Day 201/202/203
February 25, 2013
So began my third century of days at Penn. Though it may have been assumed that this week would be any quieter than the last, it was in fact, almost as tumultuous, albeit not in such an exciting way.
Sunday was first and foremost a day of sleep. After hell week, there was no way my body could tolerate even another few hours straight without sleep and so, my bed took me, clothes and all, too much needed repose. Then, it was down to work.
The first item that needed completion was more of the group project for networking, which unfortunately was going rather slowly. I thoroughly dislike group projects primarily due to a consistent imbalance in contributions from the various group members.
Alongside this, I needed to plan my recitation for the next day, and I spent a good hour wracking my brains for a way to make midterm revision fun.
At around 3AM I treated myself to bed, and slept right through till my lecture at midday on Monday. Thankfully I made it that far. However, recently I’ve felt attending lectures hasn’t been so worthwhile as the pace is thoroughly relaxed. That is not to say that the courses are ‘too easy’, as the workload is sufficient to bury even the most intrepid of code explorers.
Following Networking and Security, I headed down to CVS to make the purchases I needed to run my class (a bag of chocolates and some envelopes) and set about preparing. My lab this week was a ‘training camp’ for an upcoming ‘midterm battle’ the coming Thursday. Up on the board were a series of envelopes, one per two people. My ‘troops’ chose strike team names and then raced to the board to collect a mission for their team. In five minute increments they were then asked to solve the ‘mission’ within the envelope and return it back to base. For correct answers mission control responded with a ‘mission dossier’ (envelope) filled with a chocolate. For incorrect they received a message. Finally, following the completion of all the missions, there was a post-operational briefing, reviewing all the missions. From what I gathered, it was relatively successful, marred only by the addition of a number of students to the class, leading to a miscalculation on needed envelopes and missions on my part.
After class, rehearsal was cancelled so I went to a panel on Tech Internships with Vivian Huang, a fellow TA, and Louis, a friend from CIS-121 last semester. Then it was to a quick dinner before Brahms’ Requiem rehearsal in which both Thea and Steph Li were distinctly missing. Then back to work to finish off some more homeworks till 5AM.
Tuesday I let myself slip a little, though in such an enjoyable way. Following my torture hour of physics (taken my a substitute PhD student this class) I was walking back to Hillel and Sweeten Alumni House, with its Steinway, caught my eye. I was hooked and, for the next two hours, I was stuck in Sweeten playing to my heart’s content on a beautiful instrument. Later that afternoon I caught up for an hour on some sleep, before auditioning for a big upcoming Penn event (still a little secret). The judge for this particular audition was the wonderful Shaun Altman, fellow tribesman and founder of Rockapella. I have great respect for him and auditioned partially just for the opportunity to meet him! The audition went well, but it was definitely more a part for a low tenor, going up to a good F# on the high-end.
And, back to usual, Glee rehearsal, though, tonight was a meeting; a post-mortem for the show. Taking over three hours, we commented on almost every possible element on the show, from rehearsal to our director, nothing escaped unscathed.
Back to my room after for, you guessed it, another late night working. Boy, Penn students need more sleep.
Shabbat – Day 193
February 17, 2013
This was my calm before the storm. The day was spent relaxing and preparing mentally for what was to be an intense and almost insane week. Lunch and dinner with Ariella, Aviva, Michal and co. was a good was to prep myself, but it was over too soon. After dark, I rushed to finish what work I could in the remaining hours and for once, caught an early night, knowing I’d struggle to get much sleep at all the next week.