In Which I Take Care of Social Needs
October 15, 2014
My Sunday was largely composed of travel time, with a quick farewell in the morning to Jeannine and Rocky. I got a little lost on the way to the airport but soon enough made it and had just enough time to grab a quick drink and a few bananas from the United Business lounge before hopping on for a jaunt back to Philly. When I landed I was fairly exhausted and had some pressing work, so I unfortunately did not make the regular glee rehearsal. However, for what seemed like the first time at Penn, I went to bed at a reasonable hour.
The following week was right back to it, with intense work required to catch up on missing the past few days of class. Additionally, I had two exams to prepare for, one in Machine Learning and one in Algorithms. Thus, most of my week went by without major event other than many intense hours working and studying, often with the other PhD students.
Two notable points were my short breaks with Steph Li (of previous blog fame) and, Amy Miller. I hadn’t had the opportunity to catch up with Steph since returning to Penn as both of us had been neck deep in work and other commitments, however as with most of my close friends, it didn’t matter that there had a been a time delay, we were still as close as ever. Thursday I caught coffee with Amy Miller, a wonderful woman working for Wharton who had previously helped me remain at Penn for a second semester after I had run into troubles arranging it. We went to a relatively new coffee shop around campus ‘HubBub’, where I had a delicious iced-tea.
Other than that, much of my week was in preparation for Yom Kippur and the further holiday to come ahead.
Thursday/Friday – Day 133/134
December 12, 2012
The stress levels keep going up and up and up!
Thursday was the next major assessment in store for me with a ten minute singing test of the music I had learn for choral society. This consisted of about two hundred pages of music; Haydn’s Thereisenmasse and Vivaldi’s Magnificat, both substantial and fairly beautiful works. Thus, I spent much of today with earphones in one ear, the other listening attentively to my own pitching and music in hand, repeating certain passages over and over.
Other than that, I worked on tidbits here and there in prep for submission of a few larger project over the next week.
A highlight of Thursday evening occurred at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where small groups consisting of PGC members went around the wards to bring ‘holiday cheer’ to those who might otherwise be lacking it. And, though our singing may not have been our best and we were carrying our binders with us, people’s faces really did light up and they clamoured to hear us, some even getting out of their beds to sing and dance along.
Following that, from 7PM to 10PM was a dress rehearsal with the full orchestra for the next day’s choral society concert.
Friday was my final lecture in algorithms and final singing lesson. The singing lesson went excellently and I felt that looking over the semester I had made real progress which was a great feeling.
Friday night was shul at Shira Chadasha in Hillel. The minyan was lovely as always but still missing something compared to home. Hineni shout out to all of you. Afterwards I quickly scrambled for dinner with Aviva and Michal and a few others before heading out with Adriel Koschitzky, an orthodox soloist, to the choral society performance.
The performance I believe sounded pretty great, however I was way too nervous and started feeling sick partway through, partially due to the fact that I was struggling to hear anything other than my own voice, which made pitching somewhat difficult. However, it went well and ended well.
After the show finished I walked back with Aviva who had come to see the performance, Stephanie Li, and a friend of hers. Up to my room, I managed only a few steps before collapsing on my bed.
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.