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.
Thursday/Friday – Day 6
October 3, 2012
These two days marked the low point of my health on the trip so far. With a racking cough and rain outside to complement, I painfully worked my way through these two days. Highlights included a mixer with Penn Dance at the Glouse (Glee Club House). The Glouse is the residence of a few senior members of the Glee Club who have devoted it to worshiping the history of the club and its traditions. The Annenberg Center for Performing Arts, where all students groups perform their shows has a policy that each group gets one full performance and one shared performance free of charge in the space, due to demand and costs, per year. Thus, traditionally the Glee Club shares its fall show with Penn Dance, a group that is what it sounds to be. Aside from shared rehearsals, there are a limited number of social events that take place in order to try to integrate the two different student groups. This one was a house party like any other, only Glee Club members were banned from singing in the fear that we might intimidate the girls. Forrest, one of the other Newmen consumed his fair share of drinks that evening and was trying to convince me to adventure and ‘find the Penn Dance girls’ who at that point had left. I responded with ‘run Forrest, run’ at which point he bolted out the front door.
Other than that, college has settled into something of a routine, with my twenty hours of rehearsal and more of study a week, adding up to give me very little free time!