Purim! – Shabbat/Sunday – Day 207/208
February 27, 2013
Shabbat itself was nothing special, however, after sundown the festival of Purim began. First up was reading of the megillah scroll detailing the story of the Jews’ victory over the evil Haman during the reign of King Ahasuerus.
I had to listen on with the CJC (Conservative Jewish Community) as I was time pressured by a Glee Club Gig immediately after (that I ended up missing anyway).
Purim is the usual Jewish festival story. Someone tried to kill us, the didn’t, let’s eat. However on Purim the feasting is taken a step further by applying significant amounts of alcohol, dancing and fancy dress to the mix. My costume was a minion from despicable me (see comparison below), but thanks to the gig, I had not sufficient time to change into a pair of overalls and so, as per usual for me, stood out a little.
Purim Minions
Despicable Me Minions
College students, as could be expected, take this idea rather to heart and, as a result Penn Hillel organized a whole series of parties and events. One of which I attended (the Hillel Golf Night). We traipsed around local off campus residences, collecting shots of various liqueurs, ingredients for the baking of Hamentaschen and socializing with the many people taking part. Robbie Glynn, a good friend from computer science, and a Jew at heart, joined in the celebrations too.
Following that, back to my room for yup, you guessed it, a coding marathon till the late hours of the morning.
Sunday was not particularly notable, I crammed in my Physics work and a lot of stuff for my students and my recitation. However, one fun thing in the afternoon was a Purim seuda/mishte (feast) arranged by the lovely Arianna Schanzer and Ben Bolnick. There was a little too much Chinese food, but it was supplemented by plenty of cheer and good company. I also prepared and delivered a few mishloach manot (Purim food present-baskets) to a few of my closest friends at Penn before settling in to finish up everything I needed to.
Singing Valentines Preview
February 15, 2013
I don’t have time to do a full post as it’s almost two AM and I’m completely exhausted but here is an article from the Daily Pennsylvanian (the Penn Newspaper) on what I was up to today, complete with a quote from me!
http://www.thedp.com/article/2013/02/glee-club-brings-love-embarrassment-to-valentines
Take a read and I’ll fill out more of the details in the days to come after the show!
Tuesday/ Wednesday – Day 189/190
February 10, 2013
Approaching two hundred days… I’ve already been gone more than half a year now. I’m definitely missing home. Despite all the opportunity there are some things that can’t be found at Penn. To the people in Melbourne I love, don’t worry, I’m coming home eventually.
Tuesday was a bit of a nightmare. I accidentally pulled an all nighter, preparing work for the next day. As the hours grew later and later, my work remained unfinished and I just keep pushing myself harder and harder. Rehearsals meant I had only arrived back to my room at around midnight and was already tired.
Wednesday was my first ever OCR experience. ‘OCR’ for those of you not from the states, is ‘on campus recruiting’, a method by which pre-professional students, desperate to be noticed, flirt with companies of (sometimes ill) repute. A fancy way of me saying that it’s essentially on campus interviewing for the financial services industry. This means everyone dressed up in suits, desperately trying to stand out by blending in. My interview however was for a technical position at a firm that though financial had a number of good notes to their name. Again, if you want to hear more about it, send me a message. For the meantime, I’d rather keep my experiences interviewing with various companies off the public avenue. The interview went well and was mostly enjoyable. I struggled over a few questions but overall I felt I made the right impression. Following that I pretty much slept through my afternoon classes, being still short from the previous night.
That evening I stayed mostly clear of working too hard, as I was a little burnt out from the last few days. To that extent I decided I would go visit a certain friend in Rodin, who had a tendency to clean whenever I came over. I sent her a message asking if she was free and she said she was just on her way back and that she’d shortly send me a text. That done, I decided to work for a while in the Hillel and, after twenty minutes when it closed and I still received no text, I headed to Rodin. There I ran into another friend who I had reason to believe was avoiding me and so, to side-step any discomfort, I removed myself from where I was sitting and went downstairs to see if the pianos were free. Unfortunately they weren’t but I did run into one of the vocalists from Dischord (a college acapella group) who had greatly impressed me at one of their performances and let her know as much. So I sat down to work for a little until my power ran out. Still receiving no message, I decided to text the girl and find out what was going on, she as per usual, was awfully busy and hadn’t time for me yet. Thankfully though, at that moment the piano room was freed up and I had a little time to play before I received a message at 11:30 that my friend was finally free.
I went up to chat with her and she made me tea, before letting me know that she had something to tell me. She struggled a bit with it before it came out that she’d been seeing someone and was both nervous and excited for it. Just as she’d gotten that out of the way, there was a knock at the door and, who was it but the boy in question! She giggled madly, and I smiled politely, tea in hand as the boy at the door walked in a little bewildered and nonplussed. I stay round to befriend him for a while before heading back with a smile on my face, happy for them both.