Shabbat/Sunday – Day 264/265
April 26, 2013
I slept in pretty late the next day, needing a way to recover from the big night before! Lunch was at Hillel with Sarah, and we chatted in the Rodin lounge for a few hours before going to see my friends from Glee Club and Penn Dance in from their production of Macbeth.
Following that I had only a short while to get changed into a proper suit for the University Choral Society’s performance of Brahm’s Requiem. As a result of having learnt the music well, I was able to more completely enjoy the performance and really threw myself into it. The result as per the recordings later released was pretty glorious.
Sunday was incredibly busy. First thing in the morning it was off to a Glee Gig. A few of the guys and I walked for forty five minutes to get to the historic Pennsylvania Penitentiary where we performed a small set for the benefit of the preservation foundation. After returning home, Sarah spent most of her time with Julia whilst I prepared my final project for security, my final physics problem set and, attempted to study for my Networks midterm the next day.
Monday – Day 60
September 27, 2012
Today was a bit of a challenge in that I was trying to get all my work done well in advance prior to Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement), the most significant Jewish festival of the year. Aside from my regular class hours, I was frantically trying to complete a few assignments, in particular the usual difficult physics problem sets, which can take me over eight hours to complete a piece.
The main standout from the day was a catch-up lab session with Kostas Daniilidis, a very sweet lecturer and researcher, taking my algorithms class. The private session with him was quite helpful and out of all my professors, he seemed most able to communicate the material in small group sizes.
The evening was a double rehearsal! First up Glee Club with a usual two hour rehearsal, then a quick dinner at the Hillel, followed by two hours of University Choral Society. By this point in time my voice was getting pretty sore…
Sunday/Monday – Day 51/52
September 13, 2012
Sunday I intended to get down to a bit of work, however Penn had other plans. Sunday to Wednesday marked audition season for the various groups at UPenn. Things started out well, tutoring a few Jewish girls in my Ruby class, helping them to set up their computers for the class, however flipping through the F/Penn program I noticed that auditions for The Penn Singers, the Broadway and light opera company at Penn were at twelve. Plucking the day, I headed off to the Platt Student Performing Arts House, just off main campus, where auditions were being held. Along with me I brought the music to “Some Enchanted Evening”, my personal audition favorite, and was soon met there by a good number of friendly theater people. I was then presented with a monologue to learn in the few minutes before the audition, playing the part of Leo Bloom from the producers. The audition consisted of me singing my piece, which went well. Vocal exercises, which went decently, and the monologue, over which I stumbled a few times. Further than that they taught me a few bars of the cast song “Hail Poetry!” which I didn’t quite get but I felt decent about it. Following that I saw that the ‘Off The Beat’ acapella auditions were in the same corridor, feeling a bit plucky I decided to audition for them too. However after a twenty minute wait outside I was informed that they would not take an exchange student due to the lack of worth in investing in my training. Remembering that other auditions were on that day too, I wandered over to Irvine Auditorium where the ‘Penny Loafers’ acapella auditions were being held. For them I sung ‘Under the Bridge’ by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and was made to do a good few minutes of exercises and vocal dictation.
I won’t tire you with the details of every single audition, however, The Glee Club auditions deserved a special mention. Testing both my rhythmic and melodic sight reading, along with my ability to box-step, I had a lovely time in the audition interacting with both the director and the other members of the club.
Monday was much the same, running back and forth between clubs and classes. In the evening I met with Google representatives and listened to them give a recruiting spiel. As if anyone needed to convince me that working there might be a good idea. Following that I raced off to the University Choral Society, a half credit class I was taking. At the entrance to the rehearsal room stood a mostly older crowd of between forty to eighty, all waiting to rehearse. This was a slight shock for me given my expectations of a student choir. However, I soon settled in and had a lovely evening singing. Towards the end of the class my friend Thea ran out and came back a little sullen. A while later my phone buzzed too and I check the transcribed voice message to find indecipherable garbage. Listening to the original I found a message telling me I had been accepted into the cast of Penn Singers and their production of Legally Blonde this fall! I raced off to meet the cast at a meet and greet in Platt and following that headed back to my room to work a little before, finally, sleep.