In Which I Retreat
October 1, 2014
The weekend was marked most significantly by the Glee Club Retreat. It was the best chance to get to know the new members, and also served as a bit of a break from the hectic lifestyle I’d had up until that point. Leaving early Friday afternoon, we arrived at Camp Onas by sundown, with me lugging along a whole lot of fruit, granola and a few other assorted food supplies, for what I knew might be a difficult weekend for meals. Friday night was filled with singing, introductions, games and laughter and the lights were shut out in my room well after 2AM.
There wasn’t much of a sleep in to bed had, breakfast (two bananas and a nectarine) was to be had, and team building exercises outside in the sun. For the sake of future clubbers, I won’t go into the details (as previously) but I came out of the two/three hours of games much closer to a few people. One particularly nice guy was Bhavish Malkani, a sophomore newman who came with a whole lot of talents (more on that later).
Lunch was sandwiches which fortunately I could partake in. Also it was the first time I’d had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a great many years. Following lunch we had the presentation of ‘the newman talent show’ in which all the newmen had to present a non-singing talent. Pearl, a really friendly girl on the tech team, started it off with a sorrowful reading of a poem about bullying. Phillipe led with shakespear in many accents. More poetry from David, some oddball comedy from Mack and a few others. The highlight for most people however was Bhavish’s magic show, which comprised mostly of sleight of hand tricks. There were so well done however, that even though I had some idea of how they worked, I was still thrilled along with the rest of the audience.
Another highlight of retreat was getting to know Sam Soik and Pearl Lo a bit better. They were both very warm personalities and I spent plenty of time talking to both of them over the weekend.
Finally, late Saturday night it was time for the camp fire. This was the best part of retreat because it involved us singing our favorite songs from our repertoire, albeit without a conductor and at times a little off. However it was an amazing feeling to be surrounded by my brothers in song and spending some time reflecting on our years ahead.
After the campfire it was straight to bed for me. I woke up barely a few hours later for the drive back, and when we arrived home I spent most of the morning in bed. I had a good few hours to work and then it was back to rehearsal, this time dancing with Penn Dance again. After that, I was thoroughly drained and promptly put an end to my weekend.
Friday/Shabbat – Day 256/257 – Spring Fling
April 19, 2013
Now, I’m probably going to get shouted down for this, but I have to say, Spring Fling was one of my least favourite of my Penn experiences. This was probably compounded by the fact that I was still feeling pretty sick, but needless to say, my weekend wasn’t great.
Worst part of it all, being fling, my apartment was full with people of various shades, which wasn’t exactly idea for my recovery. Substances were downed, and loud music played, all over campus, and it turned out my apartment wasn’t exempt. Friday I spent much of the day working in the engineering building, trying to escape all the noise and fuss. I took plenty of rest during the day prepping for “Fling Feast” in the evening.
Fling Feast is an event arrange by the OCP as an alternative to the Fling concert and comprised of a lovely sit down dinner. Unfortunately Ariella ditched Louis and I over dinner (she had more ‘important’ people to sit next to) but the company was still lively and the food excellent. After the main course, a comedian was brought out who, for over forty-five minutes entertained us with clever jokes revolving around the experiences of Jews in college. It was by all measures a resounding success. For dessert all guests were given ‘magic berries’ and told to coat their tongues in them before eat sour foods with thanks to a little protein magic, suddenly tasted sweet.
Shabbat was awful. I felt pretty sick and my apartment was at times filled with unsavoury types, a number of times without either of my other roommates in the room. Every time I came back to the room during the day was another unpleasant surprise (aside from finding Priyanka Anand sitting on my couch at one point). I left for lunch at Hillel, nothing special. From there I decided to at least visit the Freshman Quad to see what ‘Fling’ actually was. I arrived there just in time for the Penn Glee Club band’s set, which was really fantastic.
The quad otherwise was a little underwhelming. Note so many people around, a decent carnival but nothing unbelievable. I hung around for a while with Glee people before deciding to head back to get some more R&R. On my way back I saw a Jew-crew heading down back towards the quad and they invited me to join them but I decided to decline having already seen what I needed to.
Back at home my room was full of people. So I wrapped myself in my blanket and went to sleep.
After Shabbat, I ate my dinner and then proceeded to hang out with Aviva, Michal and a mutual friend of our Ralph for the rest of the evening. That was a little more adventurous and a little more fun. Ralph has taste for the finer things in life and lived just alongside me in one of the other apartment buildings. We chilled and talked for hours and hours till I was ready for bed and then I headed back and closed my eyes. Thank heavens Fling was over.
Friday/Shabbat – Day 235/236
March 28, 2013
Friday was my usual morning of work and TA training and meeting in the afternoon. Wasn’t feeling so well for much of the day and ended up skipping on the Glee Club trip to Boston. Felt my health would be best served back on campus.
Shabbat dinner was something very very exciting this week. The bi-annual Levine CIS@Shabbat. The dinner for Jewish computer scientists (and Louis Petro #psaklouis). Dinner was lovely, the conversations binary and lively and I felt very much at home. I’ve been getting much closer to Ariella recently, and this was another good chance to hang out together.
Shabbat was Aviva’s birthday and as such a surprise lunch was planned. Ariel Menche, her boyfriend had come in for the weekend and we had a great time surprising her with a loud happy birthday, shortly after she awoke. Lunch went for a couple of hours, again in excellent company, though less nerdy than the night before.
The afternoon was a good ‘shluf’ (nap) before coding again till 5:30AM, when I finally got my latest project complete!