Thursday – Day 170
January 23, 2013
Thursday I managed to stay attentive during physics despite the lack of sleep, but was busy almost the entire afternoon with homework of various sorts. However, Thursday also marked the lead up to PennApps over the coming weekend where thanks to the day off on Monday, I would spend approximately 48 hours coding non stop. PennApps is a student ‘hackathon’, a competition in which you have a set amount of time to build something technological from scratch. PennApp is also the largest college hackathon in the world with over 500 attendees semesterly! Part of the day was spent searching for team members and figuring out ideas. Eventually I ended up with the usual crew, Rigel and Nikki, with whom I was most excited to work with.
In the evening I attended a talk by Facebook on getting started using their developer tools to make apps and caught up with Rigel for a brief talk regarding how our team would run. Following that I went for a delicious dinner with around thirteen exchange students and though we had to wait a while for our table, the spicy szechuan food was excellent (I had some very yummy spicy fish!).
The rest of my night was spent preparing all my homework and the homework for CIS121 before the weekend, as I knew there would be a mountain of stuff to get done. Up again till the wee hours of the morning, I was a bit behind but I was motivated to keep going in order to leave myself time over the long weekend.
Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Day 72/73/74
October 11, 2012
Sunday was a mad rush to try to get a little more work done before the chagim started again. In particular, studying for a difficult physics midterm that was later in the week. At eleven AM I woke up to work with Jonothan on our Operating Systems project and pounded away at that for a good few hours. Anil was away for the weekend and thus lunch was lonely by myself in the apartment (Hillel is closed on Sundays) and then back to pounding out equations.
As the sky darkened I found myself worrying more and more about the physics midterm and I’d later be proven to be right in my fears.
After chag came in, as per usual, I couldn’t be privileged enough to just be able to go to shul and relax. This time it was dance rehearsal with Penn Dance interrupting what otherwise could’ve been a quieter night.
Following that I read a bit of my books and went to bed.
Knowing the difficulty of the midterm ahead of me I decided to walk and listen in on my 9AM and 5PM physics tutorials/recitations/sections. Though I felt I understood the gist of the material being presented, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to repeat it under example conditions.
Other than that my day was spent at the Hillel as to be expected, eating and drinking and of course, kvetching.
At five PM was the normal PGC rehearsal, delightful as always, followed by a trip back to Hillel for Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah (another Jewish festival again!) at Penn was one of the best simchat torahs I have had. The energy and passion were fantastic, especially in the OCP (Orthodox Community at Penn). The hakafot (dance circuits) went for over three hours! Unfortunately I could only stay for one of the three as I had a rehearsal for University Choral Society up at 8:10PM in which I was singing a Requiem Mass. Quite the contrast to dancing around the Torah. By the time I made it back to Hillel at ten, things were still going on and people were sitting down for dinner. I joined them and then got a full nights sleep in prep for the upcoming midterm.
Friday/Shabbat – Day 17/18
August 6, 2012
This morning I woke up to one of the most exciting emails I have ever received. Ask me about it.
From there it was a good few hours back to Jerusalem!
On arriving I decided to take a walk and ended up getting lost in Jerusalem (a rare occurrence) for a few hours and thus had a good three hour walk in the heat. I bought some rogelach (an Israeli pasty) and more felafel!
Dinner was a quiet affair at my cousins, with Daniella, back from the army for her first weekend at home. Surprisingly she seemed to find basic training a most enjoyable period and was treating it much like summer camp, earning the name ‘Savta’ (Grandmother) for handing out sweets to the other trainees.
Shabbat was peaceful, sleeping and visting family and friends. However, Saturday night was out on the town with Daniella! We visited a few of the less reputable establishments in Jerusalem and I met a few drunken friends of hers who seemed not to be able to stop yammering. Despite this, I enjoyed myself until I collapsed into bed at 3AM.