Thoughts on Gradschool (Part 1 of Many)

I write this lab from the "top" floor of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science building. I am sitting alone in a lab I first entered approximately an hour ago. I now have a key to this lab. In this lab, I have a desk, a chair, and a computer.

I am here for several reasons. The most obvious is the fact that my normal lab/office/room-where-I-spend-my-time is in SHAMBLES. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration... but the point is that I can no longer spend my time in said room. Why? Because sometime on Thursday night, a pipe burst in the penthouse (7th floor) of the EE/CSci building, sending tendrils of water through the North side of the building. Floors one through five experienced extensive damage. My office on the fourth floor has damage to the carpetting and walls. This damage is apparently minor compared to some of the damage experienced in other parts of the building. I would post pictures, but venturing in these areas requires an escort... and the escort certainly won't let me wander.

Funny part is, most of the damage is exclusive to the electrical engineering side of the building. This is exemplified by the following piece of evidence. On my escorted way to my office this morning, I walked past the EE and CSci department offices. These offices are neighbors. They say hi and exchange small talk on a regular basis. Walking past the CSci office, I noticed two differences: There was only one lady in my immediate vision, and there was a fan blowing on the carpetting. However, walking past the EE office, I noticed that it was no longer an office, but an empty room in which even the carpetting and ceiling panels had been removed.

Ok, returning from that birdwalk, I will now list another reason why I am in this lab. The long and short of it is that I am being "encouraged" to join this lab group. The professor that runs this lab is involved in the BICB (Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology) program (more on BICB later). He is an expert in databases and would be a very good fit in an adviser for me. This may be the first step to becoming one of his advisees.

I will take these changes in stride. Chances are, I will be a member of this lab for at least a week, perhaps more. The knowledge of the CSci peoples in this lab would be invaluable for my research. This is the kind of knowledge that my current adviser lacks.

THIS IS THE KIND OF KNOWLEDGE THAT I NEED IF I'M GOING TO MAKE IT OUT OF GRAD SCHOOL BY THE TIME I'M THIRTY.

Anyway, the events of late will definitely make me evaluate my situation. Hopefully my next post will be about my actual research topics.