This campus is just too big for the both of us.

Given an opportunity, I call or text my sister and ask her if she'd like to get food with me. Today, I had an opportunity, and plans were made. She had 30 minutes between classes, and I suggested that I buy some pita chips and hummus and we eat them together by her classroom. This sounded like a fantastic idea. I purchased some of the aforementioned ingestables from the sandwich-cart/thing at the electrical engineering building and also bought a bottle of Pibb Xtra. Little did I know that the next 20 minutes would be filled with absolute confusion and mayhem.

"Yeah, my class is in third floor ...aaake"
"Where? Tate?"
"Yeah."
I shrugged, thinking That's not very far from here... but continued over to Tate, the physics building. I didn't see her, so I called and asked which side she was on.
"Oh, I'm over by the ...in..amn..."
"You're by the Tin Man? Well, come over here, I'll stay where I am by the bike rack."
"Ok"
I stepped outside the physics building. I could practically see the tin man from where I was standing, how could I have missed her? I called her back.
"Where the heck are you, I haven't seen you walk by"
"I'm up on the third floor."
"Of Tate?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, I'll head over there... but I'm staying on the phone with you"
"Kay."
I walked back to the physics building, mumbling to Tara about how I didn't see her. I walked through the WHOLE third floor of the physics building.
"You have a class up here?"
"Yeah in the computer lab."
"Uhh..."
I paused. There is nothing but OFFICES on the third floor of Tate.
"Tara, are you sure your class is in the physics building?"
"Physics building? No, my class is in ... aake"
"Tate?"
"No, PEIK."
"Gaaaah. I thought you said Tate. You're all the way across campus"
"Well, I've got 10 minutes, head over here."
"Nooo we wouldn't get the chance to eat anything, it takes almost that long to walk over there."
"Okaaay. When are you going to be home?"
"NEVER."

This campus is too big, with too many buildings with similar sounding names. Especially when using a big smart phone with poor reception.

At least these pita chips are tasty.

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.