In Exile

So, one of the biggest changes for the new semester is that we are being kicked out of our nice lab space in the computational sciences building. We formerly had a good office, with plenty of space for working, meetings, library, etc. Due to politics (as usual) we're forced back into the old electrical engineering building. The departmental cabal been threatening to make us move over here since last year, but they couldn't find anything even remotely appropriate until now. We finally moved in yesterday.

Here is a picture of the lab as a whole. That's my seat, in the back corner. Note the lack of anything like a regular ceiling. With cinder block walls and no carpet, even the sounds of a keyboard can echo around the entire room like gunfire. Even though it's mostly empty now, all of the desks have been claimed by student researchers for the fall; some are even double-booked.

This is a close up of my working space. I should be fine, although the space between the two desks is little wider than my chair. I can basically sit down in the chair and spin it between the writing desk and the computer desk, but there's no real room to slide the chair back.

And finally, just so you know what kind of building this is, here's a shot of the opposite corner from mine. Yes, that little yellow label reads "ACID".

The space is workable, I suppose, though depending on how loud it gets once everybody is in here, and how depressing the fluorescent lights get when winter sets in, I may decide to work from home or in the library as much as possible this semester. Given that the whole purpose of the new computational sciences building was to foster a community of researchers, the fact that now we're in exile among the biomedical department, circuit designers, and undergraduate ankle biters doesn't give me a lot of reason to work from here.