There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man...

Yesterday officially marked the beginning of my graduate studies, and I was fortunate enough to get a position as a TA for the Math department.  So I get to teach 2 algebra classes this semester at Fresno State (today was my first day of teaching, and it went pretty well).  Anyway, it's an interesting change, going from undergraduate to graduate student, but it's a change that's very difficult to put into words.  I think the best way that I can explain it would be to describe my office to you.  Some of the things that follow are going to sound pretty negative, so just know that I mean them in the most endearing way possible.

First of all, let's talk location.  My room is in the Industrial Technology building.  I went there for the first time yesterday, and as I approached the building, I noticed that there was a man there directing traffic (turns out he is a faculty member who had a break in his schedule, so he decided to help students find their classes).  So I asked him how to get to room 103 and he had no idea.  He had never heard of a room 103 in the IT building in all the years that he had lectured in there!  But we finally found the room on the map, and after walking through a labyrinth of doors, hallways, and courtyards, there I stood in front of my office.  It even had my name on it (along with the names of 4 other people, but more on that later).

I unlocked the door (which took 3 complete rotations of the key for some reason) and flicked the switch to turn on the light, but nothing happened (there is a sensor in the room, so the light only comes on when it detects movement).  I had walked beyond the center of the room before the light finally came on, revealing this:

The Southwest corner

The Northwest corner

The Northeast corner

The Southeast corner

Notice the stained, mismatched tiles.  The empty crates blocking the whiteboards.  The ancient chalkboard.  The filing cabinets (mostly empty except for 25-year-old-exams and large boxes of paper clips).  The mismatched chairs (no two are alike!)  It's beautiful.  Really, it is.  It has a 30-year-old microwave (that works):

and a 3-year-old fridge (that only kinda sorta works):

Everything a man could want.

I get no wifi signal in the room, and the thermostat does absolutely nothing to control the temperature (it was a...uh...cozy 85 degrees in there yesterday).  There are random signs on the walls like "This tray is not a trash can" where there is no tray present.  Some of them probably date back to the early 80s.  And what did I find in the drawers of the desk?  A plethora of old floppy disks with notes on them like "delete these files."  The thin walls give rise to the feint echoes of passionate lectures (past or present? who knows!)  I mean really, the aura of the room could best be described as spooky.  And the fact that the light turns itself off every 5 minutes unless there's a straight up dance party going on in there doesn't help things.  For these reasons, none of the other TAs use this room.  The only person who does, apparently, is Paul Kryder, a full-time lecturer on campus (you can see that he's pretty much set himself up in the southwest corner of the room) whom I have yet to meet.  I have been told that he is not well-liked, so we'll see how things go.

So here's the thing.  It's an old, crappy, uncomfortable, nearly-impossible-to-find, spooky room.  But I would have it no other way.  You see, to me it signifies that I am at the bottom of the totem pole, hanging on desperately to the lowest rung of the ladder.  But at least my face is etched on that dadgum totem pole.  At least I have hold of the ladder.  And that is what it feels like to be a grad student.  I fell in love instantly.