Carrie’s Ramblings

Fine then
Carrie posted in Rants on September 12th, 2007

Yeah I’m ticked. You could say that. Upset. Angry. Actually, at this moment sulking would be a more accurate adjective. It’s about Grad Office space.

Now I don’t want another office. I have an apartment to myself which isn’t roomy but it’s mine and I can organise it how I feel. (And organise I do!) Why would I want to spread my mess (though an organised mess) out in another space? Just another place for me to lose things. Plus the office space they’re offering me is approximately 20 metres away from my apartment in Kenora House here in Bartley Residence. (It’s been converted to office space, yet we were turning students away from Res because we’re full…don’t ask me, I just work here). So I’m like, Why bother? So our coordinator asks us to email him and let him know if we’re not going to be using it. So I did. And he emails back and says, “But you’re a GA! You’re entitled to that space and where are you going to meet students and such?”

I had an office in that House all last year and never set foot in it. I never even went in to have a look around. It wasn’t a problem. If I need to meet with my students then finding space is not difficult plus if I have Master keys anyway so I’ll just go and use it. And it’s not like I’m going to hold office hours there because the main door is always locked so students can’t just walk in anyway without an appointment. So no great loss there. Here’s the kicker though. There are 9 of us who are supposed to share 4 desks in that room. I shouldn’t complain, the Economics department has 12 on their list. When you need to use the room, you go to Front Desk during working hours (how many Grad students do you think actually do most of their work during working hours?) and sign out a key. There are 4 keys. First come, first serve. If you’re number 5, you’re SOL.

But, I suppose you’re wondering why this is even an issue since I’m not planning on using the room? Because the part that gets me mad isn’t even about office space. Lack of office space is not the department’s fault. It’s not even the fault of Grad Studies. We just don’t have enough space and complaining about it is not going to get us more space. There physically is not enough space. Instead of building office space on campus they built a Bike Shack. A fancy bike castle. So that the people who ride their bikes to school in the winter won’t have to store their bikes in the harsh -30C weather. IF YOU RODE YOUR BIKE TO SCHOOL IN THAT WEATHER I THINK IT’LL SURVIVE SITTING OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS!

My beef is with the Research Centre. We have this reasonably spacious room, right in the Rec Hall (downtown Recerville) that we had used as our “Club room” last year. “We” being Grad students. We worked there but called it the Club room because we spent a good percentage of our time gossiping and venting. But we still got our work done. We’re big kids, we can handle it. We can also deal with the consequences of not getting our work done. It’s called Not-being-in-Grade-4-anymore. The room has 5 computers (4 of which are MACs), 2 nice big tables with chairs around them, and lots of cupboard space for storage of surveys or interviews or what have you. It’s called the Centre for Parks, Recreation and Tourism Research. Well I’m doing Park, Recreation, and Tourism research so why is it that I’m not allowed to use the room anymore?

Three students have been assigned that room as their Grad office. Three Grad students have been assigned the windowless sessional office at the other end of the hall as their Grad office(it could fit at least 4, if not more). The remaining 9 ORPT Grad students have to queue up to fight it out for a corner of a Bartley Dorm room. On the other side of campus. Far away from the Rec Hall and the profs and students who need to talk to us, and to whom we need to talk. Three students for that whole room! And it’s clearly not going to be like last year where we just went there and hung out anyway. Because at the end of the email is this nice comment, “The Research centre is NOT to be used as a place to congregate as it was last year.” Wow, that was subtle. What was the big deal with us in there anyway? So we chatted a bit, but it was a good working atmosphere and we could use each other as a resources and ask questions and do group projects and chill out a bit! Profs knew where to find us and they would ask if so-and-so was coming in that day and if not someone could MSN them and be like, “Come in today because Dr. X is looking for you” and you’d answer, “Okay, I’m on my way.” Students could ask us questions instead of bothering the profs. Jamie regularly made cookies as a form of procrastination and brought them in because she couldn’t eat them herself. Even Profs can’t argue with cookies. It was a good system.

So yeah, I’m bitter. I’m not even mad though. But I’m bitter. Fine then, I’m not welcome in the Rec Hall anymore.

AND HERE’S ANOTHER THING ABOUT GRAD SCHOOL! I met with my committee yesterday who all inhaled deeply and raised their eyebrows when I answered that I was planning on graduating in May. May would be the end of the term. May 2008 would the end of my 2-year Grad school programme. IT SHOULD NOT BE HARD TO GRADUATE AT THE END OF YOUR 2-YEAR PROGRAMME. This should not be unreasonable! It’s a 2-year programme; in May, it will have been 2 years. And I’m WAY ahead of my classmates. They haven’t even collected their data yet and I’m analysing it already. If it’s so impossible to finish ORPT Grad school in 2 years, THEN MAYBE IT SHOULDN’T BE A 2-YEAR PROGRAMME. I’ve been here for 6 years. I love Thunder Bay, but it’s time for the real world. Two years is enough for me.

But it’s alright, I’m not even mad. Now I’m going to finish in two years just to spite them. Because they thought it couldn’t done. Without office space. Take that. Fine then.