4.20.2009

Cold Hard Fact: The Bunker Sucks It

Here's a shot of me in the bunker preparing for my QE from about a year ago:*


It doesn't quite adequately capture the facts, though. The bunker is the sum total of our "facilities," on semi-permanent loan from the department and the division.** It's one medium-sized room below ground with bare concrete walls and an unfinished ceiling. The temperature is fairly comfortable in the morning, then gets colder all day until it's unbearable by mid-afternoon. Light is limited to big florescents and some meager, inadequate desk lamps. The computers are aging eMacs and a few beat-up old G4 towers, all of which are slowly dying. You get the point.

I bring this up because I avoided going up to campus and the 4:20 insanity today and instead worked at a local coffee joint for a few hours. I couldn't believe how much I got done. I've tried to turn the horrors of the bunker into a kind of virtue over the years, bragging about how I'll be the first person to have done 85%+ of his work as a graduate student in that awful little chamber and gotten a PHD out of it, but today I'm reminded of the kind of Stockholm Syndrome that attitude really speaks to.

I'm also just the littlest bit cranky because of the 90-something degree temps we're getting right now. Re: those, at the risk of repeating myself: I get to hate the sun. You get to like it if you want. But don't give me shit about it or I'll just tell you to fuck off again.

* Featuring my commie hat (I later removed the star, because it was just too hackneyed. Tweak took the picture.)
** We are reminded of its "loan" status whenever we complain about how awful it is. "Oh, you don't like it? Then maybe we'll justtake it away from you, you whiners!."

2 comments:

Dolce Vita said...

You know if you're getting 90 that I can always top that: 99 today. I share your complaints.

noncoupable said...

:( = sun

:) = working at a coffee joint. I prefer that too--if I wear headphones I get boatloads of work accomplished