Moving in

I'm setting up a weblog to help get me through my final semester of architecture grad school. This thesis thing feels a little beyond me right now, so I thought I would make an effort to document what I'm working on. Hopefully it will make things a little clearer. It isn't just the work that gets to me either, as there are a whole host of other things that affect how my work goes.

This whole thesis thing is tough.

I moved into studio early to get a desk: the Sunday before classes started I was here plugging in my printer and sticking a lock on a desk. Thesis student's aren't assigned desks in the campus studio. Instead, they are expected to work in the downtown studio. The downtown studio is pretty big, but the only people working there are thesis students. Not only would I get lonely, I would also get scared, as the area is commonly referred to as 'cracktown'. My school has chosen to place the students in one of the worst neighbourhoods in North America. I'm all for taking back the downtown, but I refuse to work in a place where I have to worry about my personal safety.

Since I moved in, most of the Thesis and Directed Studies students who wish to work on campus (for various reasons) have clusted in the south-east corner of the school so we can all work together. Yesterday we got an e-mail saying we had to move out of these spaces because they have been assigned to MASA (that's our advanced students).

They need desks too, I guess. They don't tend to work very late, but I suppose they have just as much crap to leave around as I do. The problem is that I'm supposed to move downtown to provide this space for them and it really pisses me off. I'm not moving, of course, and neither is my friend K (who is also doing her thesis) but the DBA and Veg are both moving to another part of the studio. Our little ghetto is breaking up and now I'll be sitting in a sea of empty desks every night after 6. MASA students don't tend to hang around very much.

This all came to a head a few hours ago. I was completely prepared to fight the administration and stick to my desk and I am still doing that, but it's a little different when there is a person in front of you asking why she can't have a desk as well. But this sucks! I don't want to work downtown. I feel unsafe in the studio even when it's full of people: I'm just not interested in being there alone. I know it's unlikely anything will happen to me, but I don't really care. I don't want to spend an an hour and a half on the bus every day and I don't want to be away from the studio.
The worst part is there is plenty of room for all the thesis and MASA students in the school the way things are. There are even enough desks. The problem is the administration did not put any space aside for us so we have to sqeeze into all the leftover spots. There are studios with tons of room -- they even have large open spaces in the middle of their desks to meet, and cutting tables. This, when I'm in my final semester and have to fight for a place to sit! All the expletives in the world can't begin to describe how annoyed I am by this.

Anyways, it looks like I'm okay in my seat for now, but I'm sad I don't get to sit with the people I'm friends with this semester. I didn't have a desk at all last semester, so this is better, but it was fun before and now it is not. I'll just have to make do.

ETA: I just got an e-mail from the school saying that there is a lecture happening in the downtown studio so any thesis meetings or anything will have to happen on one side. Good grief!