Free food, free booze, four years

Ah, the life of a graduate student. Last night was the final official orientation event, and our third night of free food and free booze this week. This particular event was dinner at the department chair's house with the professors who'll be teaching the required courses this year. During Monday's academic orientation, the chair described is as an informal event designed to let us talk to each other in a relaxed environment. We all quietly scoffed at that idea, but it actually turned out quite well. The evening was far more relaxed and enjoyable than I had anticipated, and I got a chance to talk to a few people I hadn't spoken with before. I have to confess, however, that after this week I'll be quite content if I'm never asked what areas of sociology I'm interested in.

After dinner, a group of us--four PhD students and one MA student--went out to a local gay martini bar where I had a crispy crunch martini; quite good but I couldn't finish it. There seems to be more of a divide here between the PhD students and MA students than at my old department; the MA student was very concerned about intruding on us although that wasn't the case at all. I think it's a function of the size of the department. When there are only fifteen people who show up regularly, you tend to bond by interest rather than status; when there are twenty-odd new students in a single year, you can be a little more selective.

Speaking of divides (and getting to the four years part), I've noticed over the past week in speaking with different faculty members that there's a definite philosophical divide in faculty attitudes towards PhD students. On the one side are the people (like the last graduate coordinator) who would prefer that we come in knowing exactly what we're going to do our dissertation on so that we can be out of here in fours years. (I should note that the average completion time is a little over six years, and that they just increased the number of requirements.) On the other side are the many faculty members who themselves took six years to finish their PhDs and who argue that there's simply no way any student can or should know what they're going to do one week into their program. My academic advisor falls into the latter category, which is fortunate since I don't know what I want to do (though I've got a convincing-sounding project lined up for the SSHRC applications that are due next month).

I'm having dinner tomorrow night with stillvisions and another friend and I'm very much looking forward to not having to start the conversation with a thirty-second autobiography.

Crossing things off the list

I spent today (as I spent so many days this past week) working on the apartment. I cleaned, I sorted, I unpacked, I hemmed, and I did laundry, which means that I get to wear the new clothes I picked up last week while shopping for apartment-related items. We also got our kitchen counter replaced, thus eliminating both the burn marks that were on it when we moved in and the leaky faucet in one fell swoop. It's good to know that the current property managers are a little faster with repairs than my old landlords (who promised certain upgrades before we moved in and still hadn't done them sixteen months later when we moved out). The only bad part was that the tradesman showed up at 8:30 this morning, which meant that I was scrambling into my clothes as he was coming up in the elevator. At least they called to warn me that he was on his way.

I picked up my new office key yesterday. The office is nice, if a little cramped, with lovely, large windows that provide enough sunlight to keep both people and plants happy. Alas, there's no view since we face a brick wall, but it's still a slight improvement over the skylight in my previous office. I share it with two other people, one of whom I met only briefly. The other is a woman in my cohort who I've been corresponding with for a few months; I expect we'll be able to hang out and commiserate about our coursework. Now I just need to buy a notebook computer so that I can actually work in my office rather than spending all of my time in the windowless computer lab across the hall.

My new bed is due to arrive tomorrow. I'm quite excited because that means I'll get to use all my new bedding, and I might finally be able to figure out how to organize my room. It's surprisingly difficult to do that when you're missing a major piece of furniture. And since I got the rest of the apartment stuff done today, I should have lots of time to work before dinner. If I don't have another impromptu firedrill tomorrow morning thanks to our malfunctioning alarm system (nineteen flights of stairs at 6:30 in the morning is not my idea of fun), it should be quite a good day.