We did have some momentary excitement today, as the new school of management building is up and the general Yale public was permitted to tour it. It's been under construction since I arrived - and since the fourth years arrived, too. So around 3:45, we started getting a little angsty, our curiosity tugging at our wanderer's hearts.
The tours were from 3 to 5 or so, and we decided to head down around 4:00 to accommodate Denise's schedule. At 3:50, Ben looked down at his phone and had just received the dreaded email from Andy. "Come find me," it said. He sighed.
"I'll try to keep it as short as possible," he said, and headed out while we set our coats back down and waited. It was actually only about 25 minutes later that Ben returned, having had a discussion with Andy about computers (he's the resident IT guy, given that we don't actually have an IT guy, and he's more than passably good at it).
We put our scarves and coats and gloves back on and made the short trip across Whitney to see the finally completed school of management. It's really a gigantic building, probably 80-90% glass, and it's quite striking. Puffing and red-cheeked from the cold, we trotted ourselves through the doors and came face-to-face with a sort of panel of official-looking people and neon-clad security.
There were several awkward moments while we stood there and didn't quite make eye contact with the people hanging around at the table at the entrance. It's the kind of situation that makes me feel exceptionally uncomfortable, where none of us are quite sure whether or not we're actually allowed to be there.
When no one made any attempt to greet us or send us away, we moved uncomfortably toward the openness of the building.
It's hard to explain how much glass there is in this building. There's a courtyard (called the "dining terrace" on a placard) that is pretty huge - takes a big old chunk out of what would belong to the building, and we walked around it, basically seeing the perimeter of the building.
Some refreshment tables were set up, but there wasn't much of interest on them. Kate, Diane and I mixed raspberry water and pineapple water, which was kind of nice. Ben and Denise made tea (the coffee was temporarily out) and Ben took a few minutes insisting that he had to steep it while standing at the table.
It's an interesting building. Acoustically, it seems like it's going to be very loud in general, but we walked around talking in hushed tones, feeling like we were tiptoeing through a library. There's a huge auditorium with Yale-blue chairs, very steeply inclined. There are many meeting rooms, all with at least one glass wall.
The classroom were, to me, the weirdest part of all. They are detached cylinders, these bizarre circular rooms that you can walk all the way around on the outside. I think there were 12 total, 6 on each of the upper floors. Their outsides were blanketed in these sort of waxy blue panels, and the insides were all different, but quite attractive. They had microphones at all of the student desks. Myself, I figure learning how to project builds character.
And after we were done, we just walked back to our lab space, sat down, and I personally felt more comfortable here at "home". It was a mildly interesting adventure, though! I'm just sad to have lost the post office that was in the old school of management, a five minute walk from my workplace.
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