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| Campus Life - Jan. 25, 2006 | | Date Created: Jan 25, 2006, 11:08 AM |
To give you an idea of the sense of community at AIT, a man was riding his bike passed me today and said, "Hi. I saw you on the Web site. You're new here aren't you?" I said, "Yes, that was me." And he said, "Welcome!" And he rode off. I have no idea whether he was faculty, staff or a student.
Today I was in my office, where only a few people know my number, and I received a call from someone who said I have packages at the post office. I knew Prae was shipping much of her belongings, and we had been debating as to how I would know when they arrived, as the post office didn't have any contact information for me and as the Phuket post office had told her because they were boxes, they would have to be delivered only to the post office.
So this was a relief that someone had mysteriously tracked me down. I planned to drop by the post office and pick up the packages before they closed at 3:30, but when I returned from a meeting, there the packages were, sitting in my office! Trouble is, now I have to figure out how to get them to the apartment, and they are quite heavy. Bernie has come to the rescue in that regard, though, and has promised to call me a taxi to take the packages and me the half mile to my apartment.
So that's all good. What is not do great is the way business is conducted around here. Meetings take forever and are plentiful. The tiniest little things take loads of debate, and no one seems to want to be held accountable for anything. On the bright side, I have no problem being held accountable -- and the president of the university seems to like that. Even my two bosses between me and the president seem to be a bit relieved that I'll be glad to tell it like it is, and I think this will work to my advantage once I get the system better figured out here. If I thought the Department of Energy was full of bureaucrats, I'd never been to AIT. The great thing is now I have the self-confidence -- and, it appears, not only the authority but the support of other staff who are seemingly glad to have a fresh face to shake things up -- to override a lot of the B.S. What I'm really hoping is that I will be able to continue to stay above it. We'll see about that, but in any case, I'm finding it all rather amusing.
There had been debate from my first day as to where exactly my office should be. Everyone asked me, but, of course I was non-committal: How should I know? I just got here. There had been initial suggestions that part of my staff move with me to quarters in the administration building, and that was met with disapproval from my staff, who didn't want to be split up. I have found over the course of the past week that people thought I would want to be there because it is near the center of power -- that I would want to be there because everyone else wants to be there. Frankly, I can't imagine anything worse. Those people can't sit in their offices for more than five minutes without getting a knock on their door for something insanely trivial, so I quickly realized it would make my staff happier -- and me -- to be the 100-meter walk away from the center of power in the library where we're currently housed.
I will be moving in there permanently in the next week or two, into a corner office with the best view of trees on campus. I'll have to post a photo when I get settled -- it's far nicer than my apartment. The great thing about it is it largely keeps people from meddling unnecessarily with me and my staff, and it keeps the sort of newsroom atmosphere where I can step out of my office and just holler across the room at someone. So that's going to be very nice -- especially after I have our first staff meeting tomorrow and tell everyone to get rid of all the junk that bureaucracy has kept from being thrown away. I've already assured them I will take full responsibility for discarding the 1980s computer monitors and broken office furniture that currently litters the space.
Prae has the idea to start a massage business on campus, which I think is great. It's one of the few services not offered. I happened to mention the idea to the dean I was having dinner with, and it turns out the director of infrastructure had also been thinking AIT needed a massage place -- it's part of Thai culture, after all. So I e-mailed him today, and he said he'd love to get together with Prae to discuss it. So that could be a great thing for her, if she could run that business here on campus.
The whole idea makes me want less and less to find a place off-campus. I went today to put my name on the waiting list for a house or townhouse on campus, however, and discovered that they are reserved for faculty only. Even if I can get around that rule, I'm told the waiting list is quite long. So that's too bad, but we'll just have to see what's available nearby -- and how close nearby is.
It is pretty idyllic here on campus, though. The people ride their bikes around so slowly that I sometimes almost pass them. And the commute is a walk down a treelined street where in the evenings people are jogging, playing badminton, tennis, basketball, squash and soccer. In the mornings during rush hour, I see the deans and faculty and staff and students all pedaling toward their new days. I am very out of place walking, which is strange, but I don't mind it -- at least not now during the dry season.
About the only thing I do mind at present about my living situation is the fact my apartment has no hot water. It really is not uncommon for that to be the case, and both the air temperature and the water temperature is warm, technically speaking, but it is so jarring and unsatisfactory to stand under a waterfall of cool water in the mornings. I don't know if there is a rule against installing a hot water heater -- one of those on-demand wall units that are everywhere there is hot water in Thailand -- but I think if I am going to stay for any length of time, I need to make the less-than $100 investment. At first I thought, well, it's invigorating. But I've seen that more and more I keep procrastinating when it comes to showering in the morning. It's just a little too invigorating.
So far, I haven't bought anything for the apartment at all except a bedside lamp so that I won't have to face the blue fluorescent lights at night. Prae is accustomed to this, but I, on the other hand, cannot stand even overhead incandescent lighting. I'm going to have to cure her of turning on the fluorescents when she gets here. |
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