Joe's Office

Joe's home away from home (away from home), has quickly become New College, the Divinity School at the University of Edinburgh. This is where he goes every day to think, read, study, and write. I am really proud of him and the hard work he is putting in, right from the get go.

The walk from our flat to New College takes about 25 minutes. It's a pretty nice walk, excepting the enormous hill you have to climb at the very end. Along the way, we walk through the west end of Edinburgh, passing all the cafes with yummy smells and the greengrocer. Then, past the Castle and onto the beautiful Princess Street Gardens. This is, so far, one of my favorite paths to walk. The gardens are so pretty and the architechure of the Castle and New College are pretty breath-taking.

This is the fountain at the west end of PSG

New College, from PSG

Once inside New College's court yard, you are greeted by this statue of John Knox

The court yard

One wing, or tower, of New College is dedicated solely to the postgraduates. In this building, Ramsay Lane Tower, I think it is called, the Master's and Ph.D. students have their own computing lab (where I blog from) and several rooms of offices. Joe, on a tip from another student, was able to get his name on the list quickly and was assigned a cubicle right from the beginning. It's pretty sparse now, but I am certain by the end of our time here it will be pretty well rooted in all things Joe Rivera (I'm imagining Cubs paraphernalia, pictures from travels, and LOTS of books).

Joe's study cubicle

Joe has been working really hard, since we got here and I am very proud of him for that. He has two papers to be presented at conferences in the next several weeks (one in Belgium and one in Montreal) and has been digging right in on developing his ideas for his dissertation topic. Unfortunately, I don't think I am the one to intelligibly explain those ideas, so I'll nudge him along to do another post soon updating you on his work!