Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
We have a meeting at ten. But I was looking at the campus map in my welcome packet last night, and his office location wasn’t clear. There was a circle on a random corner of a building called Trapp.
I’m careful. I’m a planner. I like things orderly. I don’t like surprises of any kind. So in order to avoid a possible surprise scenario on my first day, I arrive early so I can check things out.
There’s a coffee cart to the left of the Square, so I head that way as I continue my people-watching. Pretty much everyone is my age. Late twenties, early thirties. This is a place of young people, Mercer explained during my recruitment meeting. Of course, most schools are. But the Institute isn’t a school. It’s a research center dedicated to postdocs. Everyone has a PhD. It’s a place of big ideas, and interesting projects, and Mercer was recruiting me to help with his.
He didn’t really explain the project. Said I’d have to sign a non-disclosure agreement before he could do that. But he did explain that it was in my wheelhouse. My wheelhouse being behavioral and systems neuroscience, which is a fancy way of saying I map neural networks throughout the body and apply that data to external behaviors.
Despite the fact that I have spent the last twenty-two years of my life preparing for the day I defended my dissertation, I am not prepared to actually be a behavioral and systems neuroscientist.
I knew that. Months and months ago, actually.
So the offer was kind of a relief. I would not have to get my own lab and start my own projects. I could leech a little. Get my feet wet with Mercer and the Institute. And then, after the year was up, I would be ready to move on, or I could stay at the Institute and begin my own project and process of recruitment.
I really like this plan.
It’s the softest of landings after an entire lifetime of the stress that comes with the desire to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps and leave one’s mark on the world.
It was a sigh of relief and a well-deserved respite.
There is no downside to the Institute.
I get my coffee, check my watch, and realize I still have a good thirty minutes before my meeting. I decide to find the office first. That way I will know where it is and the stress of that unknown variable can be put aside and I can spend the remaining time wandering around the Square and taking it all in.
I look at my map, compare it to the buildings in front of me, and find the one called Trapp. I head that way and stop at the plaque in front to soak up the history. This is a quirk of mine. I love to soak up the local history. This building was donated by some rich guy—called, you guessed it, Trapp—and it was built in nineteen-nineteen. Which is not the best time in history for a building such as this to be built, to be honest. All kinds of things were happening in the world at that time. Most of them atrocious.
The rest of the little paragraph is a bunch of blah, blah, blah, so I look up at the building and then climb the stairs that lead to a row of five sets of double doors at the back of an open vestibule. This is quite the building.
I go inside, head to my right—because that’s where the little circle is on my map—and find a hallway of doors with no numbers, or letters, or nameplates on them. No designation at all. The hallway is only partially lit up. Like every third chandelier is on, while the rest of them are dark. And every door is locked.
So.
I spin on my heel and head back out to the main lobby.
Despite the fact that the Square outside is bustling, and despite the fact that this building is kind of huge and impressive, it appears to be empty.
My mind rewinds to the words ‘huge’ and ‘impressive’ and I allow myself to feel pride for a moment.
I work here.
I will do interesting things here. Maybe even incredible things. If I can only find that office.
I chuckle, take a sip of coffee, and decide that perhaps my problem is elevation and that little circle on the map meant the office was upstairs. So I go up, enjoying the view of the beautiful interior as I walk. I linger at the top and look down to discover that the design in the mosaic tile floor depicts a crude brain.
A chuckle bursts forth.
It’s fitting, though. For me at least. And the project, I decide.
If it’s in my wheelhouse, then it’s neuroscience, and this floor makes sense.
I turn back to my task and search for the office. But all the doors that lead to hallways up here are locked.