WLG = WTF?

The book stack in real life

So you're all probably getting tired of hearing about me getting lost, but here we go again.  Today I slept in a bit, went out and did some errands and then headed over to the school around 2pm.  I was going because there was a training at 4pm on how to use the classroom technology in one of the buildings I'll be teaching in.  It's brand new - in fact they're still working on some floors.  As a result of it's newness, no one in the ELC has been able to tell us where it is and it's not shown on our map.  Luckily during one of my previous mishaps I accidentally found it.  So I knew basically where it was and just needed to find a direct route.

Let me start by building my defense.  Each building has a letter in addition to some longer name, like the K. C. Wong Building, aka W.  The ELC is in the basement of the Library, which is building I.  (See how it's supposed to look like a stack of 3 books - cheesy!)  If you look on the campus map, all you see are the big letters.  Unfortunately, no one thought to put the big letters on the buildings.  Some of them have the long names on the outside, but you have to actually go inside to see what the letter is.  In addition, I now know that everything is designed around approaching the campus from the front, main entrance - Building A.  However, the shuttle takes us up to the library from the back way at the lower right, so I failed to appreciate just how literally "out of the loop" we are on the library end of campus. 

I realize this map shows Building R, but the printed map does not.  P and R are just letterless ghostly shapes on mine.

So I began with what I had.  I knew R was supposed
to be basically across the street from us and I
remembered when I got lost in building P, that I had come out in building R instead of J as I had intended.  (See how they're connected on the map?)  So I exited the library and walked left past P to R, but couldn't see a way inside.  I found a fire door, but nothing that looked like a proper entrance.  So I went back into P to the elevator to try to figure out which floors might lead me to R because not all the floors are connected.  Here I want to draw your attention to a second difficulty.  I call it the LG problem.  We're all familiar with the idea of a ground floor, and I can even understand M for the mezzanine between Ground and Level 1.  But many of the buildings at UM have a number of floors referred to as Lower Ground.  This might make sense if they were underground, but they aren't.  Those asterisks you see on the chart above note the floor you walk in on.  So for Building J, there are 6 Lower Ground floors above you before you get to the Ground floor.

See why I was confused?  My guess is, that since UM is built on a huge hill that maybe if I had entered from the front side, the ground floor would actually be the entrance floor and the world would make sense.  (This is the desire for limerence referred to in previous posts.)  At least I hope there's a reason because otherwise it's just sadism.  See how the LG floors don't even match up between buildings?  Ugh.  Anyway, I eventually figured it out and found my classroom RLG308, which is -3 on the elevator.  Understanding the audio/visual demonstration was child's play compared with finding the room.  When it was finished I walked to the nearest staircase and looked out the window and there was the library, smiling up at me from right across the street.  So I took the stairs down 4 levels to keep my eye on it and exited right where I wanted to be, through a loading dock.  No wonder I hadn't noticed it, I normally don't go poking around in loading docks.

That solved, I set off anew in search of W, again not realizing I was taking the back way. I set off up and around Building J to where it seemed W should be, but again, no outward sign or proper looking entrance.  I was, however, rewarded for my efforts with the lovely cloud image above.
Eventually I wound up at the main entrance to the campus at the bottom of the hill, walked in past Building A, up many flights of stairs and finally made my way to Building W.  En route I accidentally walked out onto a terrace
and saw the lovely skyline view above.

Beautiful views were a reward of getting lost.  Another was when two young students asked me where to find room T104 and I burst out laughing.  Again, once I'd found my classroom (WLG111) I found the closest stairwell and made my way down.  Turns out I'd walked right past the "entrance".  It's up this covered walkway.  Below it is just some motorcycle parking - no signs.  At least none that I can read.  But now I understand the campus layout better and will know to start at Building A when I want to find something.  On the third flight down in Building W, I came across the odd structures pictured right.  Turns out this is the Outdoor Exercise Equipment.  No, it's not for kids, this is my own little mini-gym.  (Eat your heart out Bobby.)  Like all the stairs aren't enough of a workout.  Maybe I'll go do some balancing practice before class.  So bizarre.  When I got home Angie was kind enough to have dinner almost ready and it was delicious.  Curry sauce with chicken and potatoes and carrots over rice.  Yum.  Maybe I'll go have another helping right now.


One last funny thing.  When I walked into the apartment this afternoon I was greeted with the familiar sound of drilling and I thought to myself: "Geez, are they drilling all the way to China?"  Oh, wait.  :)