This is the Pine Street view of Furness Hall, our dormitory.

The Pine Street entrance to the Furness Hall complex. We can park here to unload. The window to the right of the entrance is the security guards’ office.

Through that entrance is a courtyard. Our rooms are across the courtyard, through this entrance, past vending machines, and up the elevator. Out of the picture to the right is Hamilton Hall.

This is what greets us after we get of the elevator and open the door to the third-floor hallway.

Behind us when we turn the corner is another mural.

Looking back down the hallway toward the elevator. Jean-François’s door is on the left closest to the mural, the second door is to the community room, and the foreground door is to a room still empty, perhaps for Elisabeth Agro, our scholar.

My living area. To the left is a refrigerator and a desk, where I pile bags. The kitchen area is to the right, along with entrances to the bedrooms. I’ve just finished a puzzle on this table, which is also where I eat and read the weekly newspapers. The rooms are very tall, so the light from the overhead lamp is very dim and the rooms are fairly dark at night (I brightened this photo considerably).

My kitchen area. I try not to use the oven, as the air-conditioning unit is only in the bedroom. We have a microwave oven and pots and pans in the community room down the hall. At the far right is the corridor to the bedroom I don’t use. The door next to the fire extinguisher is to the bathroom. As you can see, I keep my tripod next to the cupboard where I occasionally photograph vessels.

My bathroom and the hallway to the bedroom I use, along which is a doorless closet containing a bureau. Below is the closet itself.

Here is where I spend many hours working on photographs and writing the blog. I can get only the faintest of wifi signals in my room, so I can’t do much online from my desk, but I can size photos and draft text. And listen to music while I work. I ripped some 180 hours of music from my CD collection before I left, and I’m glad to have it. And I bless every day the past ITEr who left this cushion behind. This wooden chair was pretty uncomfortable before I found the pillow among the ITE stuff.

My bureau and the desk I use as a nightstand. This is definitely dorm living: I spent fifteen minutes cleaning the gummy residue off of this desk before I could set anything down on it.

My bed. I stole a mattress from the other bedroom so that I could double up. The two mattresses together are just soft enough to sleep comfortably. The top mattress is so stained and torn that I did not want to sleep on it even as the bottom of two mattresses, so I left it up top to pile my laundry and laptop bag on.

The window air-conditioning unit. I have used it surprisingly little, but there have been a few days when being without it would have been really uncomfortable. I have no doubt I will be using it a lot more in July.

My living area as seen from the bedroom door. The cables hanging by the door just hang there.

Leaving my luxury suite, I often take the stairs down instead of the elevator.

Going down the stairs takes me into the lovely part of the courtyard, which, as befits a university of the arts, is full of sculptures.

I love the voluptuous goddess figure lurking behind the Buddha.

There are also benches and tables in the courtyard area. I sometimes sit down here to go online, as does Jean-François. The entrance to our building is in the glare beyond the benches. The building to the right is Hamilton Hall.

Hamilton Hall is the closest place to get a strong wifi connection, so this is where you will find me and Jean-François after dinner, in various (separate) nooks and corners.

Also in Hamilton Hall, is the UArts Cantina, where from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. you can get eggs, a bagel, a sandwich, a salad, coffee, etc. This is the view I usually have, as I sit in the open area (below) at night to work on the blog and make video calls without disturbing anyone.