As promised, here’s a break from all the talk about cockroaches and the acupocalypse. (For anybody who’s looking for the Cockroaches of Acupuncture series, though, see Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.) Meanwhile at Oregon’s weirdest acupuncture school — thank you to Maddie Foley, WCA Board member, for that memorable tagline — we are undeterred by the woes of the acupuncture profession. We’re plugging away as usual — and amazingly, the tenant improvements to our new space are happening right on schedule! We’re on track to move later this summer.
I hope you enjoy this short photo tour of POCA Tech’s fancy new digs, all 1900 square feet of them. Our current classroom space is less than 1000 square feet, so this feels very spacious to us.
The main room will do double duty as classroom and clinic space. This is what it looked like back in April, coming in the front door:
That ceiling! I still can’t get over it.
As of this week, we have a handwashing sink and a hot-and-cold-water dispenser in the back right corner. The space didn’t have any sinks outside of the bathroom before we started renovations, so this is a very exciting development.
The space off the main room is where we’ll put our little library. The photo below was taken before the water dispenser and the sink went in. Where to put the sinks was a whole puzzle by itself; in the end we didn’t have a lot of choice — it was a matter of following where the water was available, in order to contain our plumbing costs. Kind of like everything related to making a community acupuncture clinic: there are often a lot fewer decisions than you might think. When you need to do everything as simply and inexpensively as possible, it limits your options. (We think that’s a good thing.)
If you go through the door in the library, you’ll find the back room and the back exit that leads into the rest of the Jane Dough building (for Portland readers, we’re in the old Bolt Fabric space).
The back room will serve as the area that many community acupuncturists refer to as “the punk cave”, which is where acupunks do their charting and take their breaks. In this case it’s where POCA Tech punklings and supervisors will talk to each other about treatments — and it’s also the kitchen. Because POCA Tech classes happen in four-day modules, having a place where students can prepare food is a high priority —particularly for the students of Cohort 10, who take turns cooking for each other. Like, serious cooking of balanced meals. All the Cohorts have their own personality but this is a new one for us.
I took this photo on Tuesday night of our new sink/counter/refrigerator combo:
And just a few hours later it looked like this, after our contractor Jarred hung the cabinets:
Last minute update: it turns out we’ll have a second small refrigerator as well. Guess which Cohort asked for more refrigerator space. No, really. Guess. (Just teasing, Cohort 10, we all envy your meal prep magic.)
I don’t have a good photo of the rest of the back room, but there’s quite a bit more space. I bet we can fit in a nice table, plus some more storage. Currently we don’t have any closets.
This is the view from the back corner of the main room, facing the front door. There’s lots of construction paraphernalia everywhere because it’s been in use.
There’s one thing that hasn’t gone to plan, however. Some of you might recognize this picture as my front porch. With one unfortunate addition:
That large object is our new 12-foot whiteboard, which should’ve gotten delivered to the new space, but came to my house instead. It’s both heavy and fragile and having it propped up there is kind of nerve-wracking. Also, getting in and out the front door is a challenge. I’m confident that the whiteboard will look a lot better on the classroom wall than it does on my porch, and I hope to have some photos to share with you soon!
Stay tuned for more updates of our little school’s progress and YES, we’re definitely going to have a party! (Guess which Cohort will be in charge of refreshments.) Here’s to celebrating the future we make for ourselves.