Look at this building! Isn’t it cool? The Lock-Keeper’s Cottage is the graduate centre at Queen Mary, so this is where I’ll be reading, typing and making cups of tea over the next three years.

It was my first day of PhD induction today, so I got to have a look around. It’s stunning inside, with wonky windows and bare brick walls and a sweeping wooden staircase and views of the canal. I wasn’t surprised to learn that it won a RIBA award for architecture in 2006.

There’s something unsettling in the wording of the building’s regulations though: “The consumption of alcohol is forbidden, unless under academic supervision.” I’m 30 years old! How strange to be told I need to be supervised when drinking – and specifically by an academic.

Incidentally, it also feels weird that there are lifts elsewhere in the college that, as a student, I’m not supposed to use. Last week I was a grown-up, but from today I can no longer be trusted not to swig vodka at my desk or press the alarm button between floors.

Still, in return for giving up my adult status, I get to use a beautiful building and I don’t have to pay as much council tax, so ner.