Living in College House
You might have noticed that here in Luton I stay in halls of residence, or more precisely in one hall called the College House that is very close to the Main Campus. College House is so-called Band C, the worst and the cheapest hall University of Luton has. Although it is the cheapest hall you can get here, it is still bloody expensive for me. Imagine paying 55 GBP per week for a small cell of 3 times 3 metres maybe, one fifth of a dirty kitchen and very filthy toilets. It means about 220 GBP per one month. Well, you are able to earn such a sum of money in a week, providing you work hard. But when I recall that at home we pay the same rent for a flat with 3 big rooms, 1 small room, kitchen, bathroom, toilets and a lobby, it drives me crazy. In addition, this sum includes also electricity, water and gas...
There's also another Band C called the Rutland Hall that is rather far from the university in more rural part of Luton. Even though it is only a Band C, it is the best hall I've seen here. I forgot to mention that you can choose Band A, Band B or Band C. Band A is the most expensive and should include best halls of residence. Some of my friends live in Band A and I must admit that it is not worth living there for 15 GBP a week more. Yes, everything is slightly better there but I wouldn't pay for such tiny improvements. The only advantage is that they have Internet connection available. Unfortunately, I don't have any laptop so I wouldn't be able to use it anyway. So the conclusion after few weeks here (and after recovering from the first shock) is that I'm glad to live in the College House. The main reasons are that it is quite close to the city centre, university and it's relatively cheap.
Well, I should also mention, that I was so depressed after my arrival that I was thinking of moving to some private flat. At least my Estonian friends were very active in this field so they almost talked me into doing so. But in the end, no one was moving because it didn't work. However, the idea of living with people you like in a private flat with nice furniture and well-equipped kitchen for the same amount of many per month was simply magic! You know, sometimes is difficult to make your dreams to come true. :-) Thus after few weeks of temptation and desire we all relaxed being happy with our hellish College House.
I say hellish just because it might be very frustrating to live in there. It is especially difficult to share a kitchen with students you've never seen before. What can you do when you clean the kitchen one day and next day in the morning you find it filthier than the day before? After few days you'll possibly get used to it and you do not clean anything that is not your mess. And then you discover that someone keeps eating your food and uses your kitchen equipment. Without your will of course. And this really happened to me. I was so pissed off when this happened for the first time and I was sure it wasn't my fault. I got used to it and started ignoring it. But when it started becoming worse and worse, I wrote a letter asking my mates not to eat my food and stacked it on my cupboard. It didn't work. I was extremely optimistic about that I think. Then another flatmate had the same problem. She was suspecting one person and went to speak directly to him, no more stupid letters. And luckily, it did work! Now I think my food is in "safer kitchen" than before...
Over and over, there are some things that really drive me crazy. You know, College House is organised in the old-fashioned corridor style. All other halls of residence are organised as flats with rooms, toilets and a kitchen. In our case the problem is that there are many students sharing same bathrooms, showers and toilets. So whenever I go in a toilet, I'm simply curious what I find in the toilet bowl tonight. And if I am lucky and there's nothing unusual in the bowl, you can bet that the toilet platter will be filthy. I've also been told that it is also possible to find a splashed bottle in a shower. You must be very lucky to not get cut...
On the contrary, there are some people that feel the same and try to do their best to keep everything clean. Furthermore, I've got many good friends on my floor in our part of the College House. Sometimes it's nice just to discuss troubles and other topics with someone from different nationality. That's maybe one advantage of the corridor style that you can move freely in the whole hall and visit everyone without a need to have a key. And I'm sure you learn much more by chatting with someone from different culture than is your own. And I've already proved this myself.
So these are my experiences from living in College House in Luton. And I think that's it, I don't know what else to say, really. It's definitely good experience to learn how other nationalities think and behave in situations like those mentioned above. I hope this stay helps me to understand what I should avoid and what, on the contrary, I should do...