thou who knows that thou art hostel-irritater, READ

As a ‘scholar’ (a term used by nearly everyone around us, much to our distaste, as it portrays us as if we’re aliens from other planet that shouldn’t be treated the same as other people. And despite the fact that we are scholars, we don’t like being called scholars, especially by locals, friends and teachers alike. We prefer international students. It’ll be nice if there’s another term which can classify us even better. Please, not foreigners. We don’t feel foreign to you guys anymore.), I live in a hostel, boarding school, dormitory, whatever you want to call it.

Living in a hostel means you live with a lot of other people who is not your family. Ok maybe some people have a member of their family living in the same hostel, if said kin is also a scholarship-receiver. Hostel life is fun. Really, I sincerely feel that it’s fun living in a hostel. Whenever you need help with your schoolwork, or what to wear to the musical at some school tonight, you can just knock the door in front of or next to your room and there’s your friend, sitting at the table playing with her laptop, laughing at the Korean TV show video they’re watching, or sprawled on the bed sleeping soundly, or laying on the bed Cleopatra-style reading a novel, ready to answer your queries. There’s also no parents who constantly chirps at your ear on what to do and what not. Living together with your friends also means that you can save money on clothes, story books, food and many more. :p

However, of course, there are downsides of everything. In a hostel full of people not related by blood to you, you can’t do everything as your belly likes (get it, Indonesians?). When it’s already late at night, you can’t make noise that exceeds your bedroom walls, as there are people who want to sleep. You must ensure that you don’t break your friend’s heart, as living together under the same roof with them makes it hard to avoid them, and you’ll end up being uncomfortable every 5 minutes, cos you can’t help but meeting her when you go to the toilet or go out to drink at the water cooler. Furthermore, you have to keep the shared toilet clean, so that other people can use it comfortable as well. A lot of cases have happened where there is private clothing or various ‘private’ items are displayed publicly, causing great discomfort to those who see it, and this results in that certain cubicle or toilet not used, and this results in long queue to use other bathrooms. So irritating.

(omigosh, since when have I been writing an argumentative essay?)

So yes, hostel life is, when you leave out the bad things, fun.

Oh yeah, the people you live with also determine if your hostel life is fun or not.

Last year, I feel very happy living in the current hostel I live in. The seniors are nice, very helpful and extremely approachable. They shared a lot of things with us, and this made us feel close to them and thus we develop good relationship (in general) with them.

HOWEVER, this year, much to our great disappointment, is worse than our 1^st year. A lot of people are not very pleasing, not considerate enough to meet the fact that they live in a hostel, with a whole lot of other people who’s been here longer than them, for goodness’ sake, to whom they must be respectful.

Yes. You know who you are and please, please behave yourselves better and make yourselves likable. LEARN TIME MANAGEMENT, DAMMIT.