Dorm is where your heart is

As the sound of Edith Piaf's music was running down my ears I can not help but see my fingers type frenetically on the keyboard of my intel pentium portable computer. I must say it is more like a desktop computer... if only I had a 'desk' instead of a melodically creaky wodden structure, I'm going to fall into pieces desk but enough with the complaining because at the end of the day it gets the job done which is no other than to be in full contrast with the force of gravity (g=10m/s^2 ,acceptable aproximation for us down to earth civil engineers) withstanding the actual vertical loadings acting on its surface so that my books remain on the desk... really this is more like day to day basic physics :)
Having described the situation I'm actually in it is only fair to state the theme for today's post: room 109, make love not war. Yes, you guessed it wright my room at the student dormitory is going to be the main subject. 

First sneak peak

In polish we call it dom studencki (student dormitory) and this is the place where the magic happens. Do you ever get a mélange of excitement or a sort of unprecedented adrenalin rush when for the first time you have the key to the door to what is going to be your dwelling for the coming whole year ? Let me break it down to you, dear reader. I have just been given the key to my room and checking each number on the doors along the corridor as one would do, but little did I know that my room was (and still is) located at the end of the long corridor therefore continuing to walk unitll room 109 while carrying a luggage weighing 55 kg which I've been travelling with for two days. To say the least I was feeling more of the emotional burden rather than the physical weight I was carrying.

I found the courage to open the door and there it was, a bundle of furniture with little space to move around: two desks, three chairs, two beds, two closets, a cupboard next to a fridge, two shelves and a table in the middle of the room made things look even more dense, reinforcing the laud cry for space. As I stood at the door step for a moment I was invested by a wave of exotic flavours making their way into my nasal tract, later on they turned out to be my roomate's spices straight from Bangladesh. But that didn't threw me off because let's be real who likes a plain life uh? Sometimes you have to spice it up just to add an extra adventure to your life.

Making it feel like home

This part required more attention to little details on how the interior design of my room was so to make more space, I started to move around the chairs and the table without obtaining much from it. I often asked myself why my room felt much smaller than my neighbours so one day I was looking at the emergency evacuation plan that was hanging on the wall and I couldn't believe my eyes: on the plan all the rooms on the ground floor had the same size except my room which was evidently less wider than the rest. It is then that i stoped to think how small my room is and accepted it just the way it was. After some weeks I was actually happy about this fact because it ment that I had to spend less time to sweep the floor.

Setting up my 'desk' was another fun ritual to do, starting from the Bible that I brought with me to the books of termodinamics which are waiting for me to open them up and clean their dust. Productivity is crucial these days so I keep this area simple, clean and comfortable to spend an afternoon on.

The bed initially caused a lot of soar muscles on my neck and back for reasons that I still don't understand but now it feels much better, maybe even too comfortable at times. Once I put my blue cover that my mother gave me it started to get more cozy. Every three weeks we can change our bed linens and get clean ones which is a big relief because you don't have to worry about it every time. Though sometimes staying with the same bed sheets for three consecutive weeks is a bit too much.

Advice for future inhabitants

Well I've been staying in these dorm for four months now and I have very little to complaign about. For an erasmus student it is the ideal case scenario beacause:

• the rent is very much affordable compared to many european cities I have stayed at or got to know about in one way or another. Inexpensive rent means you have more money to save or invest in activities you like;
• you have shared facilities bathrooms and kitchen included which makes things much more interesting speacially in the kitchen because you are daily exposed to new cuisines and techniques of cooking which you can learn just by watching someone cook and if you are courageous enough ask for a taste, enriching your culinary repertoire;
• having random conversations with people you find in the corridor which in most cases are students and if you are lucky enough you might end up meeting a senior from your course and that can be usefull to get a first grip on the matter, specially if you are at the beggining of the semester;
• chances of increasing your vocabulary when it comes to polish language are much higher because all the receptionists in the dorm speak only polish so if yo want to ask something you have to say it in polish(once I needed an extra pillow and I learned how to ask for it in polish, just for the record it was one of my first elaborate sentences in polish which I still remember);
• the possibility to spend time in the gym located on the fifth floor without any extra payment;
• possibility to have parties and get togethers inside the dorm in a designated room which comes with a table soccer and enough space for twenty people to hang around.

Eventhough sometimes you might find yourself crying for some privacy, you will also learn how good it is to share what you have with people that are around you and as time goes by I am learning to appreciate more and more what I have in my hands rather than complaining, which is nothing but directing your energy towards the build up of negative thoughts and my advice for you is to break out from this cycle:)

Cheers everyone, thankyou for reading !

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