Columnist Anindyaningrum Chrisant Rystiasih has a joyful relationship with her corridor.
You will hear your share of corridor horror stories when you are in Lund. Hopefully you won`t be the ones sharing them. Here I will share a rather nice one, because for me personally, I really enjoy living in a corridor for school year.
The new semester rolls around, and as I see the new students coming into town it reminds me of the first time I came to Lund. We didn`t have this beautiful intermittent snow in the summer, in fact the week I arrived the city was almost constantly under heavy downpour. But we did have some beautiful warm days such as we had on arrival day. It was good weather for moving in to my corridor.
Not everyone gets to live in a corridor, or gets to live in a nice corridor, but I luckily do. I say lucky partly because the way you get a housing in Lund seems to involve a lot of luck. In my experience, you are given one choice and you either take it, or leave it. I was happy to find accomodation, and the process was organized so it was not too much of a problem for me.
The first thing that came to my mind when I entered my room for the first time is, “Is all of this space for me?” After living in several cities, and visiting friends in others, I was quite content with the space allocated for me. Furthermore, my room came with my own bathroom. This means I never have to wait for someone else to finish their shower before being able to take mine.
My room is my private area, but all that space can leave me feeling a bit lonely at times. So when i feel like i need some social contact, I can easily hang out around the kitchen and sooner or later I will meet my fellow corridor mates. I live in one of the bigger corridors with 12 people, so there is quite a high probablility for me to meet somebody at any given time in my kitchen. The kitchen area, also with a dining and sitting area is well suited to cultivate social interactions between us.
Speaking of kitchens, they are quite fully equipped. I am a person who enjoys cooking and it makes me really happy because having a corridor kitchen means most of the equipment needed are available and I do not have to buy them, although I still could if I wanted too.
Life in a corridor is much more than this. I could not list all the nice things, for example I left out the corridor parties, and corridor dinners. Of course there are also the things that are not so nice such as dirty kitchens after somebody forgets to clean, broken vacuum cleaners and cold rooms. Nevertheless, I am content to live in this place for the year that I am studying in Lund.
