Phew exams are over! Reporting from pulau perhentian! Playing truant!!! Muahahahahaha

Sure, I'll do it! You mean living on campus?

This post has been edited by Cottoncandyclouds: May 26 2011, 02:39 PM

Am in the middle of writing my share! TJJ your part is fabulous as it is. I have no (negative) comments, but they probably might pop out later

Sorry, just came back from perhentian a couple of days ago. I'll give you what I've written so far....so everything is still TBC.
*Writes behind facade of anonymity*

Accommodation Review

Price

In short, don't expect the prices any rooms here to be anywhere near financially kind. Renting a room, whether on campus or anywhere within the vicinity of the campus is AS costly as those you can scour in KL and Peejay, and be adequately warned that the level of comfort you expect to derive from these rooms may not correspond to the amount of rental you fork out.

The general rule of thumb is the farther away, the cheaper, so those who have their personal modes of transportation may wanna check out potential rooms or houses not too near to the university.

But since I am staying on campus, I can't really speak for those who live outside since I lack credibility.

Prices range from 350 to 600 plus on campus, in which your choice of whether to you'd like to have an en suite bathroom/A/C (or both) in your room or not will be duly incorporated into your rental. However, if you opt for an A/C, bear in mind that they charge you separately the electricity costs you incur during its usage. A single shared bathroom unit off campus (but under that of the PK and PC, which also brings us to the fact that accommodation here is privatized) is about RM 30 more a ripoff than its similar counterpart on campus.

One way of looking at this is that all the cruel holes the rental burns in your fee raped pocket, convenience and safety compensates on campus residents somewhat, and the importance of this privilege is arguably only felt when students are forced to move out a year later. So its not that bad, really! Expensive rental notwithstanding, living within walking proximity of certain facilities (depending on where your priorities lie, ie, the library and the 24 hour study rooms for me) may be a major strategic interest to nightowls and late risers who are never bright and early for the daily races.

So basically, while the price may appear unreasonable to some, the location does levy its share of benefits.

And oh yeah, they are quite particular with punctuality; they expect you to indemnify administrative delays so make sure you surrender your cash on time! Hahahaha!


And oh yeah, the accommodation offices expect you, with reasonable integrity ( ), to declare all personal electrical appliances such as electric kettles, mini bars, portable stand fans, rice cookers, toasters and whatnot so that they can charge you accordingly! And these rates are really not light.
They can only charge you if you declare lol. To stop them from milking your money, you have the option not to declare, which is a crime that many of us here knowingly commit. (In Pangkor and Kapas halls la)


Next is Environment...(underway)

This post has been edited by Cottoncandyclouds: Jun 1 2011, 09:02 PM

I got....toaster in my room

My dorm mates, chinese exchange students, had all sorts of stuff...like kettles, cookers, aquariums (???)


There is this indescribable sense of gratification from the fact that I've managed to smuggle my favourite toaster in....and totally not get ripped off.
mehehehehhehehehe

This post has been edited by Cottoncandyclouds: Jun 1 2011, 09:15 PM

Buahahahahahaha my senior dorm mates gave me all their text books for free! Buahahahahaha my bf didn't manage to get through the interviewers he met for the Star Edu Fund, but lets just hope he gets through Gamuda's hurdle!

Will be posting up the other part soon...Just got back home..... I've got measly rashes from staying at the dorm room....

Muahahhaha Back with the second part

Environment

General Rules and Regulations

The accommodation management (Perinitis Kencana in my case) incorporates a huge seriatim of rules in your rental contract in which a few of them may appear very inhibitory to some; the regulations they expect students abide by, nostalgically, remind me of those imposed by conservative school dormitories:

1) The rooms are strictly for single occupancy only ( which is very reasonable )
2) No guests are allowed to stay overnight, not even your family members, and anyone caught doing such will be considered as trespassers
3) Males are strictly prohibited from stepping into female rooms, thus ruling out any possibility of the management even allowing you to spend any time there
4) Usage of speakers are not allowed lest you unnecessarily interrupt your studious dorm mates
5) No non halal perishables allowed into premises
6) If you fail to make an appointment with the management to have cleaners clear up your pig sty every fortnight, they will check your room
7) Declaration of personal electrical appliances and they will conduct spot checks sporadically
8) No parties
and blablabla....

Failure to abide by supposedly entails very serious consequences like immediate expelling and questionable fines.

In retrospect dorm regulations are restrictive but enforcement is beneficially lax, and a few of the rules seem quite toothless. For example, it is impossible to monitor who and what goes into your room since males and females occupy the same premises. You are not allowed to hold parties in the common kitchen, but the management does not explicitly prohibit other unconventional parties like LAN parties and 'dinner' parties (XDDDDDDD). Ditto the previous post about smuggling in of non declared electrical appliances. However if anyone in the premises makes a formal complaint then you will be checked on.

Its important to emphasize that I described some rules as seemingly quite toothless and not toothless per se because regulations are here to facilitate peace and order. I don't want to be accused of encouraging rule breaking. You could probably say that they are to be treated as general guidelines than imperial decrees and prohibitions. Below the surface, everything here is still subject to reasonableness

Certainly nobody expects the management to keep us in line like school children; we are university students after all and I guess everyone is expected to display some form maturity when it comes to personal conduct. Nearly all of us here use our computer speakers, which to me is quite acceptable, but what really crosses the boundaries of appropriateness is blasting them at night with your windows open ( like the stupid jerks living on the floor above mine).

There is one toothless bite though, and thats (6). I've never made and appointment with them (I prefer to clean my own room) and I have yet to hear or see any signs of disapproval. And yeah, no spot checks so far, lucky me


General Room Condition

Don't expect the room to come with any fancy embellishments. But do expect the room to be:


1) Very minimalistic, in a good way: Table, two chairs, squeaky bed ( that according to a certain member many pages prior can fit two people ), mirror, cupboard, shelves and bedside drawer. The room was quite clean upon my arrival and everything was checked twice by the management to make sure everything was functional, so no qualms bout that.

2)VERY HUMID!

Within weeks of moving in, some of my belongings started to have suspicious green flecks of abomination. The air is so humid due to poor ventilation that your bedsheets, pillows and anything made with fabric will reek with malodour pretty quickly. In fact the air here is so wet, you may see a layer of moisture covering the flooring outside of your room every morning. To avoid getting your stuff covered will mildew, you'd do well by placing two dehumidifiers in your room, one in the cupboard where you hang your clothes and one on your table. Mine were full with water to the brim after three weeks

3) VERY HOT!!!!!

A small rotating fan is installed in every room, which is incompetent at best. Air ventilation and circulation here is very poor, so it will get super stuffy at certain times of the day. The temperature in my room was significantly warmer than that of outside (setting the fan at full speed barely helps; doesn't lower the heat and fills me with paranoid thoughts that the fan might detach itself from the wall )

In fact the heat was so bad I suffered from bouts of rashes o-o

What helped alleviate that was opening the door and windows for the heat to escape, so a cooler room is regrettably at the expense of privacy. Alternatively you can sneak in a portable stand fan

4) Probably infested with insects and lizzies

I have managed to identify two types of ants that regularly raid my room.

Black Carpenter Ants:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_carpenter_ant
Malaysian Red Ants: http://www.google.com.my/search?q=malaysia...iw=1366&bih=667

Black Carpenter ants come into your room to forage food, regardless of whether you keep any food or not in your room. They're the huge black ones.
Malaysian red ants are those that ambush your room if you happen to store edibles and and usually come en masse.

Both also damn annoying. So don't keep food in your room, especially if they are exposed to air because they certainly beckon ants of both types. Ants in my room station themselves around my AIRTIGHT containers, and usually wait for the right moment to breach the forbidden gold mine XD

Lizards hang around on my walls at night, in fact right above my head. I get so scared that I can't sleep sometimes. A whole family of them cohabitate with me, baby and all. The poo everywhere and irritate me more than ants because I can't get rid of them.

Other Issues

Internet

Slow as hell. Took 30 minutes to download a 3mb file. Only 128 kbps.
Its a public net work so security is questionable. I refrain from downloading games or visit fishy sites on the computer I bring to my dorm, and limit myself to only using staples like FB, mail, msn and lyn, but I got attacked by some really strong assed virus. So I brought my dad's lappie to the dorm, and within 3 days of usage (similarly limiting myself to only 3 sites without downloading anything, no file transfer from any source), the system was also overwhelmed by a similar malware. I don't want to point fingers and jump to conclusions....

Since then I have stopped using the dorm's arbitrary internet connection. Celcom (Y)

Nolife(s):Pranksters, thieves and the undead


My friends and I have been pranked a few times by some random douchebag that goes around knocking doors at 4-5 am. Its difficult to describe that rage you feel when you have to get up from sleep, open your door to see nobody there. And worst of all they do it repeatedly! You go back to bed and they knock again!!

Creepy and agitating. So my advice is to ignore....if you live in a single shared bathroom like me, lock the main door.

The undead is what I label students who refuse to sleep at night and can't resist the temptation to make that known to other inhabitants who have reasonably slept. They walk around, laugh, wail, howl, bark, meow, quack, moan, act loud, are inconsiderate, drunk, groggy and emit incoherent mess of weird noises ....totally dislike them.

There have been unfortunate cases of theft happening to residents....I think this problem spawns from the fact it is very difficult to monitor who goes in and out of rooms and corridors. So I guess the usual precautionary steps like locking your doors and windows are very important......valuables (perceived or authentically valuable ) should be kept out of sight, including your bras and knickers.

I never keep my food in the common room kitchen fridge. Notes with red ink saying " WHO STOLE MY PEANUT BUTTER?!?!?!" pinned on it are enough to discourage me.

These people should totally get a life. How do you kill someone who has no life?

Cleanliness

Perintis Kencana's cleaners clean the corridors and kitchens pretty frequently, and at one point it was daily, and during that point everything was nearly spanking clean. But there are some fools that destroy that moment of bliss by leaving used utensils and food scraps on counters for buggies and the likes to feast on. And those irresponsible people who hold their LAN parties there occasionally leave their trash behind (coke bottles, ciggies etc). Complete eyesore!

Right now, the cleaners are so busy checking everyone out, they've not cleaned the place for more than a week. The premises look as if a tornado ripped through a rubbish dump. Not exaggerating. Some buggers sweep their dust out of their room and onto the corridor....out of sight, out of mind.

Insects revisited

The period after and preceding rain is mating time for ants. You will probably see a whole colony of single male and female winged ants getting snuggly around fluorescent lights installed within the premises. DAMN MANY!!!!

Millipedes usually come out for a stroll in the morning. You may see them crawling around paths when the temperature is joyfully cool, which is also apt for human strolling. Beware cus you might step on one!

This post has been edited by Cottoncandyclouds: Jun 7 2011, 03:17 AM

I received the survey link too. Heat here is enough to make anyone a thirsty frothing rabid. Two people canned in a cupboard drawer?

NAH

This post has been edited by Cottoncandyclouds: Jun 7 2011, 03:23 AM

Unless they throw in free air con

This post has been edited by Cottoncandyclouds: Jun 7 2011, 12:41 AM

Guys, check your owa, the release date is on the 24th o_O

My economic friends' quantitative economics paper...turned out to be an essay orientated paper instead of a mathematical one for the first time XD They were screaming their way out of the room

This post has been edited by Cottoncandyclouds: Jun 20 2011, 07:22 PM