Those days in College - YMCA Jewell House

During our college days, we were put up in YMCA hostel, 11 floor with 200 rooms, 9th & 10th Floor were catered for the female student with strict rules for security concerned.

Single room for each of us with basic facilities like desk, bed, fan, heater & wardrobe, common sharing areas were bathroom, pantry, TV room & laundry.

Busy traffic flow happened in the morning, bathrooms were specially packed, girls were seen walking with their toiletries bag and a bottle of white liquid, white stuff are Dettol mix to wipe on toilet bowl before sitting on it. Each and everyone were busy brushing up at the long stretch of sinks, some took long time cleaning, rubbing & massaging their face, some were like split of lightning zoom in and zoom out, some walk around with white mask on their face, some with white pimples cream dotted on their face, some with mourning face and frizzy hair. (some said woman most prettier time is in the morning, this had proven wrong)

Showers were separated by cubicles, some ‘book’ or reserve the bathroom by letting the shower running with their clothes in it, while they were doing their brushing. During winter time, it was difficult to undress where the cold breeze will some how flow in from nowhere, the fabulous idea was to let the shower running much much more earlier to allow the hot steam warm and fill the whole bathroom for undressing made easy.

The pantry consisted of dining tables, chairs, refrigerator, stove and cooking utensil, all of us were allow to store food stuffs in the refrigerator, but scenario of missing items played repeatedly without catching the ‘rat’, getting annoyed and frustrated, some came out with brilliant idea of labelling ‘POISON !! Do not eat’, ‘Stolen from …(name)’ to deter the act. Exam was the time that everyone had amnesia or temporary lost memory, causing the disgusting worms growing and nested in the fridge and at the he sink.

No hand wash and our laundries were done with washing machine & dryer, I shrunk my cardigan and track bottom 2 sizes smaller with paid dryer, where back home offer free sun for drying and size guarantee.

Watching TV for leisure, you need to group up a few to convince others that majority win, you then can pick your likable channel.

In general, it was not that easy to live under the same roof with difference culture and multi races from Singapore, HongKong, Malaysia, Japan, Brunai, Australia & Thailand, tolerance & compromise are the key words that tie all of us together without hair pulling drama.