I have just moved from Norfolk Terrace, an around-40-year-old building, to the university village, a group of residences for the undergradute and post-graduate students of the UEA.
The university village is 10 to 15 minutes walk from the main campus. The university village may look like a holiday camp in Hong Kong and all houses there are 3 stories high.
My room is single ensuite with a bathroom with toilet in my own room. Looking outright from my window is a tree and beyond a grassland.
Why I needed to change the room? I was told by the accomodation office that my accomodation application was received after the 1 September deadline. But the truth is that I sent over my online accomodation and accepted the unconditional offer of the study in the UEA early back to February and May. The reason that the accomodation office treated my application as overdue was that they needed the confirmation from the law school or faculty that I had a seat in the study. Well, for some reasons, such confirmation was sent after the accomodation application deadline. The result was… I was sent to the “refugee camp” (all students who arrived late would be sent to there) – the Norfolk Terrance which was in need of and being planned for refurbishment.
I then wrote to the head of the law school for help. He initially was reluctant to help as he said he had no influence to the accomodation office. But I continued to plead for help, telling him the entire matter was very unfair to me and how the room was unpleasant and damaging to my campus life. (In one day alone, I killed one cockroach and 5 spiders (Note) in my room. The room had a bad smell and was too dark.) He finally talked to the head of the accomodation office and then I was treated as a VIP in the accomodation office.
While I was working on the law department for help, I also went to see the welfare officer of the student union for help. (The student union is not the ordinary student association like in Hong Kong. It seems to have certain powers in the university when I note that there are quite a number of full time staff in the union to help and advise the students and the union also runs bookshops and some other facilities in the campus.)
In fact, I had also made an appoitment and was prepared to see the officer of the dean of students office when I was notified by the accomodation office that I have been allocated to a new room in the university village.
It is fortunate that some people in the UEA were willing to help me in this matter. However, it is also true that if we need to assert our rights, we need to do whatever we can to voice out our discontent and our justifications. On the same floor of my first room in Norfolk Terrance, a Japanese girl also has requested the accomodation office for a change of room but until now she has not yet been able to move to a new room. However, she has not done anything else apart from submitting a form of request of room change to the accomodation office.
When I saw the head of the accomodation office, I also asked for a waiver for the handling charge for room change which was 20 Sterling pounds. Initially he hesitated that his accomodation office was not at fault in the matter and the room needed cleaning when the room was changed. I stated I was even an innocent victim in the whole matter. I had already suffered in this matter and it was unfair to me that I needed to pay for something which was not at all my fault. In the end, he let me waive for the charge.
Note: The spiders are called Daddy Long Legs. They have very long and slender legs. They look like a bit like mosquitoes for their long and slender but their size make them look like spiders. They will not bite people but will fly around in your room, climbing into your food (One loaf of my bread was thrown away just because it has climbed to it). They are very stupid and you can always catch them. The Norfolk Terrance was next to a grassland. Therefore, plenty of Daddy Long Legs would fly into my room when I lived there, especially at night.