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After reading this poster, I revisited my perspective about best friend(s). I think you should do the same.  

1. A beer doesn’t get jealous when you grab another beer
2. When you go to a bar you know you can always pick up a beer
3. A beer won’t get upset if you come home and have beer on your breath
4. You don’t have to wine and dine a beer
5. If you pour a beer right you’ll always get good head
6. Hang overs go away
7. When you finished with a beer, the bottle is still worth 5 cents
8. You don’t have to wash a beer before tastes good
9. A beer always goes down easy
10. You can share a beer with your friends
11. Beer is always wet
12. You always, know you’re the first one to pop a beer
13. A frigid beer is a good beer
14. You can have work than one beer and not feel guilty
15. You can enjoy a beer all month long

I have been living at student accommodation, Opal Garden, for the last 7 months.  The place is managed by the university and its partner. The letter I received from the university last year mentioned the “luxury” facilities including broadband internet, shower, heater, and share kitchen with 3 students for “only” 113GBP/week. 

What I like the most about my place is the people. Most of students staying here are post graduate, either master or PHd students. Hence the building can be very quiet especially during holiday season. The staff are okay. Some of them are very friendly. Pastoral team is available to give support for students having problem adjusting with British system. 

My accommodation price (450/month) is way higher than current market price. Whilst living cost in Manchester is not cheap, rental price can be reasonably good.  To compare, a friend living 15 minutes from town pays 500 GBP/month for 2 beds flat. Two of my classmate live 3 blocks away from here and they pay similar amount. It means, each of them only pays 250 GBP/month, 200 quids less than what I pay.

The facilities are not as good as presented on the website. The kitchen is equipped with standard facilities such as fridge and stove but it does not include the cooking sets. The room comes with small size, thin wall, and terrible heating system. I can hear my flatmate talking on the phone every morning. The electric heating system, a system that currently banned in Germany, does not work properly. It’s on during day time but switch off automatically in the evening. Broadband internet is another matter. The connection is not stable. I get disconnected continually when I use it for video or voice streaming.

In addition to that, students need to pay for laundry service, something that is not very common over here. I also don’t feel comfortable with “regular” room checking by the staff despite the claim that it is for our safety and well-being. 

Personally, I would not recommend post graduate students to stay at university accommodation. Many of my friends have similar complains. But all of us are unable to move out because of 1 year contract we sign with accommodation office. If you come to England to study, I suggest you find the accommodation by yourself. It is important to look at the room and facilities before signing any contract.

Survivors of sexual violence in Indonesia faces serious challenges in their life. Victims are unable to escape from the trauma partly because of the country legal system. Andy Yentriani from National Commission on Violence Against Women argues that the country legal system is no longer adequate. The system only recognises rape as an sexual violence conducted by a man to a woman. 

“It’s based on a system that is four centuries old. Rape is only understood as the insertion of male genitalia into female genitalia.. The law also does not recognize that rape can be experienced by adult males.”

Meanwhile Wulan Danoekoesoemo, representative of an NGO survivor support group based in Jakarta, says that bureaucracy and limited access to medical facilities restraint victims to get the needed assistance. 

“There’s very little immediate medical assistance for women in this country. Rape survivors… may want to get themselves medically checked within 24 hours to provide physical evidence, but that’s a challenge due to bureaucracy..”

The full article is available at IRINnews website 

If you get stressed about this cruel worlds, don’t worry. You are not alone. It happens to our development enthusiasts as well. So what do they do when things go bad? Thanks to gadgets and technologies for enabling them to share their desperation. Here are 3 blogs I enjoy reading during my spare time. 

Stuff expat aid workers like: stupid, silly, funny experience of expatriates living in the development jungle.

Shot gun shack: personal perspective on current issues related with development works around the world.

Zunguzungu: if “occupy” is your thing, Aaron Bady suits you well. Not to forget, his Sunday Reading list is extremely challenging.

I received some messages from friends asking about Manchester. Being honest, I have no idea what to tell them. Hence, I often come with similar boring answer “I’m good, thanks”. I was not sure whether they wanted to know about the city or my well being. People always love good answer, don’t they? It wouldn’t be a good idea if I told them the bitter truth.