Yes, Your Apartment Needs “Positive Vibes”
a poorly made guide for individual student accommodation
Colleges are reopening, interns are back at the office running around to get coffee, and metro stations are full of teenagers dressed in oversized t-shirts and matching sneakers.
Amid all the excitement, students are struggling to find suitable accommodation for themselves. Some have taken the brave decision to travel and sleep their way through 50-minute train rides, while others are caught up with flat-hunting.
And I know most of your decisions would be based on budget, area, how nosy the landlord is, and where the nearest Mcdonald’s is. Still, may I bring to the table the question of vibes.
Don’t Compromise On Sunlight
The lack of natural light might not seem like a deal-breaker right now. But when the excitement of going to college every day simmers down, and you find yourself sleeping in due to sheer exhaustion, trust me, you’ll need sunlight.
A lack of sunlight will negatively affect your mood, mess up your body’s internal clock, and negatively impact your productivity.
Exposure to sunlight would increase your body’s Vitamin D; improve your cardiac rhythms and sleep patterns. Sunlight doesn’t give you vitamin D directly, but it helps your body produce its own. It also strengthens your body from the inside, so all your trips to the gym will be in vain if you’re not keeping your vitamins in check.
To sum up, natural light is more likely to keep you in a better mood than if you were trapped in a box of a room with no windows.
Find A Local Park
Again, parks might seem useless if you’re sure you will spend most of your time with friends or in college. But statistically speaking, you will spend more time in your apartment alone than you will outside. And when you feel the Metallica poster on your wall is growing fangs of its own, you will want to step out.
And unless you’re a #ResponsibleAdult who actually likes to run errands, parks will become your safe space. Parks will make your mundane sitting-at-home activities seem less depressing.
Want to eat some fruits and listen to music? Go to the park. Want to find some motivation to plan your week? Go to the park! Need to take an angry walk after another failed group project meeting? Go. To. The. Park!
Is There Character?
“Character” is incredibly vague, but you know it when you see it. It’s that one eye-catching quality about the place that makes you fall in love with it.
Be it a battered old window that has something friendly about it or an unusually cheerful kitchen. Your room, like yourself, has an energy of sorts. All your furniture will share your happiness, and your sadness will be held onto each plant sitting on your desk.
And yes, if you are not in love with your apartment, you probably shouldn’t live there.
Where you live becomes a massive part of your daily routine, personality, and attitude towards life in general. Let’s say, if you find the time to clean your space regularly, you will, as a result, feel more put-together about life in general.
Can You Make It Home?
You will not live in this apartment forever, but it helps to pretend you might. Unless you can see the walls surrounding you as “home,” you won’t be at peace in your own house.
Yes, this won’t have your mother’s food, clean laundry that magically shows up on your bed, or a PlayStation (if this doesn’t apply to you, I hate you.), but you still need to make do.
It doesn’t bode well to think you will leave this place soon enough, so why does it matter if it has a crooked balcony. Because as you immerse yourself more and more into the life you’ve created for yourself––the life which will inevitably be attached to where you live––every little thing would matter.
You might not find a place with a perfectly symmetrical balcony or staircases that are easy on your knees, but as long as it evokes joy in your dumb little heart, you’ll be alright.
You are what you eat AND where you clean the dishes. The place you choose, no matter for the next three months or the next three years, you would need to cherish it like your own. You would need to make it your own.
