A room with a night view

This is the view from my window at night. I live on the eighth floor of a dormitory, run mainly on the front desk by retirees of varying levels of curmudeonlyness. I feel this picture shows a few things about the place and its oddities.

At night I think it reflects even more what it is to be part of the surreal existence of 'Camburiji Hausu': a huge, C-shaped building, almost empty (look how few lights are on!). A luxurious and ridiculously well-lighted atrium, for the purpose of: who knows? A good-sized pond, decorated with several Roman and Greek statues, lies in the inner sanctum. One tiny goldfish lives here. Sometimes the fountain is turned on, in conjunction with piped classical music over the speaker system (one in every room!): reasons for this are unknown, at least to me. These same speakers broadcast various jingles for breakfast (7:30am), midday, 3pm (not sure about this one), dinner (5:30pm) and lights out/lullaby (11:30pm) every day. You can turn this down, you can't turn it off.

As foreign exchange students on the scholarship, the eighth floor is ours, and so we have more freedom than the other students. Though there are still cameras in the hall, the electricity only works if you 'check in' by putting your key into the slot, and you can only use your bike if you hand in your room key at the front desk. A strange existence, though one I am very thankful for the opportunity to be here through.

And all presided over by the TMA-1-like monoliths that are the impossibly bright drinks vending machines over the road. The light from these shine into my room at night, patterning my ceiling with their strangeness.