University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

The new central administration building of the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, in its natural setting now far from the distractions of sufficient food and non-cannibalistic daily life. Wildlife abounds in and around campus. Can you spot the Malaysian Grey Ground Squirrel in the foreground?

The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) is an overseas campus of the University of Nottingham intended for confusion when making a bank draft to pay your fees. Unlike The University of Nottingham in Nottingham, the Malaysia campus is not a public institution, and that is why the fees charged are astronomical.

Situated in the heart of darkness, three hundred thousand centimeters from the village of Semenyih, the new campus is built in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in an oil palm plantation. It was launched in 2005. The first batch of students in this new campus were the ones to suffer the worst with fallout and radiation. The specific plot of land was selected because of its compatible past uses, both as the site of frequent lethal atrocities and as a picturesque Japanese cemetery haunted by amusing vengeful spirits of the undead.

From 2001 to 2005, academic activities had taken place in a rented building in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, which wasn't very impressive but at least offered living among civilization.

History

The Malaysia Campus was the first purposeful campus built away from Nottingham – the purpose being to suck students' blood dry and commit daylight robbery on the parents. Officially opened in 2005 and costing no less than 120 million Ringgit, this world-class facility is committed to producing UK-standard graduates with international backgrounds in a truly Asian environment. Unfortunately, what they didn't realize was that Malay currency is 5 times smaller compared to UK currency, so charging the same amount as UK pounds would only produce beggars. The university started with only a couple of hundred students but currently has over 5000 suckers. It is "twinned" with the University of Malaysia, Nottingham Campus.

Facilities

Accommodation

Pulau Pangkor Residence Hall is designed for the free flow of cooling tropical cyclone breezes and protection from the sun. Any poisonous millipedes and snakes are controlled by Viper Bats living in an upper loft and only occasionally cause a student fatality.

Five accommodation halls, misleadingly named after the famous beach islands of Malaysia, are where the new students are allowed to stay. Others have to live in the haunted and abandoned residential areas. The lucky ones who own cars prefer to stay in Bandar Sunway Semenyih, about 15 minutes drive from the campus, provided that they are able to survive the perils of driving in Semenyih roads. With so many restaurants nearby, these fortunate souls don’t have to rely on the university cafeteria’s sorry excuse of outsourcing the cooking to foreigners.

Each on-campus hall offers fully furnished bedrooms. Each has a typically-English 300-year-old two-legged chair and a two-legged oak table. Plus there are Malaysian touches like a flint-filled wire hammock and a fragrant Amorphophallus titanum to brighten the room. An internet point in every room is available for a separate fee that most can't afford. A power point can be provided for a moderate fee and an additional bribe disguised as a gratuity. A resident will then need to purchase a plug converter (5-prong to 3) and a step-down transformer.

The halls are on a self-catering basis. Crockery, cutlery and pans are provided for light cooking, but to guarantee personal health, well-being and hygiene, it is recommended that you eat off the floor. Remember this is a halal campus, so no pet pigs are allowed.

Off-campus houses are also fully furnished in that there are floors, ceilings of a sort, and two walls minimum. There will probably be homemade bamboo furniture left by previous residents, if not already eaten by beetles. A gas tank is also available whereby students will have to pay for their own gas for committing suicide.

Computer labs

TISCRAs 1, 2, 3 and ISCRAs 1, 2 and 3 have state-of-the-art computers where students can log on in a little over ten minutes tops, normally. Peer-to-Peer file transfer, instant messaging, YouTube and Skype are some of the services available for students to use. Those are made available provided that users spend a minimum of 3 hours a day watching Running Man, reruns of Running Man and playing Tetris Battle on Facebook. Uncyclopedia is intermittently classified as an adult web site and blocked. The advertised speed of the connection is 1Mbps. What is not advertised is that this is the total throughput for the IT Center.

Central administration

This is the only building that actually looks reasonable, with exquisite toilet seats to boot. All other buildings seem to have come out of an abstract painting. On the ground floor, there’s Notting Hill Cafe, soon to be aptly renamed Nothin' Here Cafe. This eatery serves Indian/South Asian cuisine based on locally-sourced ingredients.

There's a rumour stating that a new McDonald's branch will replace the clock tower, but many doubt so. It might even start a protest as there would be no more places for couples to get some privacy.

Faculty buildings

The Don "Yobbo" Tosser Neptune Building, better known as the Red Building for its signature paint scheme.

Labelled with colours red, blue, orange and purple, and at least not called "Neptune" or some silly name like "Dove" or "Don Freaky Ninny", they represent the faculty buildings for every school. For instance the engineering lecturers can be found in the Blue Building, the engineering labs are in the Red Building, and the engineering computer lab is in the Purple Building, which leaves the business school students with nowhere else to roam besides the Orange Building.

Student administration

This is so-called because unions are banned in Malaysia. This building has, on the ground floor, the cafeteria, inconvenience store (Pioneer "Dracula" Century), the coffee shop (gone), hair dressing saloon (gone), and the traditional overpriced bookstore where you can spend many a happy hour wading through unsorted books still in piled-up boxes.

One story up is the TV room, which doubles as the bunkhouse, and the sauna, used during football matches. Entertainment is by pool tables, provided you are willing to loan your cue stick to players at other tables, and Foosball tables, provided you are willing to loan the ball to other tables. Be careful though, as unions may be banned but some of the foosballers seem to be on strike. There is a brand-spanking-new dance studio and for those not into spanking, a music room, plus a meeting room with broken chairs and un-cushioned sofas lying around, and the offices of the UNMC Student Administration. This resembles a used furniture store where nothing is for sale.

Cafeteria and coffee shop

The cafeteria is divided into four main parts: a buffet, the Western grill, an Indian/Chinese stand, and the drinks section. The buffet menu is chicken, fish, bushmeat, fish, rice, fish and vegetarian dishes. Leftovers are recycled and re-cooked the next morning, especially the fish. The Western has some weird food, like hamburgers, sausage eggs, and deep-fried and battered fish with something called "chips". The Indian stall sells roti canai (roti pratha), roti egg, roti butter, roti sardin, roti onion, roti sugar, and roti.

Malaysian rendang, a national favourite, is no longer served after a visit by UK diplomat Gordon Ramsay. After cursing out the kitchen staff over its preparation, expat Tibetan witches among the cooks turned Ramsay into a newt. Still, once in a while in the evening, if you're lucky, you might catch a few rats running about.

There's also a Mak Cik that sells great curry and sardine puffs upstairs near the dance studio (gone). And there's a secret Pak Cik selling other interesting stuff around campus.

Parking lot

Parking control officers ensure cars are properly parked and contain no contraband like delicious pigs or tasty pork products.

The campus is built in between some hills. With lots of greenery and flora and fauna, sufficient parking is offered on campus for staff and delivery vehicles. Students with enough swag and money can park their cars in premium spots. Otherwise students have to park along the sides of the road or double park to show off their new blingz, which turns it into a one-way road where accidents are bound to happen in turnings and turns. Head-ons are thankfully impossible, as all cars must be driven backwards for traction in the slick mud.

The double-yellow-lined areas are always off limits to cars. Failure to comply will result in a car being clamped by the security guards. The fact that they’re not enough clamps to go around means that it will certainly be your unlucky day if you see your car being clamped. If your car happens to be yellow then you can take some time to gaze in awe of the matching colours. Then if your car happens to be a yellow sports car, you can ask your friend to take a picture of you trying to pull it off. If you happen to know the Head of Security you can just go up to him and ask for your car to be de-clamped. This is always good for a huge laugh if not accompanied by the appropriate bribe. Sometimes the security chief will take pity and loan you the key, after which you must clamp any nearby vehicle of your choosing.

People

Lecturers/professors

Visiting lecturer in maths Dr. Lin Miao will often switch between Malay pidgin and Qinghai dialect to keep students on their toes. Dr. Lin is particularly adept at throwing chalk at inattentive students.

Most lecturers have a Ph.D., but some can't even speak no good English. Some have a speaker surgically implanted in their throats and enter the lecture hall, unplug the microphone, and start shouting. They don't answer questions. You are at UNMC to learn, not be "spoon-fed like children."

If you are an international student, you are dead meat. If your name sounds like the sound produced when a coin hits the floor (Ching, Chang, Yong, BANG, etc.), you have guaranteed an A. If your names hints at Arabic, you can "kiss your A goodbye."

UNMC International Students Association

This is a secret cult whose members hold weekly meetings to recharge. To recharge means to take their week's dose of a special narcotic that boosts confidence. This is despite Malaysian law that makes dada (narcotics) possession punishable by death. Death is considered preferable to trying to get drunk on the commercial American beer served on campus and in regional tourist bars.

The men of UNMC

One of the hotties strutting his or her stuff on campus. Gender unknown, if any.

The men at The University of Nottingham consider themselves studs of all sorts, which is a delusion. Of course, you'll find the occasional good looking ones. But don't get too excited, they aren't very well endowed. When they are not rating girls, they like walking around dressed like clowns and asking each other "What's the scene?" The guys also sit in circles at the SA for hours, trying their best not to look unemployed, while they discuss how shitfaced they got at a random house party two years back and recount the most minute details or pretty much everything that happened that night. Their lack of action in the bedroom doesn't stop them from claiming that they have slept with every girl who happens to smile at them, or more likely, at the person behind them. However, the handful who do manage to hook up could be easily spotted strutting their stuff like CK underwear models for the rest of their lives.

The women of UNMC

The women of UNMC are ugly, ferocious, and squalid. The behavior and diction of these strident women have caused uproar among the literate men of the college, frustrated that there are just no pretty women around. There is the occasional decent-looking British hottie but everybody knows that relationships with these creatures are fruitless, unless one likes to plead for fellatio. Such a temporary enslavement to these comical entities would promise unthinkable and immeasurable dissatisfaction, tantamount to the notion of buying a Civic, when one could instead purchase a Lotus. Why settle for less? Because less is more at UNMC.

Surroundings

The campus is built in the rain forest near the allegedly haunted and abandoned residential area of TTS – Taman Tasik Semenyih, on Jalan Broga (Broga Road), between Semenyih and Broga. The single lane highway which snakes its way through the forest is unlit and its roadside is uninhabited. One of the thrills of living here is returning to the campus at night. Pioneer Century aims to inhabit these places again, making students live in these areas by building new accommodation halls. The developer is also hoping that the UK will reintroduce "transportation" for criminal offenders to further grow the region.