The IcTheek is one of those important, yet underappreciated places on the campus. Sure, the Vertigo has its atrium, the Helix has its glass facade and the Pavillion has the labyrinth passages. But the IcTheek, in all its simplicity, is the cultural melting pot of the campus.

It was one of the first places I visited on campus. Since then I’ve spent many caffeine fuelled spells in this place, solving problems, writing reports, or simply bouncing ideas around my head.

And if you spend enough time there, you start observing the people around you. Slowly and surely you can identify certain types based on their behaviour. You see the Erasmus exchange students with their webcams and mic, chatting with their boyfriends / girlfriends back home. You see the Asian students, engrossed in their assignments, deftly manoeuvring their mouse in a manner that only years of playing Warcraft could perfect. You see a bunch of students quietly reading their lecture notes and you know they are Dutch, because they pack up and leave the minute the clock strikes thirty minutes past five.

And then there are the regulars. Like a famous club, the IcTheek also has its own tribe, its cult following. We are the regulars and we come from all over the world. We are the people who one fine day innocently stepped in just to check our email, and then never left. Super fast internet and the coffee machine had us hooked. You see us at all hours, day after day, occupying our favourite seats. That strange green thing at the back pretending to be an art sculpture is our mascot and contains our secret stash of Red Bull.

The IcTheek is where all our actual work gets done – torrents that need to be downloaded, YouTube videos that need to be watched, and messenger buddies that need to be chatted with. Sometimes to take a break, we write our reports and solve assignments as well. On rare occasions, we even step out into the outside world.

So, join me and my fellow brethren of the IcTheek club (you know who you are) in acknowledging our favourite place on campus, our home away from home. Long live the IcTheek !