Don't worry even if things end up a bit too heave, We'll all float on alright

Recently things have been happening, I'm there but I'm not really. There's people saying things and there's people saying nothing, there's people judging and there's people going to Heaven in the end. How we all seem to co-exist baffles me.

My illustration of exams

Immature students

If you think that Uni will be filled with smart intellectual beings who speak in only philosophical terms and wear only suits and smart-casual wear, then I am sad to report that you thought wrong. I remember thinking that Uni will be awesome because I would be leaving the land of the immature to travel to a well-refined place of study.

But upon arriving at Rhodes I saw that nothing had changed. People still hung out in their cliques, people still played stupid and mean jokes on each other and people still enjoyed laughing at others’ misfortunes. I thought I was high school again. That’s how bad it was.

You would think that Sociology students would be able to debunk the normal and try to go beyond the appearance of a thing and find its meaning, but apparently not. In one of my Sociology lectures the lecturer played us a song called ‘Dear Dickie’. The students did of course did not listen to the song but instead came up with lame toilet humour jokes to throw at the lecturer upon the songs ending. This made me question the future of the country since these people will be the leaders of tomorrow.

Will they come up with a cure for cancer with the aid of Vodka and Cain?
Or will they be elected President with their beautiful jokes and dancing skills? (Wait its already happened ala Jacob Zuma)
All I know is that I’m not looking forward to the future…

Sleeping quarters

You have three options to where you want to spend your sleeping time. Home (that’s if you decide to study at your home province), University residence (Res) or digs (an apartment or house outside campus).

Home:
Living at home when attending Uni is the reasonable thing to do, that is, if you’re studying near home. It has the luxuries of home-cooked meals, your room and plus it’s cheaper. So for example if I had decided to study at UKZN I would have stayed at home. But thank the Lord that I’m not and I don’t have to live with my mothers gripe 24/7.

Res:
Some say that staying in res is like living in a 5-star hotel. I say that those people have never stayed at a 5-star hotel and the closet they’ve come to one is a motel on Point Rd in Durban. Res can be fun at times with the friends and the constant jolling. But really when it comes down to studying the noise factor can be become a problem.

Digs:
Apparently living in digs is the epitome of cool. That is if you enjoy eating canned food and cheese rolls for the rest of your Uni life. Living in digs can be cool because there are no annoying sub-wardens and inter-visiting hours but digs is also a lot of work. You have to buy your food and then cook everyday, you have to drive to Uni everyday and you have to be wary about the security of your premises and on top of that you have Uni to deal with. Though if you can do that then go for it.

Choosing where to live during your varsity years can be a mission since there is no option that has all negatives and no option that has all positives. So I say choose the one which you think will best advantage you.

Time to Reflect

Approached with the task to reflect critically upon the last five weeks of my blogging experience. I found it necessary to start from the beginning in order to convey my last thoughts about it. Learning the theories of narrative, genre and ideology last term with Priscilla Boshoff. I thought the move to teach blogging in term four was a brilliant one. As it made me use the theory that was taught to me in a more practical and technical way. Although many of my fellow classmates were disheartened by the course and accused it of not being real journalism since anyone could do it. I thought blogging was the future of journalism as it demands just as much attention to detail such as broadcast and print journalism.

When I heard that we had to work in a group to produce a blog that caters to the needs of first years. I was slightly disappointed as I have not had previous success when it comes to group members. Most of the time my group members would leave me with all the work to do while they enjoyed their weekend. But this time was different. Being put in a group with three of my dear friends: Chris, Thirusha and Dean. I had high expectations for the blog as we all had similar tastes in music, design and humour. Therefore this made it easy for us to get along in the meetings that were held. Usually Dean would make himself a cup of Milo and the rest of us would joke about the posts we would put on the blog. These meetings were informal but they got the job done in the end.

The same can be said about the tutorials where our tutor, Nicole Hyman, would advise us on the tasks that were due in the week. She went beyond the call of duty and arranged extra tech meetings in the JMS (Journalism and Media Studies’) computer labs just so we knew how to sort out the layout and gadgets of the blog. Nicole was an immense help to Fresh Meat’s success. As her never ending faith in us gave us, well me any way, the desire to excel in this blogging task.

The work load this term differed extremely from the last terms of JMS. The tasks were always coming in and I really don’t recall a moment where there was no JMS assignment due that week. Many people complained about this as it affected their other subjects but really I did not understand their whining. I remember one week when I was faced with a 1500 word Politics assignment, a three page Politics tutorial, a three page Sociology tutorial, two English paragraphs and a JMS2 application form to fill out. This work load did not stop me from posting about ten posts that week and also completing an opinion piece for JMS. Therefore I felt that my productivity of my blogging was efficient and I went beyond the call of duty to write extra posts for the blog.

The story ideas for my posts came mostly from everyday life of being a first year. Everything could be used to illustrate the life of a first year as I obviously am a first year and could relate everything to a first year level. Therefore I thought the genre of the blog did not limit my ideas for the blog and its posts. The choice to make surviving first year the theme for the blogs was a clever one. As students did not need to exert much intelligence as the ideas for stories and sources to interview were right in front of their faces. Though I must admit interviewing my friends for sources was a daunting challenge as they could afterwards see the result of my questioning. Although in first term I was faced with writing a profile about a fellow first year. This profilewas different as that fellow first year could read what I wrote about them which could lead in that person not liking what I wrote and eventually not being my friend anymore. Though later I realised that judging and criticism is a part of a journalist’s life and I had to get used to it.

The fact that my assignments had the potential to be read by any one who had internet access frightened me as I knew that my writing skills were not up to check. This made me work on my grammar, punctuation and spelling which in turn even positively affected my English grades. On the negative side the colloquial style of all my posts also boiled over to my other subjects. Once I found myself using the term ‘on the ball’ to describe South Africa’s Foreign Policy over Zimbabwe in one of my Politics tutorials. My tutor was not impressed. Therefore the fact that I was given total freedom in my writing technique disadvantaged me in terms of my other subjects which demanded critical and concise writing.

Blogging has given me the opportunity to express my self better. Before I used to think that my opinions did not matter as I thought they were the same as everyone else’s. But after reading many of the other blogs out there I found that my opinion differed. Blogging has given me the incentive to voice my opinions more critically and clearly. This has helped me grow as a person and also a professional journalist. On a scale of one to ten I would say that my personal growth due to blogging deserves a seven. It has taught me how write a story about relatively anything and also conduct a very structured argument.

In terms of research I found that hyperlinks and trackbacks were a great alternative to writing down reference pages. Hyperlinks were fun to play around with and attach to the actual subject matter on my blog posts. An example of this is when I mentioned something about a student in a lecture proclaiming that they were Jesus. I found an interesting web page that gave the definition of Jesus and made it a hyperlink to the post.

All in all if I had to evaluate my blogging experience I would give it a ten out of ten. My group was awesome, my tutor was awesome and the blog was awesome. The lectures on the other hand, Alette and Sim, need to be more organised in their task assignments. The explanations of what to do in the tasks were clumsily written and did not give much insight in what to actually do. But other that that my blogging experience has to be one of the highlights of first year at Rhodes. With the cooperation of my group members Chris, Thirusha and Dean, I hope that Fresh Meat will carry on delivering awesome advice to those first years out there.

This is not the last you've heard from me

Lesh

My Blogging Reflection

These past five weeks of blogging has been a new experience for me as a whole. In the past I have always been against blogging despite many of my friends trying to persuade me to start a blog. So at first as expected I was very angry of being “forced” to start blog. However my group decided to start this blog in the hope that it would help future generations of first year students to better and more easily navigate the long and hard road of first year university. Although we have thrown in a little tongue and cheek every now and then. Probably the best part of this blog was working with my friends Lerusha, Thirusha and Dean whose combined creativity has made this blog both possible and enjoyable.

At first I found it very strange and weird that we were studying how to blog for Journalism and Media studies. This is because I always thought that blogs were for attention seeking people with too much time on their hands who write about their insignificant (and often very boring) lives. Sure enough my travels on the internet in search of decent blogs did in fact produce numerous blogs created by attention seeking people with too much time on their hands concerning their insignificant lives. However I also found numerous blogs that reported on events around the world. I found bogs that reported on everything from human rights abuses in Zimbabwe to the growing international economic crisis. So it is now clear to me that blogging can in fact be a tool in which both amateur and professional journalists can spread news around the world. Now I believe that studying blogs and the skill of being a good blogger are an important part of being a journalist.

Being an inherently lazy person who loves to do the bear minimum and with no plan to go into second year Journalism (I am going to major in Politics and History) I had little enthusiasm to work hard on this blog. But not wanting to disappoint my friends and teammates (blog-mates?) and most certainly not wanting them to fail on my account (thus not getting into second year) I have tried to work hard and consistently. Although being mortally afraid of both Lerusha and Thirusha might have also made a slight impact in my “encouragement” to work hard. I do appreciate that the Journalism and Media Studies lecturers gave us a large amount of personal freedom. Yes, some of the posts were set by the lecturers but we could always manipulate and mould the subject into something we enjoyed or found interesting. To make it even more enjoyable we could also post anything we wished to and the subject of the post did not even really have to concern first year university experiences.

Personally most of the inspiration for the posts that I posted were conjured by Lerusha and Thirusha who are far more creative than I am. However they all came from either past experiences or personal knowledge. Some of the posts were factual while others were personal opinions. Some were extremely serious while others were for comic relief. However I do believe that all of our posts fitted together perfectly like one of those large puzzles one has hidden away in a cupboard. Although I usually despise working in groups I really enjoyed both the people in my group as well as working with the group. I feel as though everybody has contributed a little of themselves to the blog itself. We have all brought something important into the blog which makes the blog itself a projection of four different but interesting people.

Finally this blog would not have been possible with all the help given by our Journalism and Media studies tutor Nicole Hyman. She gave us large amounts of help and encouragement during our tuts. However she also went beyond the call of duty on many occasions to help us with setting up and improving our blog. And all this in the last weeks of her final year of Journalism and Media Studies as well as final months in South Africa before she moves to Israel, best of luck dude.

Overall the blog was rewarding and fun to do. I am extremely pleased with its final result. Having watched it grow from a single post with no background into something completely awesome has been great. I feel like one of those over bearing parents that adore their children to much. Well played team we all did a great job.

Till we meet again.

Chris

Exam time stress...

Ahhhhh it’s that time again. Time to find those reading glasses, those cups to entertain friends with your impressive tea-making skills and unfortunately those text books that double up as a murder weapon.

Believe it or not Exams are here and the only way they can go away is if you write them. So I’m sorry to say that the secret is not going work here guys. Here are some tips to make your studying experience and writing of the exam less painful.

1. Remember those times when your mum would knock on you room door constantly to check if you’re not dead and that you’re still studying. That knocking was probably the main initiative that made me study for finals last year, if it wasn’t for that knocking I wouldn’t have achieved the way I did. But the knocking is now gone and there’s nothing forcing you to crack open the books. Unless, that is, you are blessed with extraordinary folks who bring you back home for SWOT week. But if you’re not then you’re forced to deal. So my advice is that you be your own mum. Set restrictions on yourself and stick to them Like only be distracted for at least and hour then after the second hour commence with the books.
   


2. Make sure you take three pens to the exam venue. These are Uni exams therefore they expect Four 4-paged essays in 3 hours. So take my advice and take the three pens. Or else I’ll be laughing at your ass when you’re high and dry and can’t write your next two essays. It’s happened to me before so I believe I have the right to laugh.
   


3. Have a break, Have a Kit Kat. I never understood that slogan but nonetheless take the advice and chill. I good break time activity is to play 30 Seconds with some friends. It sharpens the brain and improves the general knowledge. Who knows it may even help in those essays.
   


4. Last but not least have a cup of tea and listen to music after writing an exam. Research suggests that tea and music together are great stress relievers and they calm the mind. Therefore with a calm mind you can get cracking on the next exam.
   

With this, I wish you first years the best of luck with examinations. May you rape them before they rape you.