I am too tired to think of a title because I have been blogging for 6 weeks

Of all the words that make me want to go and jump off a cliff, or anything at least 20 metres off the ground really, “blogging” and “group work” are some of them. So when all of these words were combined in one sentence within the first five minutes of the first fourth term journalism lecture, I knew things weren’t going to be pretty.

Of course the main focus of the blogging course was (apparently) the writing, and more specifically, writing within the genre of blogging. Because we covered genre in our third term journalism course, this term I actually had an awareness of what genre is. It wasn’t too hard to write for the blog because I knew how a blog worked, even if I hadn’t seen it as a “genre” before. Of course when it came to the groupwork we had to make sure we were all on the same page. Our writing had to be fitting for a blog and then also inkeeping with our blog character.

Story ideas were fairly wasy to come by. I have survived first year and the theme was “surviving first year”… you do the math. For this reason I needed to do very little research. Mostly I gathered information directly from a source, for example another first year, or from just listening in on friends’ conversations. It was difficult to find other relevant sources. After searching on the internet I found that there is very little available that actually speaks to first years. This was the one plus of the theme. At least our blogs can provide something for other upcoming first years.

Ultimately, a lot of ideas, information and input for stories came from the members of our group. There were few conflicts, because we are all first years who understood the genre of blogs and who ours was aimed at. Most of the time when we met was spent obsessing over how to get the infamous html template to work!

Despite the frustrations, blogging did help me to grow in terms of my writing. In the beginning I had a near-terminal case of writers block, knowing that my work would be up there for anyone to read. It brought home the realisation that one day my writing is going to be out there and open to criticism, but that that is actually how we improve and hone our skill. At times, however, I felt as though what our lecturers had assigned us to do and the blog genre were in conflict. Writing a profile on a first year who has overcome difficulties is kind of hard to incorporate into your blog plan of being a fun, humourous blog. The assignments confined our writing more than the actual blog genre I think. The theme of “surviving first year” was also limiting in many ways. I think first years have a lot more to say about the world than that. There is a lot more to us than simply the fact that we are first years. It would have been interesting to see what people as young as us have to say about other things, such as life experiences and social issues.

One thing I hadn’t considered previously were the ethical issues surrounding blogs. A blog is such a public thing, where anyone can read posts and anyone can comment. How much can one actually say on a blog? What can one legitimately complain about and who can one criticise, and what should just be kept a personal opinion, if anything? There is no control over what can be posted on a blog, but at the same time there is a subconscious awareness that some things would just be inappropriate, or hurtful to others. For example in our comic where we ripped off the lecturers, we had to be careful that we didn’t overstep any boundaries that would publicly humiliate anyone. Bloggers definitely have a responsibility, to tell the truth but at the same time to be conscious of other people’s feelings.

The best part of the whole experience by far has been reading other students’ blogs. Getting insight into the psyche of my fellow first years has been fascinating! We’re not all the brave, carefree, confident people we make ourselves out to be, are we? But, having said that, the course has still not fully convinced me on the whole concept of blogging. I’m not so sold on the idea of pouring your heart out onto a public internet site. Apart from the privacy issue, it almost cheapens writing. You just type whatever comes into your head, often times total garbage, and post it hoping someone will read it. I think if you really have something to say blogging can be good, but otherwise you’re just adding to the clutter that is cyberspace. Is blogging journalism? I think it can be, when used correctly. I think any form of intelligent writing or observation is journalism, but at the same time, I do not believe that having a blog makes you a journalist.

Ultimately, I am glad I didn’t jump off that cliff/very-high-thing at the beginning of term. This course has had its positives and negatives, ups and downs, but that’s life. After all, there is life beyond blogging, and I will take what I have learned during this course and use it elsewhere – er, I mean, continue to blog away.

Kudus Writing - Reflective Peace

http://www.firstyearblood.blogspot.com

I’m sitting in my digs bed, staring at a photo of my late father. A quite man, yet so many words in his literary writings. He was an author, and I suppose that’s where my passion for writing arose from. Next to him is a painting, drawn in second grade, which I believe further contributed to my expanding my writing ability. I am loud and outspoken; however, personal problems and feelings were always expressed in my art. I am creative, though it is a side of me rarely seen by others.

Arriving at the big school doors, high school, I lost the time I always had, time to sit and pour my problems out on a blank piece of scribbling paper. It is then that I began journal writing. Throughout primary and high school, I always enjoyed what is known as ‘creative writing’ under the English Language. Though given the simplest of topics, ("My Holiday" and "A day in the Park") I’d found a way to play around with them and make them unique and my own. Through these pieces of work, I noticed some form of growth as an amateur writer. Much like my kudu painting, where it is feeding off dry, hard grass, there were greener pastures ahead of it. I hoped to develop my writing and make it a profession. I further developed my writing ability through the complex works of the English Language, novels and poetry. Shakespearian writing improved my own. I improved through using similar techniques, improving my spattering of words and phrases and it is then that my work showed structure and planning. There then became a reason for the choice of words, phrases and clauses I used. Much like my works of art, there had a reason for using different shades of paint in other parts and a reason why I had threaded my knittings in different colours.

And now I study Journalism which has reinforced my interest in writing and painting. An interest from a very tender age. It is amazing how the human body, the brain, can sometimes not outgrow some experiences…in my case, experiences of writing and creativeness. This is the last semester of my first year and studying blogs in this last term was an encouragement for me to pursue being a writer. What a technical part of the coarse this has been. I never knew Journalism included such vast methods. Coming to varsity, I only had one side of the coarse, and that was writing and chasing after stories. But the profile writings and letters to oneself made me realize that it is part of the coarse to look for the inevitable. I am amazed at how neutral and broad the coarse is. Then came the producing of comics, which I found pleasurable and amusing. Writing is not the only form of telling and informing, like my art, stories can be illustrated through art, comics. And lastly, commenting one someone else’s blog, this for me built me and the remarks I got fixed areas in which my writing lacked.

I’m grateful the coarse and it’s technical side. Though boring at times, I thoroughly took pleasure in the work. Huge thumbs up to you Sim and Allette for the superb work.

Uno

First Year Binging

The thrill of first year can last the entire year, a few weeks and sometimes a couple of weeks. During the first three or four weeks of semester one, the students focus may be on making friends and having a good time. Their people’s skills are tested for the first time. This is the most imperative time of their life; I say this because during this time, it is possible to make subject changes to suite their degree makeup. This time may also set a pattern for behaviour throughout the year, a time to build friendships, trying to find friends that best adhere to their character and lastly, a time where prioritizing becomes important.

Many first year students come to university with high expectations, to have freedom with no boundaries, lots of alcohol and sex abuse and encouragement to be irresponsible. These activities allow for endless friendships to be established. Students also begin to ignore their studies, thinking pulling all nighters will earn them straight A's.

When walking into a party, the first thing one does is scan, looking for people they may know and when they find them, they relax and go over and start chatting. Some don't understand that nature is trying to teach them how to handle social scenes by inciting anxiety. This is what leads to 'pre-party' events, trying to withdraw whatever anxiousness may be felt. This undermines their social confidence, because it is now being fabricated. This pre-partying became common to me at Rhodes University.

Rhodes University's poor academic performance has been tied to the undue consumption of alcohol. This was proven by a student who compiled findings on alcohol abuse on campus. This survey focused on students as whole and not just first years. The report titled "Patterns of Alcohol Abuse on a South African University Campus," reported alcohol as harmful and hazardous. I mean there was a "Save Tri-Varsity" campaign a couple of months back due to unruly, drunk Rhodents at last years Tri-Var. The Dean of Students had to intervene with her Alcohol-Abuse Awareness Week. Reasons for such interventions are caused by the skyrocketing numbers of students practicing binging, an act which starts during ones first year.

It is in the interest of higher learning institutions to take note of the levels of alcohol consumption amongst students, especially first year students that are overwhelmed by varsity life. They need to devise strategies and neutralize such trends. It is important that first year students overcome peer pressure and the false sense of security of living in a small town. It is up to these first years to be able to balance the exhilaration with good decisions and help eliminate the bad name on Rhodes for producing alcoholics.Should you be a student needing help, especially first year, help is available.Rhodes Counselling CentreAlcoholics Anonymous

First Year Binging

The thrill of first year can last the entire year, a few weeks and sometimes a couple of weeks. During the first three or four weeks of semester one, the students focus may be on making friends and having a good time. Their people’s skills are tested for the first time. This is the most imperative time of their life; I say this because during this time, it is possible to make subject changes to suite their degree makeup. This time may also set a pattern for behavior throughout the year, a time to build friendships, trying to find friends that best adhere to their character and lastly, a time where prioritizing becomes important.

Many first year students come to university with high expectations, to have freedom with no boundaries, lots of alcohol and sex abuse and encouragement to be irresponsible. These activities allow for endless friendships to be established. Students also begin to ignore their studies, thinking pulling all nighters will earn them straight A's.

When walking into a party, the first thing one does is scan, looking for people they may know and when they find them, they relax and go over and start chatting. Some don't understand that nature is trying to teach them how to handle social scenes by inciting anxiety. This is what leads to 'pre-party' events, trying to withdraw whatever anxiousness may be felt. This undermines their social confidence, because it is now being fabricated. This pre-partying became common to me at Rhodes University.

Rhodes University's poor academic performance has been tied to the undue consumption of alcohol. This was proven by a student who compiled findings on alcohol abuse on campus. This survey focused on students as whole and not just first years. The report titled "Patterns of Alcohol Abuse on a South African University Campus," reported alcohol as harmful and hazardous. I mean there was a "Save Tri-Varsity" campaign a couple of months back due to unruly, drunk Rhodents at last years Tri-Var. The Dean of Students had to intervene with her Alcohol-Abuse Awareness Week. Reasons for such interventions are caused by the skyrocketing numbers of students practicing binging, an act which starts during ones first year.

It is in the interest of higher learning institutions to take note of the levels of alcohol consumption amongst students, especially first year students that are overwhelmed by varsity life. They need to devise strategies and neutralize such trends. It is important that first year students overcome peer pressure and the false sense of security of living in a small town. It is up to these first years to be able to balance the exhilaration with good decisions and help eliminate the bad name on Rhodes for producing alcoholics.
Should you be a student needing help, especially first year, help is available.
Rhodes Counseling CentreAlcoholics Anonymous

Dam 1st year students

The one thing that really got me really angry and so frustrated throughout this year was the fact that senior students treated us first years as the most irritating, naive and loud people in the world, forgetting that they too were in the very same position that we now in, a couple of years ago.
As a first year student you will obviously be excited to be coming to varsity for the first time and that you are now away from your parents and all forms of rules and regulations as to how to live your life. Therefore it’s only natural that we would be a little loud at the beginning of the year, well some are still in the pre-June examination stage of total excitement.You obviously going to get to varsity and meet new friends while being very excited to have met them and will most probably be going out every night for the rest of what’s left of Orientation week, hence not assuming that you automatically a dunked, you just letting your hair down if I may put it that way. Hence when you see the expressions of senior students on how first years drink one would swear they haven’t set a foot in a club, ironically you find that they are the very ones that make lecture venues smell like the processing flow of South African breweries on a Monday, Thursday and Friday mornings.
Then you get your ever loving tutors; now they are the people that are suppose to be feeling sympathetic towards us seeing that they get paid through us. Well it’s either you get the tutor that over simplifies everything which implies that we’re total morons and that you don’t know anything forgetting that you made it to “Rhodes University, Where leaders learn”, Or you get those that want to punish you for the fact that they had to sit at home and mark your essay while they had plans to go to the Rat &Parrot to get totally wasted. Now what these types of tutors do is just simply pretend to assume that you know every big, complicated word that comes out of their mouths.
Now lets not forget our lecturers, they are the nice ones during Orientation week when they are sucking up to you to choose to study whatever subject their Department Head sent them to come and sell to the naïve gullible first years that have just arrived. you offcourse buy into whatever they want you to buy into and then choose the subject, write an essay, fail it because you did not reference it using their ‘departmental style’, you go to the very same person that sold you the subject and they send you to your tutor. How are first years suppose to cope with all this?
Any first year student at this university has experienced at least one if not all of the above mentioned experiences. “Hey look at the bright side, we can do this to first years next year” said first year B.A student Athenlosi Matyalana. And so the vicious cycle goes on and on.

"Hello, and welcome to Clique Central!"

Cliques. A word I detest. They can turn your high school career into a dream or a nightmare. Unfortunately, it does not stop there. Welcome to Rhodes, Clique Central. You might think such a liberal, forward-thinking university in the arts capital of South Africa would have been spared, but cliques are inescapable. You see them everywhere. In the dining hall, different culture groups pretty much keep to themselves. In lectures, you will normally find the jocks sitting somewhere in the middle towards the back. Then there are the “school friends” cliques, consisting of people who have come from school together and who look at you like you have a mango for a head if you attempt any form of friendly interaction.

Since arriving at Rhodes, I have been called many things. “Hippie”, “flower child”, “fairy”. You get the picture. It makes me giggle a bit, because although I don’t mind, I really don’t consider myself any of those things. But it is natural for people to want to try and place others in a box, and of course with young people that is even more so. So put 6000 young people in a very small space like Rhodes and voila, time to get cliquey. What I can’t understand is, we have the most amazing opportunity at university to meet such diverse, interesting people, and yet we insist on sticking with the people who look like us, dress like us, talk like us. Of course a friendship group is naturally based on common interests, but that shouldn’t be to the exclusion of all other people.

Maybe the term “clique” is too strong a word. It is not as though there are rival groups of people going around campus trying to bring each other down - the Hippies versus the Hip hop-heads-type scenario. It’s more just a case of pure ignorance and small-mindedness. Most students don’t actually seem to care that there are people out there who are different to them, but who they could learn so much from. After we have placed someone in a box that is different from our own, it’s almost as if they get checked off the “potential friend material” list. There is a gnawing passivity, as if to say, “I’m happy the way I am with my friends, why should I go out of my way?”

I am certainly not implying that we should all become best friends with everyone. Friendship groups are born out of a sense of community and commonality, and that’s ok. What is wrong, is when we never stop for five seconds to peep out of our safe cocoon at the rest of humanity. And I speak from experience; at times it will be hard. You have to learn to adjust to people of different cultures and backgrounds, the way they do things and even the way they speak. Sometimes you will feel like a colossal idiot, as you can almost hear the people around you wondering, “what is she doing here??”. But seriously, can we try and just get over ourselves? If a black person is best friends with a white person, or Barbie enjoys hanging with Dreadlocks Dude, so what? We are a multicultural, diverse country and that is how it should be. It doesn’t mean we are forgetting where we have come from or selling out. It means we have finally come to our senses and realised something of great significance: clique culture sucks (or at the very least, should be left behind in high school)!