I regretted it but I did it for brave journalists around the world

Recently my friend and I did something we have never done before. We wanted to get out of our comfort zones. I am not a person who takes making a fool out of myself lightly so this was a big step for me. We went to another res and crashed their awards dinner. After having a few cups of punch and some cocktail sausages we started to get strange looks from other people. Eventually a very rude girl decided to tell us that we weren’t invited and she threatened to call their sub-warden. We left very quickly. I remember feeling very nervous before I went to the party but I went with the flow and let my wild friend convince me how much fun it would be. I must admit after a few drinks I left my worries behind and praised myself for being so carefree. However I left the party feeling exactly how I felt on arrival, like an idiot.

why I love to stalk blogs?

When I reed the blog, confesionsofjournstudents, it makes me truly believe that I am a student, a young student discovering the ways of the world without a care. The language used in the blog is colloqial and uses a great amount of slang. It is extremely conversational meaning it will appeal to young students. The bloggers described that the aim of the blog was is to share journalistic experience with other journalists but if they are trying to capture the attention of journalists they should be more careful of spelling mistakes as it implies that the blogger does not take writting seriously or the reader. They want to make people aware of the events going on in the world and they do this well by using many realistic, attention grabbing photographs. However if they wanted to be attention grabbing they should have made their blog more colourful and easier to read instead of having to constantly scroll down. The bloggers aim was to show people how to be good journalists and good citizens and I believe they strike a good balance between they two whether it be discussing photojournalism or political issues in our universities.

I believe this blog is significant because it stretches the boundaries of personal writting within the English language. The bloggers are very personal and revealing of who they are. It feels that it is a gift to be able to read their blogs and ultimately their thoughts

Do I want to know what you wrote this semester?

By Jessica Kriedemann
Blog: I know what you wrote last semester

With a name that plays off the name of one of my all time old favourite scary movies of 1997, I know what you did last summer; the title instantly caught my attention and gave me a chuckle.

Their blog title also swings into their theme and design, with a bold title and almost gloomy black page. I hope that that was intentional. I was disappointed to find very few pictures or any type of designed images on their site though, with only the compulsory pictures being put up. Due to this, their posts seemed to all run into each other and I often found myself a little bit bored with nothing to really catch my eye. With their introductory personal post, photos could have been added as well, get the reader to connect more with each blogger.

However, the best thing about this blog is that it made me laugh and I enjoyed it because it was not overally political. It related well to the average Rhodes’ Student lifestyle with topics varying from nights out on the town, our SRC and animal rights. Although the posts were very opinionated, well thought out and sometimes stimulating, I thought that the group brought less than what they initially said I would gain from reading it. After all, their challenging statement in their first post: “if you don't like what is being said here, download porn instead” made me sit up and lean into my screen.

No Parrots?

By Ayanda Mhlanga

The green building stood before me, ready to be conquered ‘Rat and Parrot’ it read and in a smaller font ‘Pub and Restaurant’ above the door; a building I had passed many times before. Numerous students had gone before, but I had always found it daunting and, well, green looking.

I’d always thought there was a lot of smoking and drinking that went on in there and that I would be identified as an outcast as soon as I walked through the door with a sea of stern looking faces staring at me, it was a pub after all, are people in pubs friendly?

I opened the door as naturally as I could, as if I walked into the Rat everyday, I hoped I pulled it off. I was greeted by a smiling waitress; I had not expected a smiling waitress, why was she smiling anyway? I saw one of my tutorial peers who directed me upstairs to the rest of the ‘tutlings’, and there they were, spread over two tables looking as comfortable as can be, all happy to be out of the AMM. I slotted myself in one of the benches and started chatting away… about Journalism of course. It turns out there was a lot of smoking going on, and plenty of drinking, but they did have coffee and juice too. I had something called ‘Paradise’, a fruit mix of sorts. I spotted neither parrots nor rats, aside from the Rhodes Students that is.

A objective look at un-objectivity

By Ayanda Mhlanga

Reviewed Blog: The Art of Unobjectivity

I stumbled upon this blog by mistake, while looking for another one, at first glance the seemingly clean presentation caught my eye, the look made me feel as if I could take it seriously and I quite liked the idea of being un-objective. The blog which is by 5 Journalism1 students, seemed set on being un-objective. The initial posts, which seem to be posted by a group of princesses who chose to remain faceless, left me quite confused as one could not really get who the blogs were relating to.

I found some of the early posts laborious to get through even though it was an easy format to read, maybe this could have been because of the lack of illustrations to keep me interested. The princesses proceeded to write in different fonts with different colours, which disrupted the uniformity. The writing picked up after the initial manifestos, and the uniformity returned.
The matter covered is very consistent though with interesting takes on being politically correct and of course the validity of objectivity, though a lot of the news topics were international which disappointed me slightly as I am not particularly interested in boy band members passing away, and love local relevant information, for an international audience though, this is good.

In this blog expect to find many floating URL’s few visuals or extra’s but some good writing on certain topics; the posts I looked forward to reading were Jessica Kate’s, whose writing was clear and interesting. How un-objective are they you may want to know, well I don’t know if I’m the right girl to come to for an objective opinion.

Fasting for the fun of it!

Not Ghandi: Finally caving in to the cravings
Pic: Jessica Kriedemann

By Jessica Kriedemann

In my Matric year, a group of my friends in a scripture union society decided to stop eating for as long as possible, in support of a fundraiser and to use their meal times for times of prayer and reflection. Because I am such a nut about my three meals a day, I couldn’t really understand why anyone would want to use hunger pains to prove a point or support a cause. Food just tastes too damn good.

Then later that year, we watched Ghandi. No kidding. Since then, I’ve wanted to try last as long as possible without the one thing that I look forward to everyday...food. I just didn’t know what I could do during the time I wasn’t eating, as I didn’t really have any cause to support and exercise probably wasnt the safest idea. Since exams are here, I decided to use meal times as study times. Writing out notes while your stomach is growling was pretty challenging.

Missing breakfast was probably the hardest as I always wake up craving my cereal and coffee, but lunch was easy and I drank lots of water to keep me filled up. I tried to keep myself as busy as possible and didn’t go to the dining hall to sit with my friends. I managed to write out notes for English and although I was hungry, I wasn’t dying or anything. That was until I went to my tut at the Rat and Parrot and had a cider. The one oh-so-refreshing Hunters Dry went to my head a little and on the walk home, I started to feel pretty weak. I got back to res and alerted my friend who said I’d turned the colour of her bleached white cardigan.

I lasted from 8am till 2.30am on my fast and surprisingly lost my actual hunger as the day continued, but I started to feel very weak that night. I grabbed a bowl of muesli, bran, yoghurt and honey in the early hours of the morning while wondering how Ghandi lasted so long. Surprisingly I had to almost force myself to eat the whole bowl, but I knew I needed to.

I learnt three things with this exercise: that I can resist any temptation if I’m determined, that hunger can strangely make you reflect on yourself in a critical way and that one should never ever, drink and fast.

The day I flew towards the sunrise.

Sunny Daze: Sunrise from the Settler's Monument, Grahamstown.
Picture: Sarita Pillay


By Sarita Pillay

Arms outstretched, with a blanket draped over my shoulders like a pair of wings, I flapped my way towards the sun over the distant hills.
I hadn’t done this before.

It must have been at about 4.45am, when, in a half-asleep state, we decided that we would trek to the monument to watch the sunrise. After a failed night on the town, the successful invasion of our friend’s digs, playing Nintendo Wii until our arms hurt and watching The Wedding Singer with one eye open, it seemed the logical way to end a night that had fast turned into a morning. Every Rhodent has heard about the sunrise from the monument, the perfect end to an all-nighter, and this was my chance to experience it.

We would have struck any person as any unusual bunch, two girls and three guys; one black, one white (but actually Croatian-Indian), one Taiwanese, one coloured and one Indian (but actually half Mexican). We reached the top of the hill on which the Monument is perched and bundled out of the car with our blankets. A few other die-hards had parked their cars already hippie-like music, the loud strums of a guitar and melancholic lyrics drifted through the otherwise still air. As soon as we stepped out of the car, it was as if a mixture of awe, thoughtfulness and exhaustion had come over all of us at once. Drifting off in our own directions, finding a spot we thought best to view the growing orange glow behind the hill and taking in the view of the town that had almost become home. Grahamstown was eerily still, from the leafy suburb of Oatlands to the narrow streets of Joza. Between thoughts and hippie-songs the sun emerged, gathering speed as the orange hue changed to an almost blinding bright yellowish white.
That moment of the sun emerging – that moment felt as if everything in the world had paused for a second of pure perfection.

Arms outstretched, with a blanket draped over my shoulders like a pair of wings, I flapped my way towards the peeping sun over the distant hills. My friends laughed. I laughed. I had watched the sunrise over the monument and, in my sleep deprived state, I had decided it wouldn’t hurt to try and fly.