Time is a strange thing...

Time is a strange thing that at Rhodes can be experienced in many different ways. Sometimes there never seems to be enough time. I constantly see people rushing off to the next thing they have to do as our lives revolve around schedules of work. We don’t even eat when we are hungry or sleep when we are tired but rather only do these things when our schedules permit them. This seems like a crazy notion but it is in fact the honest to goodness truth. Then there are those moments when time seems to be endless. They usually occur during a particularly boring lecture or when you are particularly tired from either pulling an all-nighter or going out. You stare at the clock and can swear it feels like the minute hand is ticking in reverse.
I’m sure that a lot of people at Rhodes or anywhere for that matter can relate to these ways in which time passes. But none of these forms are more contagious or destructive than procrastination. It is the sneakiest way of experiencing time as it can often happen without you even realising. For example today I returned from my ‘scheduled’ lunch to find that I had an hour to kill before my next lecture. What to do with it? Was the first thing that I thought, sleep perhaps, work on my politics essay or maybe type a blog post? By the time I have come to a decision on what to do with this extra unscheduled time I realise that so much time had passed that it no longer mattered. This is a vicious cycle called procrastination and it is possibly the worst way to spend your time especially when you do have work to complete. The only problem is that procrastination is inevitable and, depending on how you spend the time, quite fun.
So it would seem that a majority of your first year at Rhodes is spent trying to figure out the best balance or mix of rushing off, sitting still and procrastinating that best suits you. I am currently still in the process of figuring this out for myself but as you can see from the blog post that I completed in my free hour I am slowly finding the best way forward for me.

The Wind Of Change

Every morning I am woken up by my alarm clock ,tuned into 5FM, which I then listen to as the painfully long and often difficult process of waking up and actually getting out of bed begins. Once I have finally managed to convince myself that I have to get up and ‘no I can’t sleep for another five minutes’ I turn up the radio and the day begins to brighten. There is nothing like good music in the morning to get your day going. But this is not the only benefit of listening to the radio in the morning as it also keeps me updated on local and international news.

One of the news items that has been mentioned almost everyday for the past few days is that of Mosiuoa Lekota and the possibility of a splinter group being formed. Lekota the former Minister of Defence and a supporter of Thabo Mbeki is considering breaking away from the ANC as he believes that the party has become “arrogant” and there has been an “elimination of internal democracy within the ANC". On Monday night ANC President Jacob Zuma announced that Lekota had been suspended from the party as a result of his plans to leave.

I have heard many opinions about whether he will actually form an opposition party, whether the party will have support and if they could be a viable vote for the 2009 elections. Some people even think that it is disappointing how he is abandoning the ANC.

I on the other hand am actually less concerned with his reasons for wanting to leave the ANC and more with the implications that another party would have on the South African party system especially if it does gain support. South Africa is currently a one party dominated system (that party of course being the ANC) but what if another party had to gain support and be able to offer an alternative to the dominate party. For this exact reason I think that a splinter party is a good idea and is in fact healthy for our party system as a dominating party is a lazy party. Even if this new party only has an effect in the long term it will be worth it as the competition and debate that will ensue will be good for both the ANC and South Africa.

A Tornado in Grahamstown?

As a first year at Rhodes University in Grahamstown I have heard the stories about how the town can experience all four seasons in one day but had always dismissed them as an urban legend. I did this because I only live roughly two hours away in King Williams Town and I could not believe that the weather here could be so different to my home. Well I have been proven wrong in a major way not only have I experienced the four season day first hand but on Wednesday 8th October a mini-tornado struck Grahamstown. And no you do not have to check your eyes or adjust your screen I did indeed say a mini-tornado. According to the official reports from the Herald

“A killer storm of gale- force gusts, hail, flash floods and lightning cut a swathe of destruction across the Eastern Cape yesterday, leaving a woman drowned and 65 people homeless”. http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n01_09102008.htm

I did not see the mini-tornado myself but did manage to get caught in the hail storm, which for the record was not pleasant. Students could be seen making a mad dash for cover as the rain poured down swiftly followed by the hail. For the people who experienced the mini-tornado first hand it must have been a scary sight as most would have never seen a tornado before. I would imagine that many people were clicking their red heels together hoping to get home. Wednesday 8th October was the last straw for me and I am now a fully converted believer in the bizarre weather in Grahamstown. Who knows what could be coming next maybe snow or floods? All I know is that I plan to keep my eyes on the sky and have an escape plan in mind.

All in a day's work

During this last week Tales from a Rhodent has taken up the challenge of becoming SUPERHEROES in the comic book world. You are probably looking very confused right now and wondering what on earth I am talking about, so let me start at the beginning. Our latest assignment in our Narrative and Genre course of Journalism is to create a photo comic using a website called Comeeko. We would be responsible for the entire creative process from coming up with an idea, storyboarding, photos and dialogue. I must admit that at first it all seemed extremely daunting. Especially as it had to be done as group work, which is probably the most loathed way of working on any assignment. The hellish task of finding a time to meet is the main problem and from what I hear most groups have had many more like people not showing up or pulling their weight. But I must admit that I am glad to report that our group, Tales from a Rhodent were awesome to work with. They made the assignment so much fun and, as you can see from our comic below, very fruitful. Our tale is one of how when your drink is spiked and transforms in an evil creature out to get you, you need to step up to the plate and become a superhero in order to defeat it. We wanted to send out a message that the spiking of drinks does happen and that you need to be alert and your own superhero. It worked out really well with Nonhle as our super cool hero and Sarah as the ditsy but awesome sidekick. The photo comic was shot at The Old Gaol and didn’t feel like work at all but rather a hilarious photo shoot with the girls. The facial expressions of our drama princess Nonhle had us all rolling around with laughter and brought the comic to life. All in all a great time was had making the photo comic except for the last step of loading it all on to Comeeko which managed to make our dialogue disappear three times! To say that it was frustrating is putting it mildly but we conquered the Comeeko monster and ended up with a really kick ass comic!

Photo Comic

The Hotness Monster

Anyone who watches the television show “Greek” will know exactly what I am talking about when I say that I was smiling from ear to ear this weekend when there was a sighting of my Hotness Monster.
Now I know that most people out there are busy asking “The Hotness what?” and I can totally relate because until I saw the show I had never heard of it before either. Well to give you the cliff notes version Ashleigh one of the main characters on the show Greek (which is set at a American college) briefly meets this really super hot guy at spring break but as she does not get his name nor sees him again that weekend she begins to refer to him as the hotness monster. I love the term as it has just the right amount of humour and cuteness. So I decided to start using it to describe by own Hotness Monster much to the amusement of my friends who did not quite know what I was on about at first.
And so I began to think about how terms come about and end up being used. I googled “Hotness Monster” and guess what there it was…..in a dictionary if you can believe that! According to the Urban Dictionary website
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hotness%20monster
A hotness monster is a cute play off of the "Lochness monster". A hotness monster is a man or woman who is sizzling and near unattainable. He/she is the royalty of hotness. (Origin: Ottawa, Canada)
Urban Dictionary is actually quite an awesome website that has some funny definitions of words all of which are added by ordinary people like us. I love the fact that we live in a world that is basically a huge network of communication and creation. I can be in Grahamstown and chat to my friends all over the world via email, Skype and IM. A term like the hotness monster can be coined and put out there for all to understand. The world is no longer rigid but flexible and open to people’s creativity which in the words of Neil Armstrong “is a giant leap for mankind”.