The Life of Darci: Randomness.....

The Life of Darci: Randomness.....
Hey Darci
What I like most about your blog is about the French girl who came to America and explored a lot of things. I think that must have been quite a struggle for her coming from Paris and going to France. I have a similar blog called cruiserslac and I have recently posted something about cruising through the life of a first year student .
This was particularly about first year students at Rhodes and all the struggles they face about being in a new environment and all the new people that they are suddenly meeting. When I read the post it hit me that we always think that people are as happy as we are when they arrive but little do we know how difficult it might be for them to adapt into the new environments that they find themselves in.

My take on "Your Mother-Tongue VS English"

An argument about the language variety at Rhodes University was presented in the opinion piece entitled "YOUR MOTHER-TONGUE VS ENGLISH." I, however, disagree with some of the points made in this argument. It would be an impossible task to cater to the linguistic needs of all the individuals at this university. English is the language employed to accommodate the majority of the students and it would be unintelligent to think otherwise. By making the choice to come to university (Rhodes or any other university) you should understand that English is the language in which tutorials, lectures and practical are conducted. Other than that, nobody other than yourself can determine what language you speak around campus and you are simply arguing this point based on assumptions. Nobody is forcing you to speak English around campus and, in my opinion, the more language variety within the campus the better.

Rhodes Of Our Lives Commic Strip

What is all the fuss about????

Rhodes University is renowned for its wild partying scene and drunken behaviour. As a result, it was not surprising that when I told my friends that I was going to Rhodes they automatically thought that I was going to become an out- of- control drunk. This reputation, as I soon realised at the beginning of first year, is not all that accurate. After being at Rhodes and living in res for almost one year I still cannot identify with the stereotypical drunken Rhodes student that my friends at home thought I was going to turn into. For this reason, I do not know why alcohol consumption has become such an issue of concern at Rhodes University.

The article “Why students drink so much” on the FM Campus website states that young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 are more likely to use alcohol as part of their entertainment than any other age group. This was meant to be alarming, however, it is rather common sense due to the fact that it is during these ages when individuals are part of the partying scene. This should be understood properly before everyone starts jumping to conclusions and classifying students into the category of alcoholics.

Another point the article makes is that the drinking culture affects younger students more as they are not prepared for the newfound freedom and the availability of alcohol on campus. This is nonsense because with the freedom of being away from home, further responsibility lies on every individual at Rhodes University to perform without being under the watchful of their parents. It is this responsibility that makes me as diligent as I am in going to lectures and tutorials, even after a rough night of partying.

The partying lifestyle of Rhodes was also under scrutiny in another article by Daily Dispatch Online with the headline “Boozy pupils are poor achievers”. The article was in light of the report compiled by the university’s dean of students, Dr Vivian de Klerk, and head of counselling Dr Charles Young. The report found that drinking was associated with absenteeism in lectures, tutorials and practicals and poor academic performance. This is such a contradiction to the facts of the matter. Despite Rhodes’ reputation, Rhodes has the highest undergraduate pass rate in South Africa so how could one possibly make that statement to begin with?

Furthermore, highlighting peer pressure as a factor in the amount of alcohol consumed is also an excuse of a reason. As a first year, I never felt the pressure from any other students to drink. University students are no longer children and need to take responsibility for their actions and by blaming other people they are definitely not doing that. We have all learnt how to say no by the age of 18 so that can no longer be used as an excuse.

My experiences at Rhodes this far have been the best a varsity student could ever wish for. I have had the opportunity to make great friends, party when the time is right and work hard for the degree I am earning. I am, therefore, grateful for the opportunity of having a well-rounded varsity experience. Not only will I walk away with a highly regarded degree but also the strong belief that I have been educated in life. So, what is all the fuss about?

Opinion piece

Educated Cronies

Damian Marley calls then educated fools. Professor Julian Cobbing calls them Mr and Mrs Clever in his lectures about how humans became so innovative and “progressive”. I call them educated cronies. The masses of elitist thinking graduates who learn the one then and then like hypocrites turn around and do the very things that support the crisis’s that plaque mankind today.
We think we are so wonderful so we go around doing what we please with the physical environment, forgetting that it is the womb that birthed us. We have created structures and institutions of exploitation. We exploit each other as well as the earth’s resources and all of this is done in the name of increasing the world’s wealth. Increasing it to what? I don’t know but I do know that this “increase of wealth” knows no limit.

The technologies we create also add to the deterioration of our planet, especially through pollution. From their manufacture, testing right up until their uses, technologies like computers and simple trains have caused us to use huge portions of fossil fuels to create the electrical energy needed to operate them. Some of these gadgets are not even necessities and they are mostly found in the richer parts of the world.

This vain culture of consumerism spurs on the rapid consumption of natural resources and heavy pollution of soil, water, and the atmosphere to rake in the profits for major rich world corporations. Then we end up with things all sorts of economic, social and political stratification. This stratification created by the unequal distribution of wealth in the world. We overuse all our basic resources like water, and the soil that grows our foods and plants. One only needs to glance through the academic thought of people like Anthony Giddens (2006: 940-943) or better yet, take a walk around your own town to see what I am talking about.

We go to school and taught about global warming and all these catastrophes then when we go home in our fancy fume emitting cars, we chuck that knowledge into the boot and use up huge amounts of electrical energy with our “wonderful technologies” before we go to bed. I would know because I too am guilty of this. Then we go too the malls to loot up as many products of exploitation as we can like special types of coffee. Even though we know which brands are associated with unfair trade and in doing so, we further contribute to poverty in the third world then we wonder why the economic class gaps are widening and why there seem to be more hobo’s and potential “tsotsi’s” hovering around at every available public space, yet we helped put them in those positions.

When we graduate and get jobs and we see the money and the things it can do for us, we think that we can suddenly have our own soccer teams in our back yards. I can understand how people who are living below the poverty line can have more children, primarily because they don’t always know any better and the fact that sometimes they hope that their children will grow up to be the families’ savior and so the more the better their chances of survival. Of course, more times than not, we know that the opposite is quite true. Some of these families send up just reproducing another and bigger generation of poor people. What I don’t understand is how a person who knows that the world is at precarious place, faced with food crisis, economic crises, political crises because of the systems that we have created, can then go and have a lot of children. It’s no longer about whether you can afford them ladies. If you have duplicated yourself and your spouse, you have given your contribution to the human race. We are increasing at a faster rate than what the world can sustain so does that mean that the world needs more humans?

I think not. Population growth, in my opinion, will only serve to cause more tension as the scramble for basic resources and commodities looms closer and closer. One only needs to look as far back as the Iraqi war, which most people know was about oil rather than weapons of mass destruction.
It is unjust for us to gather at educational institutions, conventions and summits and to be come up with all these solutions and precautions and then we only expect the poor to comply. We talk about hybrid living then we go and build big houses with wooden flooring and under-floor heating systems.

Where is the organic intellectual to put to practice the fruit of his intellect? Is he/she lying dormant somewhere, oblivious to the world’s dire need the knowledge that he can share. There few who do exist, are facing a line of fire from the powers that be who do not want them to say anything that will bring about global change. This means that it is up to us to throw our weight in with them and refuse to become hypocritical educated cronies of capitalism.
We are part of the system sustaining the world crises. I am just saying we need to stop acting like selfish elitist snobs and start behaving like humane people who are concerned about this world, its inhabitants and are willing put their education to good use and do something effective. There’ve been many before us and shall be more after us so we better start learning how to think beyond our own noses and we better do what know is right fast.

One For the Rhode

The thing about first year is that when you get to the tertiary education institution of your choice, you never really believe that you are actually entitled to an opinion. Sure, you like to believe that you have one. I mean, you are straight out of high school, just three months ago, you were one of the sharks in a see full of little fish. But then, life gives you one of those dreaded lemons. And you are back to square one. You get to University, and you are the little fish, and you really are swimming in a see full of sharks. However, by the fourth term of your first year, you tend to have formed a number of opinions about a number of things, so much so that you begin to feel a bit like an insufferable know-it-all.
However, one of the main opinions occupying my mind at the moment was formed about three hours ago. Let me begin by setting the scene. For the first time in about five months, a good friend and I decided to stay in on a Wednesday night in order to do some work. This, although seemingly daunting, actually turned out to be a fantastic idea. Why? Because about two hours after our friends had left us to go party it up at the Union (or the "Stevie" as it is now known), two of them returned. The one walked in, rolling her eyes and nodding her head, clearly still too sober to have had fun in that jock, cane-train infested building. The other friend (who I still love very dearly), stumbled in and looked as though she had just been hit by the Rhodetrip Shuttle. Perhaps it was merely the sober state from which I viewed her that made me realise just how bad the drinking problem in our little student town really is.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to preach to the masses about the evils of drinking and partying. We all got the O-Week lecture, we all know that drinking is not good for our liver, and that we all do really stupid things when we drink too much (like kissing random people that we hope to never see again, or when we are on the dance floor, and somehow manage to convince ourselves that ABBA’s song Dancing Queen was written especially for us). The reality is that the song was not actually written for us, and we will definitely see that guy or girl again, because Grahamstown is just so small. So why then, every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night do we religiously put ourselves through this?
I know that I sound like a prick. Really, I am not one. I go out all the time. The bartenders know my name, and there are far too many pictures of me looking way past my best on Facebook. But every now and then my conscience reminds me that I am here to get a degree, and hence, my experiences here should be filled with academics and not alcohol. Today is one of those days. It is absolutely fine to go out and have fun. We are all young, free spirits trying to make names for ourselves and find our callings in life. We should be able to do whatever we want to. But when you think about it friends, is it really a good idea to drink so much that you have memory loss in the morning? Are the traditions of this University really going to be built on booze? And when we tell our children about our University experience, what will we say?
I suppose that there might just be an element of jealousy in my heart because I can hear the music pumping from afar as I sit in my friend’s room and complete this assignment. But really, my opinion does sort of make sense. We all act like idiots when we are drunk. But the fact is that we, myself included, do it all the time, and I will not deny that we have fun (even if we cannot remember it in the morning). But this is where that little manipulative worm of peer pressure wriggles in. Personally, I do not consider myself to be one who conforms, and if you knew me, you would totally agree. But on a Friday night, I (along with my "non-conformist" friends) manage to steer clear of Friar’s and go on a little mission to The Old Gaol. So we stay away from everyone and their beloved Cane-trains. But what do we do instead? We order quarts of Black Label, fill our lungs with nicotine and tar, and stumble out of the Gaol few hours later. As you can see, it is exactly the same principle as everyone else, just in a different setting.
So why have we made getting drunk and misbehaving one of our social traditions here in Grahamstown? For the moment, and for our moments to follow in this little town, this "tradition" is our regular bit of fun, but what will happen to us fifteen years from now? Sure, some of us will be raking in millions of rands, or solving the issue of world poverty. But those of us who don’t manage to break free from the Rhodes "tradition", God forbid, might find ourselves sitting in a bar downing tequilas and eating stale pretzels everyday, or living in a trailer with 15 children and a beer belly. So in conclusion, I would like to reiterate the idea that I am not tying to lecture the masses, in fact, I, although difficult as it is to admit it, form part of those masses. What I am really trying to say is that having a little bit of fun every now and then is benign, but not knowing your limits, and not knowing when to stop, could lead to disastrous consequences. Because everybody at this University, everyone like you and everyone like me, deserves a future far, far away from a trailer park.

Rhodes students are perfect

There have been many stereo-types about Rhodes student and one cannot help but wonder how many of them are real. Some have called Rhodes students nerds, some have called them snobs, and some have called them drunks. One can actually see how all these labels contrast each other. One can witness these stereo-types when you go to a place and introduce yourself as a Rhodes student you can actually see how the attitude of people change towards you. This is because people tend to think that Rhodes students are perfect and intellectual and that they cannot do bad things or even that they do not go through hard times like everybody else. In this piece I am going to endeavour to reveal that not all these stereo-types are true Rhodes students also make mistakes and they can be quite bad people.

First of all I feel the urge to emphasise that Rhodes like any other community is a society with very diverse groups of people. One needs to understand that the people that are in Rhodes were not born here by one perfect mother and father so they are bound to be different and make mistakes. We all come from different backgrounds and we all had different upbringings in different households. I feel that it is not fair to put a label on all Rhodes students and say they are bad or good. We differ from person to person because we don’t have the same morals, values and principles.

As I have said Rhodes is a society and a society consists of many different kinds of people. Yes there are nerds, there are snobs and yes there are those who cannot control their alcohol intake. We have our baddies and we have our Miss Perfect and Mr. Perfects. What I want to pay more attention to is the fact that people think that Rhodes students are all wonderful and perfect because I fully disagree with this statement.

I am going to refer to an incident that happened in 2004 where a Rhodes student shot his girlfriend on campus and then turned the gun on himself. This on its own show that Rhodes students can be quite brutal because how can you shoot someone else’s daughter and ignore the fact that they are here to establish a solid future for themselves or they are even here to get an education so that they can work and change the lifestyle of their family. I know that it was also a great loss for the guys’ parents but I really do think that if a person is tired of living they should take their own lives and leave other people to carry on with their lives.

In the year following that one (2005) another student was arrested for the possession of stolen goods. Who would think that a university student more especially a Rhodes student is capable of doing that? Probably no-one or just a few people who are brave enough to face reality.

I am going to finish this off by saying that people should stop thinking that Rhodes students cannot do bad things because as evident above this is not true. We are all human and if one is human they are bound to put a foot wrong once in a while there and there. It does not matter who you are, where you come from or where you are getting your education because for the past few months that I have been here I haven’t heard even one lecturer teaching people about how they should behave that only happens in high school and if one haven’t acquired it there then I really thing that it will be hard for them to acquire life skills in university.

By: Ntombi

Cruising through the life of a hero

Sobbing alone in your room, browsing through old friends albums, calling your mom every now and then are all signs of loneliness and difficulty making friends in 1st year. Desiree Schrillinger is a beautiful young woman that has managed to adapt and overcome loneliness in 1st year. She smiles as I enter her room and generously offers me coffee. She sits down and plays with her lighter as she patiently waits for me to start with the interview. Having a pre-talk before we start with the interview she constantly giggles and tells me about how hectic it is at Rhodes.
Before coming to Rhodes (Des) as she prefers to be called never used to drink and never imagined even for once that she will ever drink. One of her biggest challenges that she has faced since coming to Rhodes at the beginning of the year was making friends. “I used to think that I’m okay by myself until I realised that I was not that fine,” she says as she takes a sip of water. The loneliness of not knowing anyone made her want to fit in and what other way of fitting in at Rhodes besides drinking. The first time she put her hands on alcohol was during 1st year when she went out one evening. “I was so drunk I woke up in my own vomit,” she says blushing. The day after, Des was feeling sick and she confesses that she was not so proud about herself but she was not regretting it at all. “I believe that it has to happen to everyone. Everyone must have a day when they drink so much that they don’t even know their own name because you actually learn from it,” she says on a serious note. “I even called my mom the next morning and told her that I finally got drunk and she congratulated me but told me not to do it again,” she adds giggling.
Des thinks that besides battling to make friends every other think has gone quite well, she’s been able to handle academic stress and she’s been able to control her social life. “Other people take advantage of the freedom when they are in university and I have been able to stay disciplined and maintain my social life,” she says as she constantly brushes her hair with her hand.
Des only started being able to make friends in third term and she says that it was not as difficult as she thought it would be because “the other people are also in 1st year and they are just as eager to make friends.” She says that the medicine is to go out a little more and meet new people. She is quite pleased with the people that she has met and she thinks that they are “such good people”. Making new friends has actually had an impact in Des’ life. “I wish I had done it in 1st term,” she says. For her in order to overcome loneliness in1st year one need to go out more often and meet new people but at the same time have self-control, “have memorable fun” as she puts it. She believes that friends or the people around you play a significant role in one’s life because “it is the people around you that make you who you are”. “If at the end of the week you haven’t made time to sit down with your friends and have a drink with them you have failed,” she firmly believes. She has learned that one does not have to go out there and do things hat they would not usually do like having too much to drink. “It is better to find friends that will accept you for who you are,” she says.
Megan, one of Des’ newly found friends thinks that Des is an awesome person and she is easy to talk to. Chanel another friend of Des shouts from the other side of the room “ungirly” and everyone just burst out in laughter as Megan continues and say, “Oh Yes! She has the weirdest laugh”. Desiree’s friends say that in the few months that they’ve been with Des, they think she is a real friend the kind of person that you can talk to.

Basketball, Books and a Baby

Thick dreadlocks and “African Drum soc” t-shirts usually signify an “artsy hippie” at Rhodes yet few people know of the avid basketball player hidden beneath this outfit. Sports car pc screen savers and a Sponge bob desktop might cause one to think they were in a little boys room but no one would think that she could be having a son of her own soon .

Most of us know only too well about the thrills and threats that come with being on your own for the very first time yet like *Bonita, a first year JMS student from Rhodes, we don’t ever imagine having to face adult responsibilities just yet. “When you get to first year, you have all these aspirations and goals and high expectations of yourself”, she says with a permanent smile and wind-mill like arm actions.

She goes on to tell of the different obstacles that were there right from the beginning and still challenge her to this day. Making friends and meeting like minded people was a problem and she is still not sure if she has found the kind of friends she was looking for but the whole encounter became lesson number one. A sombre chuckle catches in her throat as she tells me that, “The most important thing is to become your own best friend”

The year has been eventful for this girl and it has all only just begun. Seven months ago, she discovered that she and her friend had “created a baby” and being a third generation pregnancy in her family didn’t help much when she had to share the news with the strict grandmother and the sweet mother, who raised her together in the Vaal.

“At some point I considered abortion and when I told my warden, who works in theatre, she just looked at me and walked away … I have learnt that there are no shortcuts in life, if you take them, there are consequences,” she explains.

Her ambitions and the dreams she had of being a radio or music producer one day are still and intact and thriving. “Surprisingly, it’s all still there! I mean after everything I have been through, I didn’t think I was strong enough to actually pull through everything that has been thrown at me.”

Even though she had made the team, she could no longer play basketball or stay friends with her first year basketball player baby’s daddy. “We were great friends but we were never good as mates and having a baby together caused too much pressure… it pushed us to a level where we just couldn’t do it anymore .We lost everything. Basically I am not even talking to him.”

Talking about her experience with other young and old mothers and the supportive network that her friends, housemates and house warden have created has lessened the burden for *Bonita. She giggles and says, “They ask me all the time, “is it kicking? Can I feel?” plus my Grandma is warming up to it too!”

In spite of all of this, *Bonita’s challenge is not like a simple sum or passing phase, it is altering the course of her life daily for good and she knows it too. “I have this way of dealing with challenges, I don’t know how I do it,” she laughs to herself and continues, “I get through it because trust me my life has just been hectic so I focus on the present and it helps, because you can’t predict the future and you can’t change the past. I think I have gained a sense of maturity”, she finishes off silently.

She read books, made the basketball team, made a baby and she wakes up every morning to give it all another try. “Thing is you can’t just go round feeling sorry for yourself…”

“Ja sure, what’s the big deal, get over it.” Is what she tell those who shun her or try to stigmatize her. “Next year, I will be back on the basketball court ‘cause there’s no way that this is gonna be keeping me down! It was all quite romantic but … I guess that’s how life is, it’s just unpredictable.”

By Dreamer

Louw Profile

She lights up a cigarette, takes a long drag in and stares at me through her blue eyes, her mass of eyeliner highlighting just how intensely blue they actually are. Nicolene Louw is no ordinary first year, yet she is just like the rest of us. She gets homesick, she sometimes feels as though she cannot cope with the workload and she occasionally feels claustrophobic in little Grahamstown. But she could not imagine being anywhere else at this point in her life. So what makes Ms Louw so special?

Nicci, as she prefers to be called could not answer this question herself. “Dude, I honestly don’t know what you’re interviewing me for. I’m just crazy and I haven’t ever done anything special”, she says as her cheeky blonde bob blows in the wind. If the truth must be told, then Nicci is half right. She is extremely crazy. But she has done some special things for the friends she has made at Rhodes, both human and canine. As she strums her long fingernails varnished with black on the table, she begins to tell me of the day she walked home and found a lost puppy. “This furry thing just started following me when I was walking past B.P.”, she says with a fond smile on her face, “He looked very lost, so I was just like, whatever, I’ll keep him.” This puppy she decided to name Rova, and she spent three weeks taking care of him, until she returned home one day and discovered that he was missing. “I don’t know what happened to him or where he went to,” she says with a hint of sadness, strumming her fingers on the table now at a much faster pace.

However, you do not need to be a “furry thing” in order to attract Nicci’s attention, or to become her friend. Admittedly, she is a bit of a rebel. “I gave my parents hell,” she says with a twinkle in her eye and a wicked grin on her face, the Madonna piercing glinting just above her lip. But this is what makes her admirable. “I really just don’t give a damn about what people think of me. I’m loud and crazy and I smoke too much and I swear too much. But I don’t need to fit in with everybody. I just want to be me.” It is this attitude that makes Nicolene Louw seem like a superhero to the rest of us. While most of us here spend our days trying to find the perfect outfit, the perfect hairstyle, or trying to do things that will merit the acceptance of others, Nicci throws her energy into things that she enjoys doing. “I love writing stuff and playing my guitar. Stuff like that makes me happy, and that’s all that really matters,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders, “and I don’t care if I don’t fit in.”

This girl is not going to preach to us Oprah-style and try and be a role model for younger generations. “I’m going to be myself and stay true to myself. I’ve made awesome friends here at Rhodes. It’s like we have a little family. And I didn’t have to change for either of them. I’m myself around them and they’re themselves around me. That’s all we really need,” she says brushing her fringe out of her eyes. Nicci is not perfect, but she does not claim to be, and it is quite clear that she truly could not care less about what anyone has to say about her. She is a hero in her own way, just like Einstein, who did not care about what people thought of his hair, and Noah who did not care about the fact that everyone laughed at him while he built the ark in the middle of summer. Nicolene Louw does not care if she does not fit in.

Looking at the brighter side of life!

It sounded similar to a car accident…there was a thunderous crash and big bang followed by the immediate yet timid response “Don’t worry, I’m ok… I think”. After pulling herself from under her room divider and picking up the remaining debris she attempted to explain, in between her contagious laughter, that she was just doing a cartwheel. She only realized that this was not possible in such a confined space when she was in mid-air and there was only one way to go…down. Whether it be walking to lectures or having a cup of her world-famous hot chocolate, there is never a dull moment with the lively and adventurous Tanith around.

After spending several meals with Tanith in the infamous Jan Smuts dining hall, Natasha and Lerusha, her new friends and housemates, worked up the courage one evening to ask her if she usually ate so little and where she got all her energy from. Sitting amongst the pink and orange scatter cushions on her bed she enlightened her friends to the fact that she is gluten intolerant so she cannot eat certain foods. This resulted in Lerusha’s candid response “What’s gluten?”

Apparently this is not an uncommon response according to Tanith and she had no problem explaining it more explicitly for Lerusha. Twisting her golden blonde hair she said that after an appointment at a biomeridian technologist and a few medical tests she found out that she could not eat foods containing gluten, yeast, large amounts of caffeine and large amounts of sugar. Lerusha nodded despite looking very confused and walked away mumbling about a bio-something or the other which made Tanith giggle uncontrollably.

Although she has always had positive, care-free attitude, it is understandable that this issue made living away from her home in Kimberly a lot more difficult. She conquered this obstacle in her path head on: “I first bought Mrs Goodness, a steamer, and made my own meals but this wasted a lot of my time so I ended up buying meals from restaurants. This was becoming way too expensive for a student budget and I really thought that money could be invested better in things I love, like clothes. Thankfully my friend, Nicci, then recommended a catering company which I now use.”

Tanith did not only solve these issues but also learnt a lot about herself in the process. “I was able to overcome these issues because I did not make a big deal about it. I learnt to substitute different foods into my diet because the last thing I wanted was to feel sorry for myself because that would just annoy me further.”

Her olive green eyes sparkle as she produces a wide smile and says “I don’t drink either”. This, she finds funny considering Rhodes is well-known for its drinking reputation. “I do not want to compromise my health and values but, don’t get me wrong; I don’t have a problem with anyone who does drink either. It is a personal choice which I don’t find very difficult to follow.” When it comes to food, however, there is a lot more temptation. Tanith admits “I really enjoy the things that I can’t have… Jungle Bars are definitely my weakness but I guess I’m only going to live once so I’m not planning on missing out.”

Tanith received a sticker on facebook profile (http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?sid=34c32c47e9cd4bd28f59b09a083ecea9&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.new.facebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fq%3DTanith%2BLee%2BSwinford%26init%3Dq%26sid%3D34c32c47e9cd4bd28f59b09a083ecea9&id=617869898&hiq=tanith%2Clee%2Cswinford) which captures her personality very perfectly: “someday everything will make perfect sense. So for now, laugh at the confusion; smile through the tears; and keep reminding yourself… ‘Everything is going to be ok’”. With this attitude it is not surprising that Tanith does not focus on the road blocks but rather looks forward to the open road and the high speeds which make the journey worth it in the end.