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