Since she is studying Journalism, Nan sees RMR as an institution where you reach a community, and you get the experience of working and for an audience that is not limited to the students at the Rhodes campus.
Wassubi
Ok, so academics 'n all are really important. Paying attention during lectures is of the UTMOST importance, as well as taking copious amounts of neatly written out notes. You need to give the lecturer all your attention. You need to be enthusiastic, absorbative and analytical.
Of course we all do this....nat!
But then, work is a skill. And skills take time to develop, don't they? And so just like while building any other skill, there will be moments of weakness - times when all the hard work you've put in just goes to the dogs. Well... these videos capture some of these 'moments of weakness'. This is what we generally get up to in lectures and during important speeches (*cough* Academic Freedom Lecture *cough*).
Let's just be honest. I fall alseep in lectures. Between late nights out, late nights watching movies, late nights chatting, and late nights doing nothing (oh, and late nights doing work...sometimes), sleeping time is minimal. So when we get into these lectures which drone, and drone, and drone, and drone, and drone, I think we all wonder off to fairy land. It just can't be helped.
My good old friend Albert Einstein (bless him), once told me that in order to maximise scholarly output, one must equate the moments of dullness with moments of euphoria, thereby achieving a directly proportional relationship. SO... basically, during those oppressive minutes that make up a 45 minute lecture, one must look for things that are interesting and fun. In doing so, you stay awake, and maybe, just maybe, might absorb something from the lecture. So this next video, I would say, demonstrates one way of having a laugh and staying awake in the lecture! The plan is iron-clad I tell you.
awesomeness!
P.S.1 I apologise for the blog post on friday night. I realise it doesn't really make sense. I thought it would be a good idea to get a good post in before I went out... well that mission failed dismally didn't it? As the one comment says, I just had my first blogging while drunk experience. I thought about deleting the post. But then what the hell, it keeps to the theme of this blog I guess...
P.S.2 Have a look at that video of Nich playing in the concert. Doesn't it look like he scoring the guy behind him? I swear I had to double-look when I saw it. I've seen Nich around too many girls to know that he doesn't swing that way. But listen bud, if you need someone to talk to, your blogging partner will always be supportive! haha
Universities comprise a mix of different kinds of stereotypical characters. These include jocks, stoners, hard-workers, party-animals, computer geeks, white-coated BSC students and weed-smoking liberal activists. But every now and again comes along an individual who is simply ‘different’ – someone with wanton disregard for conformity, for trying to be someone who he or she is not. These people are unique in some way, are not afraid to show their personality, and are often well-known around campus. Lloyd Bridges is one such individual. Dressed in the same clothes each day – khaki pants and green and grey collared shirt – and sporting a beard that was once very popular during the Boer War, with the famous white streak in his moustache, Lloyd often captures the attention of his fellow students.
Lloyd’s dress and image is a reminder to him that he will live the life that he, and not society, chooses. Clothes are one thing that he feels don’t have much importance, unlike other first-years who spend copious amounts of money on their image. “I don’t like to spend a lot of money on clothes,” he says. “The only pricy items I own is a brown leather jacket, a hat which was a gift, and my shoes, which was also a gift”. And the beard and white-streaked moustache? “Well, I like having a moustache. When the white hair started coming through, I used to shave a lot. But I like my moustache. The white thing is unique and I like it.” To many his Moses-like image is laughable. But to him it expresses a fundamental aspect of his character: he is a man of his own.
Throughout the interview Lloyd shows a steely confidence in himself and his opinions. He maintains an upright and very dignified sitting posture throughout the interview. He strokes his beard when he needs to think about how to answer a question, and he is his constantly fidgeting with his fingers. Most notable of all is the humming sound he emits whenever there is a silence. “I like to talk,” he says with a sudden smile. “I don’t like awkward silences. My friends often tell me that if there is a break in the conversation, I never hesitate to fill it in. I can go on for hours about something without having the person I am talking to say a word.”
Lloyd’s notion of his best moments of his first year at Rhodes is also refreshing. It’s the small things he values most: his friend’s special birthday party he attended, his stint as dungeon master in game soc., and passing his Accounting exam. Suddenly he brightens and raises his eye-brows. There was also the time, he says, when he noticed a big mistake in the Accounting paper. “I was the ONE person to actually see the mistake out of the hundreds and hundreds of people writing the exam,” he says with evident pride in his voice. And what about his worst moments? He smiles and says, “I try not to have worst moments”.
Cinema and magic games are two of Lloyd’s biggest interests. He tries to go to movies once a week, and even works at Roxbury Cinema. In his free time, he likes to paint war-game miniatures. He occasionally plays Warhammer and paper-version Diablo games. He would play more often, but the games just take up too much time, with his longest being a sixteen hour stretch during O-Week. “It’s really hard to get bored of it because you play so few times,” he laughs. Watching sport is another big interest of his, and he is known to lecture even seasoned sportsmen on the complexities of the game. Playing sport, on the other hand, is another story. “In high school when I tried out for the volleyball team I was the only one out of all the boys and girls who couldn’t serve over the net,” he says sadly.
This year Lloyd has never felt inclined to change the way he is. “Everyone is different and everyone has their own motivations” he says. “Rhodes doesn’t try change who I am”. Lloyd’s confidence in himself gives strength to others not to hide who they are, and to value their individuality. He demonstrates that we don’t all have to be big drinkers and go out all the time. “Happiness,” he says, “is an internal thing. You should never rely on anything external”.
In contrast to Kyle, I instead had a decidedly average (not average as in bad, just average as in average) night.
Watched a funny violent movie at Roxbury, walked to Canterbury, smoked a hub at Botha, had a beer at Rat, got kicked out of Rat, had a Pirates, now composing bad songs in my res room.
Hope your night was better than mine!
kokes....
i have had the most awesome pre-drinks. It \has taken ,me abpout 7 time to get this flippen right. it has been so aweome. enjoying the night.hope you are too.
Im going to unuon now. will most prob see most of you there! hope you have an awesome nihgt. read my profuile 2moz.
this is most prob on of tghe last hectic nights of this term/ Hope u okes enjoy it to the fulll
Terri-Lee is a siren. Not the loud wailing device fitted to emergency vehicles, but rather the mythical creature whose lilting singing lures innocent men into unforeseeable danger. Long bistre hair and matching Dior-framed eyes belies the singer-songwriter’s true nature, for behind the pretty face lies an uncanny wit and copious amounts of attitude.
“Back in Welkom I was a bit of a badass,” she asserts without a hint of sarcasm, “so when I got here I felt I needed to be true to myself so I could faithfully reconstruct myself.”
Perhaps her new silver Mini Cooper S is a manifestation of that desire. Terri doesn’t have a driver’s license, however that doesn’t stop her from driving around Grahamstown, Free State license plates proudly displayed (“People give Welkom a really bad rap, but it’s a solid place”) and mixtaped indie-folk blaring out the tinted windows. She’d probably be playing her own recordings if her own band, the Life of Riley, ever got the opportunity to record something.
At only 19, Terri has already had more musical experience than most artists a decade older than her. She’s an accomplished clarinetist who played in the Royal Orchestra for four years in her early teens, as well as picking up awards for Best Solo Clarinet at the High Steadford Speech and Music Festival.
“It was more like Nerd Festival,” she snidely remarks while waving her Peter Stuyvesant wildly in the air. “I also made it to the finals of that Yamaha Young Talent music thingy for self-composition with guitar, but that was all a show.”
Within two months of arriving at Rhodes University for her first year of Journalism and Media Studies, she had joined an indie-folk band, The Life of Riley, a band influenced by, as she claims, “chain-smoking, Laurika Rauch and Sufjan Stevens.”
“It’s the most honest musical thing I’ve ever done,” explaining with smoke drifting out with every word, “I feel really relaxed when we play and fuck around and write music.”
Despite practicing for months, their first show only came at the beginning of August this year, opening for local band 10 Points for the Dismount, and Port Elizabeth post-hardcore outfit Sick Day September. The half-an-hour set was played in front of a crowd of sixty.
“That first gig at the Old Gaol was such a moment for me. It was surreal for people to be listening and actually enjoying it.” Her incredulousness was shared by her bandmates, but for Terri, it meant a whole lot more than the crowds to her.
“I was worried that I would blend in too much here,” she says while readjusting her glasses, “but then I was singing live in front of a lot of people and being recognised in the street. I realised I was standing out a bit.”
Terri, like any first year, had real problems with the new balance of between university work and life and the difficulties of reasserting identity and image. (She feels she’s “a fat girl.”) She acknowledges, however, that it really hasn’t been so horrible in hindsight.
“Occasionally in life there are things that just pan out for you regardless, so knowing that, I probably shouldn’t have stressed out so much.” She extinguishes her cigarette, and pulls another Stuyvesant out of the box, lights it efficiently, and takes a long drag.
Surely then, it can’t only be cigarettes and music that take the stress away?
“No, it’s also the beer. I love alcohol so much. I just look at a tall glass of yeasty lovely and I just cry for joy a little each time.”
A pause. A chuckle. A drag.
“Wanna head down to Rat?”
(Terri's blog is at http://5inblindsight.blogspot.com)
It's 2AM and I'm stuck in the radio station listening to archaic swing and hip-hop about "Evalastin' Luv".
My eyes hurt, yes, a lot.
Waiting for my show partner to get here, and I'm still wondering whether he'll pitch and if I'll have to do the show alone again.
It's at times like these that I wish the Union was open until late in the morning. Then it wouldn't be an issue to sneak drinks in between links 'n shit.
