How to conquer boredom and diminish your reputation as a stable human being

It’s like watching paint dry. Counting ants. Playing footsie with yourself.
Boredom: there’s nothing like it.
It’s one of those things that force people into highly inappropriate confessions about the type of shampoo they use to cure their head lice or how efficient One Ply toilet paper can be in a rush when all you can afford to do is to ‘drop and go’.
Whether you are a serial car counter when passing the time or merely a little more particular about head lice shampoo than others, here are a few steps on how to conquer the grey shadow of boredom and pick up some useful journalistic tips. Even if it means forging your reputation as a pitiful weirdo with a footsie fetish.


Step 1: Be prepared to do the outlandish and ridiculous.
Life is short.
It is therefore necessary to act like a Tuscan who has just arrived in Hillbrow. A journalist does not bat an eyelid when faced with the possibility of losing a leg for a story. The prospect of wearing the stockings you sleep with for your hair to school or lectures should not be frowned upon. Embrace it. Re-live your days as an insolent school child. Stick an open condom on your boss’s windscreen wiper or throw a shoe forward in the middle of a lecture and duck like George Bush. Boredom is evil and the aim is to puncture it with its own pitchfork.


Step 2: Take a camera
You need ocular proof of the ridiculous action you are about to execute. This is so that you can earn appropriate titles from your friends such as Buns of Steel, Tough Cookie or Baksteen bowels, but to name a few. A picture is worth more than a thousand words and will have your editor singing your praises and pinning a congratulatory bow on your prosthetic leg.
Offensive manners and activities never stay hidden so it would be useless to refuse your Facebook profile a few more tagged photos of yourself.
It may be illegal in 14 different countries but who ever made history by being on their best behaviour?


Step 3: Get out
Put down whatever you are doing and leave whatever shelter you have been dwelling in. In my pursuit of dancing with the downright inappropriate, I decided to spend an hour at College House, a neighbouring boys’ residence in my university. I made a point of continuously going in and out of their gate at ten minute intervals like people would with a public toilet on an average day. Regardless of the looks that screamed, “mad journalism student on the loose”, make sure to maintain a serious and sure face. Your reputation may be reduced to the capacity of a teaspoon of sugar but remember that you are making history and conquering boredom all while making a fool of yourself for the sake of the profession of journalism.




Step 4: Reflect and document
After having stripped all notions of being a sane and socially acceptable person from your community, put all the evidence together in a document of your choice. Once again, evidence of this unusual activity is part of the entire process. You want to one day laugh until your dentures shoot out, hit your cat and make it comatose as you look at the picture, read the diary entry or blog post. Every uncomfortable or embarrassing feeling has to be put down. Though such activities may not always guarantee something positive, such as my luck on making a new acquaintance, people may live and die but recorded memories are forever.




Step 5: Pray
If you cannot be rehabilitated back into society, better to seek divine powers for acceptance and hope for the best in the afterlife. It’s all downhill from here onwards.

Mushrooms and Mastur-crasti-nation: A Review

Writer Than You is one of the many debut blogs by Rhodes University's Journalism and Media Studies 1 class. The blog’s uniqueness is declared with a witty pun on its name and fuels the reader’s expectation of the same wit and intelligence. If you're looking for an account on the daily musings of a Rhodes student, this is the blog for you. However, it's increasingly centred in and around campus, with only one or two posts on the national and international, which takes away its unique flair.

Despite this, it makes up for the slightly irrelevant content with posts on topics many wouldn't bat an eyelid over, such as the downside of joke-telling. Of the five contributors, you'll find yourself gravitating more towards Narvissie, with his laugh-out-loud headlines that follow observant blog posts like Mastur-crasti-nation.

In terms of layout, the giant glowing blue mushroom on the page brings to mind an alien-like predator sprouting out of the ground that science fiction movies repeatedly use.  The luminous 'alien-like' blue on a plain black background isn't particularly eye-catching and rather ominous. The virtual fish feeding application and music playlist make up for the lack of colour and some broken links within the posts but the unique factor is lost as numerous other blogs have the same. The voting poll's topic is out of date but nonetheless a clever way for the reader to interact with the topical issues at hand. There is room for ambitious flair but it mushrooms at a glacial pace.

When writing just doesn’t feel right

My hand cramps in awkward and uncomfortable ways as I try to will it into copying the neat patterns in my head. Sigh. It’s so simple, I think, you just need to copy what my right hand does. An involuntary spasm scrawls my “y” across two lines in an unhealthy and spontaneous way. My left hand refuses to comply with my wishes as it awkwardly clutches a pen.

If I thought that my handwriting was ugly or slow when I wrote with my right hand then I was bluntly disillusioned by my little experiment. Turns out it’s not that easy to be ambidextrous… I’ve set aside this time, though, and I won’t give up. I keep writing and writing, some words clearly illegible, looking something closer to Arabic than the English that it’s meant to be. I get an sms on my phone and, staying with the spirit of my experiment, I reply to it with my left hand; I discover that pressing buttons is much simpler than manoeuvring a pen.

I can handle the ugliness, but free writing is surely supposed to be rapid, flowing, unceasing. My attempts are halting and painfully slow, ensuring that I focus carefully on the words I write. My impatience is accompanied by a strange sense of endurance as I force myself to keep my pen scratching across the page. It’s a strange feeling to be so aware of my writing. Now I must pay attention to every loop and line as it’s drawn jerkily across the page. I feel like a child re-learning how to create familiar shapes in unfamiliar ways, learning something new.

No horror story

The blog in question has only 17 posts at time of writing (20:45 on Thursday 29^th October 2009), yet “I know what you wrote last semester” is still one of the more impressive Rhodes JMS 1 blogs I've encoutered. And they have a catchy title too.

The less-than abundant amount of posts may be excused for two reasons. Firstly, a low number of posts of high quality are more desirable than masses of posts spewed out in haste to reach an impressive-looking tally. Secondly, additional posts weren’t a prerequisite, therefore their absence can’t be held against the bloggers.

The plain design of the blog does not detract from the quality of writing. While pretty flowers and animated fish tanks are adorable and mesmerising, rather like a shiny object distracting you from everything else, they soon fade and not even the most creatively designed blog could rescue a reader from posts that tend to leave the eyelids drooping and the intellect in want of something substantial.

While I did detect the stray punctuation error or two in some of the posts (which could have easily been avoided through a simple proof-reading) these didn’t hamper my reading too much. Although, being rather stuck-up about such things as correct grammar and word usage, I did find it annoying. Making allowance for lack of editing, the articles are intelligent, well-written and relevant. Overall, I’d recommend their blog; it’s well worth a visit to anyone with time on their hands.

Final blog post

In honour of all of those who suffer with depression and Bipolar Disorder and most importantly, Candyce Bruce; I dedicate this final blog.

On Monday the of October 2009, I decided to end my life. Convinced that I was nothing more than worthless; the word which I had carved into my arm with a razor blade, I decided that now was time to end it all. A mountain of pills lay strewn on my bad and as I sobbed at the thought of my seemingly pathetic life, I said goodbye to the ones I loved in my head, telling myself that they would be better off.

Quite a few months before this incident, I had entered Journalism 1 with the hopes that I too would be in the ranks of the great writers of the modern day. A South African Marya Hornbaucher if you will. All Journalism students have these fantasies you know, the standing ovations and the critical acclaim.

One day I met a girl who changed everything. You see, I had been diagnosed with the notorious bipolar disorder a few months earlier and armed with my new label, I was satisfied with the idea that I would be somewhat of a social outcast. But strangely enough, she didn’t seem to care. After months of more laughter and happiness I had ever experienced in my life, I became frightened. For a person that had suffered with depression all their life, I had become accustomed to the idea that I would never be truly happy, and that was ok. But, boys and girls, this was not to be.

One night around April 2009, Candyce and I were walking through the streets of Grahamstown, singing Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra ballads. I stopped, looked up at the stars and started crying. Candyce looked at me and exclaimed: “what’s wrong sweetheart?” Through the tears I whispered: “for the first time in my life- I am truly happy.” I realised that everything that I had gone through, the cutting, the drugs, the fights with my parents, everything… it had led me to Rhodes where I had found the person I truly wanted to be, to discover the people who really meant something in my life and to find true happiness and contentment. I looked up and smiled. “L, is for the way you look at me…” I sang. We continued to walk up past the library and I sang louder and more jovial than I think I had ever done.

But soon after that, the fear started to creep into me. I didn’t think I deserved the happiness, I just didn’t believe it was in the cards for me. So that is how I ended up on my bed, carving words into my arm and planning how to end it all.

But something inside me stopped the craziness. I thought about my amazing parents and how much their lives would be altered if I were to commit suicide. I called the one person in the world I knew that I would want with me at the end- Candyce. But the end was not now. So for the first time in my life, I gave up all my fears and doubts, forgot the past and I learnt to love someone with my whole heart. (Now before you go thinking that our relationship is something out of a Katy Perry song, it’s not. ;) The love between friends is a powerful and totally underrated love.)

So to all of you reading this, I advise you to have hope. Life is never easy. Some of us have depression, some an abusive parent, and others we might just be unhappy with the fact that nothing has ever happened to them. But we are intrepid- we strive on. Love yourself and love others, because life is too short to hold back. So, on that note, I will leave you with this token, courtesy of my all time favourite show. (I’m just not going to tell you what it is, some of you intellectuals might judge me, wink wink.) “Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.”

Flaming testicles: On fire or burnt out?

With a name like “Flaming testicles”, one would expect a controversial blog headed by a team of contentious males. I was in for some disappointment. Most of the content appears to do with “[taking us] on a ride of sexual self discovery”. Not particularly enlightening. It then causes me to question the relevance of this blog to budding journalists, particularly women. I say this because we as visitors to the blog are welcomed as “testes”. I highly doubt any female visiting this blog would enjoy being addressed like this. And referring to themselves as “team testicles” just gives the impression that they are a group of sexually frustrated males. One of the bloggers is in fact, a female.
One of the first things that caught my eye, apart from the clichéd blog template, was a video bar on the side. All about cars. I still fail to see the significance of this. There is, however, a beautiful though rather random slideshow of romantic sunsets. One aspect of the blog that I find absolutely pitiful is the fact that there are only eight posts. This not only shows that they did not contribute extra blog posts, but they did not even complete the required assignments. There are no hyperlinks within the articles – just some unrelated hyperlinks in the sidebar. Some blog posts are either without titles or have unimaginative ones. This blog seems to give the wrong impression of Journalism; it is explicitly implied that it involves “juicy gossip”. Flaming testicles – you’re certainly not on fire.

Flaming testicles: On fire or burnt out?

With a name like “Flaming testicles”, one would expect a controversial blog headed by a team of contentious males. I was in for some disappointment. Most of the content appears to do with “[taking us] on a ride of sexual self discovery”. Not particularly enlightening. It then causes me to question the relevance of this blog to budding journalists, particularly women. I say this because we as visitors to the blog are welcomed as “testes”. I highly doubt any female visiting this blog would enjoy being addressed like this. And referring to themselves as “team testicles” just gives the impression that they are a group of sexually frustrated males. One of the bloggers is in fact, a female.
One of the first things that caught my eye, apart from the clichéd blog template, was a video bar on the side. All about cars. I still fail to see the significance of this. There is, however, a beautiful though rather random slideshow of romantic sunsets. One aspect of the blog that I find absolutely pitiful is the fact that there are only eight posts. This not only shows that they did not contribute extra blog posts, but they did not even complete the required assignments. There are no hyperlinks within the articles – just some unrelated hyperlinks in the sidebar. Some blog posts are either without titles or have unimaginative ones. This blog seems to give the wrong impression of Journalism; it is explicitly implied that it involves “juicy gossip”. Flaming testicles – you’re certainly not on fire.