Market blog

Hay Anique

Homesickness was something that almost brought my university experience to a grinding halt. I wasted each week because my eyes were permanently focused on the weekend where I could rush into the comforting arms of my family and friends. I never talked about my issues to fellow students and because of this I struggled to make close connections, which further stunted my growth. Before I knew it, my last term had started and I was still wallowing in self pity, having accomplished nothing and feeling like I had wasted my precious time. We had just started a course in blogging in Journalism and Media Studies, which is the course that I am taking at Rhodes University in South Africa and our assignment was to create a blog with other journalism students and talk about how to survive first year. Finally I was able to express my feelings in a constructive way and after creating our blog, which is called “Confessions of a Crazy Couch Potato” I poured my feelings onto virtual paper, explaining about my homesickness ordeal and how to overcome the dreaded monster. My main comfort was that as soon as I started to talk about it so many students expressed similar concerns and the more empathetic advice that flowed in the less isolated I felt. So you can imagine how excited I was to find that you had the same problem and had bravely overcome it.

Such truth was spoken when you stated that there is “no single experience of college”. I felt that because I was not experiencing university life like other students that I was doing something wrong but in fact nobody knows how to deal with the way university tips your world upside down. University is whatever you make of it but you have to try to make something out of the sadness and the smiles otherwise we might as well go back to turkey dinners at home or in my case, roast chicken.

I have really enjoyed reading your blog and the advice that you and the other authors have so eagerly handed out. It is comforting to know that our fears and successes are shared the world over and I can see that your enthusiasm is going to dazzle your side of the world away, which has given me the inspiration to do so on my side!

Yours in balance, smiles and success!
Raisa