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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

"I am just not a career-orientated, power--hungry individual"

“Everyone around me was happy, manically happily, as if I was at some freak show, except that I was the freak because I was the only one crying”, laughs Tyreen Ragadu, a first year journalism student, as she nervously curls her black painted finger nails through her scarf. Tyreen, one of the winners of the Steve Biko writing competition and who received an impressive aggregate for a film and media learnership, knew “with out a doubt” that she was destined to study at Rhodes University. The smell of change was in the air and she was ready to grab it but unfortunately her grip on the rope slackened barely a week into her new life.

Her tune quickly changed to there being, “no doubt in my mind that I want to leave”. This comment was delivered with shocking confidence because after a month of weeping in her room she realised that she had made a big mistake. An honest mistake or a premeditated mistake, she was not sure but what ever it was, it was a mistake and she wanted out. The state of her room made this all the more evident. It looked as though it was ready to jump up and follow her as soon as she made her great escape. Boxes lay open; their innards spilling out over cupboard doors, her overnight suitcase still packed to the brim and no pictures or friendly decorations covering the drab walls. It looks as if she is just waiting for the interior design police to unexpectedly barge in and expel her from her nightmare.

At a hint that perhaps a considerable transformation of attitude was in order, she replied with a touch of irritation, despite her shyness, that, “it’s nonsense when people tell you that you have to change your attitude. Why do I have to sacrifice my happiness just because this is Rhodes and you are supposedly a freak for wanting to leave it”? She is aware that many people would kill for such an opportunity and that this makes her part of the stereotypical “beauty school dropout” but she has other plans that will take her just as far. Her attitude, which she knows will be the right one in the right place, will take her where she needs to go. It’s off to Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University to study Media, Communications and Culture and if you can fit in anymore after that mouthful, Tyreen hopes to travel the world as an airhostess in order to find her prince charming and finally settle down and live the stereotypical dream that Rhodes tries hard to squash out of you. “I am just not a career-orientated, power-hungry individual” she admits with a giggle because she knows that if her mother had to hear that, it would be tickets!

Tyreen recalls that in a recent journalism lecture a first year student had written to him/herself about their experience at Rhodes and she could relate to how Rhodes only accepts certain types of individuals and “cheers to the rest of you”. She too felt a similar crush of identity and was angered by the inability of students to transcend the stereotypes. “You either have to be an academic and sit in your room all night or you have to be a party animal and anyone else is probably in second year and they do not offer any assistance” says Tyreen with disappointment and further curling of her fingers through her scarf.

“We need Tyreen because of her very interesting sense of humour and she adds balance to our group”, says Tyreens’ close friend, Phemelo, who along with the rest of the group is disappointed at Tyreens decision to leave. Evidently though, not even friendship will hold this rebel back because even if she had no choice but to stay, Tyreen jokingly admits that, “you will then have to bring me a rope!” But as if sickened by her joke or the prospect of the death sentence proposed, the laughs subsides into a deep sigh that seems to expose her gloom at having lost sight of her Rhodes dream but the end of the sigh is filled with the sad fact that, “there truly is no choice, I have to leave before I become any more of a freak”.

Time to finish your homesickness jail sentence!

Dear Rice I am always watching you and have seen you suffering but have also witnessed your ability to laugh at yourself and your situations. There is not one situation that you haven’t eventually giggled at, so I think it is high time that you start chuckling at your homesickness. Remember those endless nights where someone would knock on your door, but you feared that if you opened it your tears would gush out and drown them? So you remained inside because you could not handle a charge of murder on top of your homesickness death sentence. They were there to pull you out of your jail cell but instead you opened photo albums and poured over them as tears poured down your already red and irritated cheeks. Curling up in a foetal position, you would fall asleep sucking your thumb like a child! Post-depression-session would find you smacking base on your face, something that you never do, just to cover up bags, which were so big that they could carry your school books! Such a waste of money and no wonder you always felt uncomfortable in your skin! I know that you are not alone and I understand that homesickness isn’t something to scoff at. Homesickness is a vicious feeling that keeps you up at night and confines you to your bed in the morning. It is also something that takes many of us by surprise because although it is talked about in that very “helpful” guide to surviving university, it is still a very personal, isolating issue that many students suffer from in silence. You have always been someone who adapts easily to new situations and living close by in Port Elizabeth and having moved away to Pretoria for a year at the tender age of 16, meant that you could handle the separation. I know you hate clichéd bits of advice but change is exactly that, change, and it is usually followed by harsh phrases such as “suck it up” and “get over it!” So next time, please open that door because I am quite sure that whoever is on the other end won’t mind swimming in your tears because more likely than not they will one day ask you to go swimming in theirs. Yours in laughter! Raisa