Features
Diary of a first year
Posted on February 1, 2010 by Editor
In this new section of our website, we get exclusive notes from various first years on their trials and tribulations that come with their first year at Rhodes. Please note, this is the only blog section that we try to keep raw and unedited for maximum effect.
In this edition, Fabiana Giorgi, a BJOURN kid that calls Zambia home, reveals her blog entry before flying down south to start her degree at Rhodes.
**Finding out that you have been accepted by a university, in my case the only one I applied to, is probably one of the most exciting moments in one’s life. It is the moment where you realize that soon you will be the one looking down on the younger grades and mocking them by saying things like “Oh I’m sorry, how many years of school do you have left?”
With this newly acquired power to mock just about everyone around you (muhahahaha), also comes the realization that soon you will be all alone in a new environment, with new faces and the daunting task of starting all over again. These are just a few of the things that I started to stress about as I thought about going to university.
Other things I worried about might have been seemingly simple to returning older students like what clothes I’d be wearing everyday or who would be carrying me home when I was “too tired” to walk home from the famous Rat and Parrot; which seems to be the one place that all “non-Rhodes students” know about.
Along with all the stories that accompany the Rat and Parrot, I recall there are also the stories of how first years are used in bets to see who would win a competition regarding “first year spread” or how first years are tormented in all kinds of ways.
My solution for not gaining any “first year spread” is to trek all the way from my res that is “down campus” to my friend that is at the top of the hill. Hopefully this will help. In regards to the rest of the torment that lies ahead I’ll just have to take it as it comes. So for now I have my trusty little student guide, my title as a Rhodent and my list of “what not to bring” that clearly stipulates “NO PETS ALLOWED!”