There are moments when the need to sit down and reflect on what you’ve learnt from your experiences becomes necessary. Usually, these moments are a natural consequence of endings: the end of a year being the cliché. I don’t particularly like self-reflection, because it usually results in change, and change is often attached to sentimentality, and I really don’t like sentimentality. But as every sanctimonious self-help book (I hate self-help books) has ever told you, change is inevitable. Sometimes it is just (so) necessary to re-evaluate your priorities or your relationships. Change usually has casualties, though. In my case, it was the end of a few friendships. This is always a sad, and often angry, event. But the older I get the more I realise that the idea of permanence is one of the great follies of the young: we don’t appreciate just how much life there is left to live and how much growing up we still need to do (an aside: this is why I struggle to understand how the crazy people who get married while they are at university can commit themselves so easily).
But hey, at least I know that, no matter the state of the other relationships in my life, my love affair with coffee is forever. It’s not a secret that I’m addicted to cof fee. Literally addicted. I don’t just say that. I have withdrawal symptoms; things like headaches and mood swings abound when I go a day without coffee (well, caffeine). I don’t consider this a bad thing, really. As I always maintain, at least I’m not addicted to crack. Perspective, that’s the key. Needless to say, I have a very close relationship with coffee shops in this city (on campus this is Fego, a place of joy and wonder) but I’ve grown slightly bored with my off-campus options. So if anyone knows about a really awesome coffee shop in Pretoria, drop me an email or a tweet or a smoke signal. But let me be specific and qualify what I mean when I say awesome: awesome implies good coffee, good atmosphere, good service and (this is a biggie) good cake. There must always be good cake. And if it turns out you’ve introduced me to life-changing coffee, I’ll owe you something. Like a diamond encrusted kidney.
I ramble sometimes, don’t I?
Stop listening to me and go read the paper. It’s our last one of the semester before the dark and dangerous exams come into your lives. So good luck with those. You won’t find an article on how to do well in your exams in the paper, because I assume you all know how to write exams if you’ve made it this far in life, but you will find some exciting other things. Like our article on sexual harassment (panda!) and the one where we interview The Graeme Watkins Project. We also take a look at the DA march for a youth wage subsidy that went all kinds of wrong last week, and in which a few Tuks students were hurt.
Enjoy the paper, enjoy your holidays and keep an eye on our website and Twitter feed for updates till we are back in July.
This is Sparta!
Beyers
@PerdebyEditor
