***-....The truth ....-***

I found this quote in a book I have kept since about grade 9.

I am not sure who it is by or where I got it, probably one day while watching TV, or even my owm little spark of imagination.

"It's not enough to be a witness, I have to write it down."

Haha, how I love finding something that is relvent to the future. It is like when I used to read the Blunt magazines (used to as they aren't printed anymore AND not even the webite is up anymore :( BLEAK) I never really knew what was going on, even though I retained all the information. I found myself deeply submerged in this world that was so beyond me. I used it to praise the writers, editors and photographers. Their world was better than a celebraty's.

These people were MY idols. And the best was, they were in my age group, average Joes (And the rare Jills) just writing what they witnessed. That impulse, or talent, showed my the world of skating, surfing and most importantly, music.

The amazing music scene in South Africa. Ok, not THE BEST, but some extraordinary talent. WE have our own fights, expressions and influences and they need to be explored and exhibited. From electro to rock, drum and base, metal and kwaito, SA is amazingzing and my first love.

And that's the journ I want to explore. I want to tell poeple what I have witnessed and the beauty of it all.

Because some say it's an addiction, others a love affair. But for some, it's a way of life.

My blog is my lease on life!

My name is Simphathisiwe Sibeko, known in the blogosphere as Zoey from cowANDchickenANDcoward. I am a 20 year old female who is passionately in love with the colour blue, food, laughter and having fun in all shapes, forms and sizes. I am a firm believer in the thought that each person is entitled to their opinion on anything and everything and I am well aware that "common sense" is not always common, but I am fond of using wit and charm to push the envelope here and there. Many people are under the notion that I am hard to please and complicated, which is untrue and a misrepresentation of who I am. I love laughing and the cause of my laughter is not always the most intelligent cause. My main motto in life is " Do what you can to maintain happiness within and around you". As a result, my life is driven not by what I want and can get out of it, but how I can live to make the lives of others easier in a way that will make me happy. I unwind by watching movies, cartoons and eating junk food. I wish I had more will power to resist this poison to my body. I am not keen on reading, but when I do read, I want to read something worthwhile, so I will probably research for a while until I find something seriously worth my while. I hate lies, no matter how entertaining they may be, so I encourage honesty at all times. I am as knowledgible as I should be about politics, so I intend to ask many questions which will assist me in this regard. Taking into consideration my personality and those of my group members, our blog is meant to be a worthwhile read. We will have many random polls and topics, but we will ask the questions many other people are and were afraid to ask and we will explore aspects of life which many are afraid to even acknowledge existence of. Our blog will be pleasantly shocking, significantly inspirational, unbelievably funny and insanely addictive addictive. Our intention is to make you forget what you used to get up tobefore cowANDchickenANDcoward came into your life.

My BloG...My sp0t...a wARmesT weLc0Me t0 yUo (the type of blogger I am)!

My name is Chwayita Njobe, a journalism & media student at Rhodes University. I am an energetic, fun-loving being and I’m excited about this whole blogging thing, it’s all quite new to me to be perfectly honest.
As a fellow blogger, myself and three other journalism students are putting our creative ideas, opinions, and personal interests together and are going to implement all of these ideas together on our blog.
But, my personal mission for this blog is to make you think. Whether that is thinking and speaking about power struggles in the politics of the world or simply about the daily topics that we, as students, discuss and argue about in and around campus, the options are truly endless. I am here to add humour, and to give an out- of- the- box perspective on everyday issues. I will also add my own creativity, such as my thoughts of the day, or even a poem or two that can be criticized or complimented by the viewer at hand.
As young people living in an environment filled with politics, poverty, wars and utter chaos, we all deserve a break every once in a while, and this blog is aimed at doing just that. My personal input will tweak your thoughts, hopefully not aggravate them too much, and is a spot on the blog that will help you escape the madness of endless assignments, hectic daily schedules and the meeting (or missing) of deadlines. We all just need to breathe, stretch and shake off the demanding nature of varsity life every now and then, and that is what I aim to help you do on this blog.
But, don’t get it twisted! I am aware of the fact that as a journalism student, I should push for heated topics, get everyone talking and debating their views on current topics. But, I do believe that we also need a break, and we all need to stretch our minds creatively. And, that’s where my (and your) random thoughts, poems and encouraging words for the weeks to come will be implemented into this blog.
Life’s filled with ups and downs, and words of encouragement are always appreciated…you can look at my positions in this dynamic team, as the yoga instructor of your minds, hehe!
As young people, we need to express ourselves as best we can, we hold more power, in our words and minds, and we aren’t always given the platform to express these suppressed views. That’s why this space will allow you to relax and reference your own thoughts, your own way, and through this blog…the floor is open!

Why do I want-not want to be a journalist.And, who inspired my decision.

Hmmm...why do I want to be a journalist?I want to study journalism because it will ultimately lead me to the editing world (magazine editing to be exact). I'm also interested in working my way up into radio (e.g. Yfm, or Metro fm), and journalism is teaching me the skilld i need to get me on every, worldwide frequency. I want to be a part of the media world, and to be successful in it..and journalism will help get me where I need and want to be!

My decision was inspired by, and was a result of the influence that radio personalities like Unathi (Metro Fm) had on me. She is from a difficult background, yet she managed to make it in radio, and is now a well-known and respected radio personality, and was a presenter for Top Billing last year (for a short while).And, I know that I too will be just as dynamic as she is...make sure to keep your eyes and ears open 'cause soon I'll be gracing youe television screen and waking you up on the freshest radio frequecy!

What kind of blogger am I?

By Siyasanga Sijadu
What Kind of blogger am I ?

Personally I believe one cannot say that they are a specific kind of blogger. My theory is that as a journalist you do not define the work you produce, it defines you. I believe that one cannot be put into a category, for this defeats the purpose of journalism. In a more simplistic view, I am spontanious. Hence I cannot fool neither myself nor my reader into believing that I will have a central focus when writting my blogs.

As a contributor to this particular blog, I will come across as the black sheep of the family. My ideology and the way I relate to certain aspects of life differ from those of my group mates. I come from an area that is primarily made up of black individuals. I enjoy "black music" and "black television".Any form of interaction between me and people of other races has been minimal. My group mates have a more naive sense of view, children of a Democratic South Africa. They have felt the full effects of living in a Democratic society.

The only means of highlighting views of the black "previously disadvantaged" is for them to be written down. That is where a blogger like me can have a say, that is where journalism is significant. At first glance I may appear as a politically driven blogger, this is true to a certain extent. I just want to be the voice of reason. I want to be that individual who sheds light to the secrets that would otherwise be hidden under the table.

In essence, I think I am tired of the statistics and the surveys we conduct, without going to the root cause of the problem. I want the black kid with "black education" to be seen as something other than a charity case. A chance for them to express their views and not feel that they are inferior or less important in post Apartheid South Africa. That is my sole purpose, and I would love it to come across in my blogs and in my future writings.
I think that is as short of a summary as I can give of the kind of blogger I am.

What should you expect from this blog??

The following information shall give a detailed report on the kind of blog that our group wishes to produce. Through an analytical conversation on each of our views, we came across that two of us were similar in ideas and one was completely different. So, in order to incorporate the similarities and differences, we have decided to start a blog which talks about issues we have as journ students, showcasing who we are as well as including the arbitrary thoughts we might have on a daily basis.




The current trends in the 21st century have been primarily to sell sex, scandal, and celebrity. This has become a culture that we relate to, and identify with as the young people in the global community. We have become a society of young individuals who cannot relate to other aspects of our world and engage with matters that affect the global society. After careful analysis, we came to the common conclusion that we do not want to be sucked into the same wormhole. We understand that this decision may not necessarily make the blog as popular; however it could change a few mindsets.

We would like to enrich the youth in a more positive way. We want to reach the young talented and willing to learn individual. We want the curious person, with ideas and an open mind. We want the person who is able to not only think outside the box, but tear that box to wide open. We wish to have an audience that is not afraid to speak its mind. This is their platform to shine. We want to tantalize the young individual who has a tiny voice and who is not afraid to use it. This should be for the young person who would like to learn whilst having fun.

One could conclude that the blog will be an extension of the “nerd” who loves having a good time. The blog cannot live up to its’ full potential without the “perfect audience”. These are the people who will ridicule popular culture, and critique politics. We are looking to target the individuals who read for fun, and listen to good quality music in their spare time. In essence we are looking to reach the future cream of the crop. These are people who would have great impact on the world. It should be stressed though, that this blog is not one that excludes others who do not meet the ideal above characteristics.

Our target market is very specific, as we would like to set a very specific tone for the blog. Although the blog will not discriminate against those that do not fit the description, we want to reach as wide of an audience as we can. We are not looking to target academics, but we are looking for innovative refreshing young people. An audience that is not afraid to dream and wake up to wake those dreams a reality.



When running through a list of the links that caught each of our attention, we all had something different. Siya was all for the specific blogs on dinosaurs (http://dinosaurs.about.com/b/) or werewolves (http://www.werewolves.com/). However, when it came to the more ‘required’ material, we found a number of websites and blogs that we could learn from, both regarding what and what not to do. The first negative one was http://binowski.wordpress.com/ a blog composed of a journalism student. However, it was bland and too much writing or commanding as it had tips on not what to do and a very long newspaper article, instead of a summarised version. Not very attractive. A fun, cheeky blog on being a journalism student and all the highs and lows was found at http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/students/. It is more useful to the student with many questions of their future as it answers a lot. On my quest to discover the world of journalism blogs, I found one by UJACS in Australia (http://uqjacs.blogspot.com/) dealing with journalism as a course which lead to me to the link http://www.10000words.net/ ‘where journalism and technologies meets’, a really interesting website on lists of tips and fun information for journalism students. Another blog (http://thepiratesdilemma.com/) which deals with pirating goods and where the world is going in terms of free or fake goods being distributed is a prime example of how we would like to include not only items relevant to our proposed blog, but also videos, pictures and links that interest us an individual. It is so difficult to use other blogs to describe the way in which we wish to present our blog. I don’t think that it is something that happens in a week, rather an idea that is built upon and mothered until it grows into something beautiful and mature.



The character of our blog is that of an informative forum where one can also get their fix of everything from advice to random information and laughter jerkers.

We aim to take a casual approach on serious issues because often the seriousness of issues makes talking about them such a taboo. So we seek to eliminate the seriousness of the issue without making light of it, of course, so that it can be easier to discuss. In a nutshell, our blog is a place where anything goes.

We intend to discuss burning topics which are in our national news, while remaining loyal to more close to Rhodes topics. We will have quizzes about anything from the JMS1 course, interracial dating, the lack of MacDonald’s in Grahamstown, DP's, partying, animals and just about anything. Our blog will also offer motivational pieces weekly; basically some wise words which are meant to give readers the push they need to get through the days ahead. We will also display works of art and showcase books which people can comment on, after reading of course. We will try out new places and recommend them, or discuss terrible places which are never to be revisited, not even to use the bathroom. Our blog will generally be a topic-driven blog, which will be personal or diary-like from time to time. At the end of it all, we hope to create a product which will keep followers constantly online to check up on any new uploads. We seek to entertain our followers and get a lot of feedback from them, but most importantly, we want to give them something to think about, something which they perhaps have never though about before. Our language shall be our own, representing who we are and were we come from. Each of us has different backgrounds, home languages and interests and these shall be evident and reflect the diversity of the South African youth and more importantly, that we can work together to create something unique.

Once our followers have joined cowANDchickenANDcoward*, they will find it difficult to remember what life was like before they clicked the "become a follower" button.



*subject to change

Why do you/ don't you want to be a journalist. Consider people who have directly influenced you strongly in arriving at this decision.

My dream has always to become a lawyer, theatre actress or radio/TV personality. When I reached grade 12 and informed my parents of my ambitions and high hopes, they promptly informed me that these- especially the acting- were merely a far-fetched dream despite the drama awards I had received, my outstanding speaking voice and the fact that I was the chairperson of our school's debating team for 2 years in a row. I then decided that when I go to varsity, I want to venture into a career path that will please my parents, but not leave me miserable. So I am part of the JMS team because my intention is to become a media lawyer. This career path incorporates all my loves and it will please my parents because it will add me to the list of people eligible to get "stable" jobs. So I will not become a journalist and my reason is as stated above.

This dream has been inspired by Dali Mpofu who is the CEO of SABC. His job is such that he is hands on in the legal concerns of the company, while he is also part of the team of creative minds behind the SABC and he gives the final nod on anything which takes place at the SABC. With the knowledge I will acquire on the media and on law, I believe I can be as good or even better at his job or even a better one. Media lawyers- good ones- are few and far between and highly sought after by many media houses, not just in SA but elsewhere and I am convinced that this is an environment that will make me comfortable, satisfied and happy, yet leave me room to grow. The best part is that I will be able to get involved in TV, radio, other forms of media and law and these are my passions.

Grey-and-Pink Leopard Print Welcomes You :)

Ola!
I am Simone.
I am currently in my first year at varsity (Rhodes) studying journalism.
The following blog is made up of four different people.
This is what MY postings will be about:

My postings are going to be about me. My ideas, my thoughts, my feelings and my fights. Brought together with three other girls from my journ tut, we shall each go through these above things and eventually our personalities and differences will shine.

Writing has such a strong impact on those who read and I don’t want to influence people in a negative way when thinking about life.

Rather, assisting readers when it comes to questioning themselves and their beliefs so that they can fully appreciate who they are is preferred.

This may read like a propaganda speech in itself, but moving away from that by delving deeper into the idealistic approaches people subscribe to and prefer is more interesting than manipulating humans (at least for me). Taking a look at the good and the ugly in the messages one comes across is a better way to tackle the stitches of life.

Terms that only make sense to the ‘master’ in that field will be omitted unless necessary. My language is simple, yet tasteful, easy to understand yet not boring.
When the simplest problem is proposed in the most complex language, leaving out the average citizen it saddens me. Some of the most brilliant brains are left unacknowledged, never ever enabling them to use their full potential.
Two brains really are better than one and giving one to do all the work is placing too much of a constraint on the potential something can reach. And that’s how I hope we can all work together on it through this blog.

Arachnids...

This blog is going to be the best thing since sliced bread and avo!!