The End of an Era

This was, initially, going to be a full and detailed report on the great South African – New Zealand war, and how its impact on South African citizens will slowly make the yellow bass our national fish, but then I discovered that the leading “Earthanoids” have a brand new prerequisite assignment for me. Usually I would feel above such menial and mundane tasks, but tonight I will attempt to blend into your earth-grub ranks... Hooray for you.

Now, onto the issue at hand, well one of them for now. However, before I get started, I want to make one thing very clear; being a well over 900 year old Xel’Shorian, I have no peers among you Earthanoids, but I will, for the sake of this article, refer to the multitudes of earth-grubs that are attempting to study “Journalism and Media Studies 1” my peers, even though it kills me to say it. Now, moving on: the last five weeks of blogging have been a joy, Mooks, Cannibal and I have enjoyed having the freedom to say what we need to say, to free your people from the lies and hypocrisy, without being calling us horrid names like: “insane” and “Australians”. Blogging in general, as a genre, is a wonderful thing to say the least. Blogging provides all the information that we could possibly ask for; there are so many people with different opinions, view and ideals, that anything is possible. There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind, that blogging is a relevant and powerful form of journalism. What is even a bigger bonus is the fact that you can select what you want to read, and even comment on it. This brings me back to the first blog I looked at; what a terrible piece of writing I beheld that day, my instincts told me to flee and press the “back” button, but then I thought: “Hey, this person could use a little dose of constructive criticism”, and that’s what I did. Admittedly, they did not take it as well as I had hoped, but at least they had something passionate to write about in their next entry. With blogging, everybody wins! I get to say what is necessary, and people can write and grow as journalist. If anyone disagrees with me; just accept you are wrong and move on. The only people who would want to disagree, anyway, would be those individuals who see themselves as the “Jaded Crowd” of know-it-all’s, who have a need to curse and insult people for no reason, for no reason other than that they think it’s cool and clever.

As I have touched on already, I am not the type of person who swears/curses and insults people for no reason; which has proven to be of some use to me because it has not hindered or restrained me in what I write on the blog (or as we psychopaths like to call it: “The Tablet of Truth”), because you can write whatever you like, just so long as it does not amount to hate speech, slander or undermines anyone. There is a fine line that people must discover between criticism and insult. Let me elaborate by giving you an example; you cannot criticise a quadriplegic for being in a wheelchair, that would probably be belittling them, you would, however, criticise Jacob Zuma for telling the country that a shower will prevent the HIV/AIDS virus from infecting you. Thus you criticise a person’s mistakes, without openly calling them things like “you idiot”. You do not “criticise” someone in a wheelchair for being a quadriplegic because they cannot help their disability. Great, one more piece of this discussion out the way, onward to new, greener pastures!

To ensure that there is no hypocrisy here, I will now constructively criticise myself. I would say that I’ve grown, on a scale of 1 – 10, by a 7, there has been improvement, but I could have done more. I’ve become a better and more creative writer. I’ve learned to research better, and working in a group has become significantly easier. I could have done many more post (i.e. been more productive), as ideas come very easily to me, but time was a factor that was not on my side, but despite that, I still managed to put in quite a few extra postings. Enough of this, back to the important bits!

I was lucky to be in a group with three fellow Xel’Shorians, who are on the same mission as I and thus see the world very similarly; through the eyes of a psychopath, which means we see the world the same, but our interpretations are different, that is why the beneficent Wise-One’s sent us together. Anyway, before I go off at a further tangent than what I’ve already, let’s talk about how a blog character can confine you to what you write, how you write, what your view should be and how you should put it. Well, this could be a potential problem if you were an apple trying to write like an orange, or if you were a Mexican, trying to write about life as an Eskimo. There is a simple solution to that problem, write as you! Stop trying to be clever, cute and funny because you are going to end up neck high in a pit, with your head covered in honey surrounded by bears. I, unlike most Earthanoids, took my own advice and wrote in my own character. Admittedly, having to write certain things that our beloved Sim and Alette had thought up was a crippling factor to my creativity, however, it was not a complete hindrance as it taught me to grow as an individual, and learn to cope with others telling you what to do amongst doing what you want, C’est la vie (I swear no one forced me into saying this, can you blame me for getting a little sentimental?).

For once I have had little to complain about, and after looking back at my year, and this courses I have that wonderful old feeling of nostalgia. It has been a joy creating and working on this blog, I cannot think of any direct hindrances, and just thinking that what I have said on my blog is available to multitudes of Earthanoids across the planet gives me the warm fuzzy feeling a parent gets from seeing little Timmy going off to his first day in Grade 00. Thus not only do my thoughts and comments get hurtled across the globe at the speed of light, but I have learned a great deal about writing and what my perceived audience might want. I have grown as a thinking contributing “person” in society, as a journalist and in my creativity. Looking back this has been a fun and educational experience, which I’m very thankful to have been given the opportunity to partake in.