By Victoria Taylor

Over the last few weeks, we have been experiencing some rather unpleasant weather to say the very least. It had rained on and off  (more on than anything) for days and everyone’s cars were kicking up a bit more spray than they should.
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It was on a rainy Saturday morning that I, unlucky as it was, realised that we, as South Africans may go on and on about  ‘leading S.A’ and helping everyone out, but when it comes down to it, no one is willing to do it.
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This is my personal experience, detail for detail, and so I am not outwardly saying that everyone does not lend a hand when it is desperately needed, but very few are actually willing to go out on a ledge and help a stranger when the occasion calls for it.
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On my way to work that rainy Saturday morning, I came off my scooter. Someone slammed on their brakes in front of me just before the robot and in my attempt to stop without crashing into the back of their car, I pulled the back brake and my scooter slid out from underneath me and across the road into the middle lane. I was sent skidding on my hands and knees and then rolling into the road…. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kenneth Davison
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This shall be my last blog on the Scholar Portal here at the Trudon Gateway (As far as I know) and I wanted to touch on something I thought about earlier. Tonight I will be celebrating my engagement to my gorgeous girlfriend/fiancé (not sure which to use) who I dated for four years. In those four years many things have happened but tonight we are celebrating by inviting a good number of our friends.
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We started making the guest list and I noticed that my friends have changed quite a bit from my high school days. In fact, I am only in contact with a few of them and only one or two people from them days are going to be pitching tonight. He asked me if he could invite the rest of the group (who he sees regularly). I told him no as we have to be tight on money since we are providing food tonight. It was then that it occurred to me that my friends have changed dramatically over the years.
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I was also drawn to this thought the other day when I was adding everybody I ever knew on facebook. I was inviting people from both high schools I attended, even though I have had the account for months now. I also started inviting people I knew in undergrad, my first first year and so forth. I have met a lot of people over the years and got along well with them but I don’t see them anymore.
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After boarding school, I never thought I would see many of those people again as we were from all over the country and world. During my time at the second high school, I felt that these were the greatest friends ever and we would never separate. I feels weird to look back and think that I only see two or three of them now. During Undergrad I met so many new people it was unbelievable. I knew many were not going to be regular friends but it is only a select few I see these days.
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I spoke to my gorgeous fiancé about this and she made a good point. Your friends change as you do, your needs evolve and many people who used to fulfil a need are no longer needed by you. It sounds terrible but it is true. You are friends with people who you have common interests with you or fulfil a need.
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Once I met my current fiancé, I didn’t need to see many people who kept me company as she kept me company. My less intelligent friends dropped off the radar as they could not talk to me about engaging and thoughtful topics like my varsity friends can. The people who stay friends the longest evolve together and their interests grow together. Once you realise you have little in common, that is when you stop seeing a person.
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This is a sad truth but one that we all deal with. Your friends change all the time but I hope that you are fortunate to have a small group of people that you can spend time with regularly, who you enjoy spending time with. Friends make the world go round and make time much more interesting

By Kenneth Davison
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My run on the Scholar Portal Blog here at the Trudon websites will soon be coming to an end. I have spoken about many topics in the 50+ blogs posted and I hope that the people reading have been able to relate, debate or think about some of the issues that have been brought up.
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Some of the numerous topics I have touched on include things like not giving up, even when failure has happened. I failed my first year but I am currently doing my Masters and have built up a network of friends and contacts. I have spoken on the importance of knowing people and meeting new people all the time (Who you know does count in your favour). It is important to do many activities in order to meet all these people, attending courses, conferences, participating in fun days and sporting events are all ways to network. Of course hanging out at University pubs is also a great way to meet people and have fun, but don’t limit yourself to just meeting in pubs (it becomes sleazy after a while).
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I have also imparted some of my knowledge on how to criticize what you are reading, which is particularly important in a world where there is endless information and most of it is rubbish. There have also been links to good life videos/columns where you can get an expert opinion on a particular life issue. These can be very useful to read or listen to as they allow you to think a bit deeper on some important issues that can affect your life.
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I have also spoken about how going to University is important but it is not the be all and end all. One can make a great career by carving out a niche in an industry or become specialized in a particular field. It is this specialization that University offers but sometimes it can be sidestepped, but I urge you not to take that and think you shouldn’t try for University. You should try and go to University but if you don’t get in, know that there are always ways around.
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But before you even get to University, you have the challenge of school. School can be tough, fun, easy and boring, all in one day. It may seem like adults just want you in school so that you are off the streets and out of their hair but school is arming you with skills that you will need. Skills like logical thinking and problem solving; these are important to develop and do not come easily to the majority of people. Skills like writing and knowledge of the land or past are also very useful and will mould you into the person you will become.
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School can be challenging and after a few years it can be tough, but it is important in the long run. I know too many people who thought school was a waste and they are now jobless, useless and society has no time for the useless. Wherever you go there will be someone with the same skills, trying to take your position, you need to keep on gaining skills and knowledge and make yourself better. There aren’t many schools who teach you how to be a chef, but the skills are needed to specialise as a chef.
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I have seen those who hated school but stuck through it and now they are reaping rewards for the skills they developed. I know many who dropped out or tried to just pass, and with a few rare exceptions, they are struggling. Everyone I know from University has developed skills and are working in many different fields, doing what they wanted to, but they had to appreciate and work hard at school to get there.
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It is your attitude today that will affect you tomorrow; I hope you have a good one.

By Kenneth Davison
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There has long been an issue that I have wanted to post about but I never really got around to doing. Since this is one of the last scholar blogs that I will be writing, I thought I would get it out now. It is the issue of drugs and in particular, how drugs affect you. I will start by letting you know what the very broad definition of a drug is: A drug is any substance that alters normal body functioning when it is absorbed into the body.
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I want to state that there are therapeutic drugs and recreational drugs and that I would like to focus on recreational drugs for this blog. Before I get to that though, therapeutic drugs are what you take when you are sick, usually prescribed by a doctor, but include things like Panado, Nurofen and Stopyn. I mention this as many people don’t realise those are classified as therapeutic drugs. Those are in contrast to drugs like marijuana, heroin and cocaine that people take because they make them feel good.
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When I was at school, the teachers and many parents would warn us all about the dangers of drugs. I am sure you have heard the same things I have with statements such as ‘drugs ruin your life’ and many more. Being young though, you tend to ignore what older people say and you want to experiment, after all, there are so many people taking drugs around you. If you think about it, unless you are a hermit, you will know a few people who at least smoke weed (marijuana, spliffs, whatever you like to call it).
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I know that some people smoke weed more than cigarettes (probably because cheap weed is cheaper than cigarettes). The people smoking will tell you that they feel better when they smoke and in some cases I can understand why. Some people have nothing to live for or have little hope, so the smoking eases their suffering (much like therapeutic marijuana for cancer patients). But for the majority of people reading this, there is more to look forward to than a slow death on the side of a road.
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Many of my school friends started smoking weed a few years back and even began defending its usefulness. It made them feel better, it made them laugh and have fun. But after a few months, I realised that they weren’t laughing as much and it occurred to me that their bodies were resistant. This is where the problem starts to come in. Once you are resistant, you still want to feel good, so you find the next best thing (and usually it isn’t kittens). This is one of the ways weed can act as a gateway drug, you start with it and then you take something heavier for a bigger rush.
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That bigger rush could lead to drugs like heroin or crystal meth, both of which are extremely addictive and once you take them, you don’t stop. Don’t be fooled, rehab will try and help but the addiction rate on those is near perfect, meaning they are more likely to kill you than you are of stopping.
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But another terrible effect of drug taking is the effect it has on your mind. If you want to make a career, or something of yourself, it is much easier when you are not wasted for several hours a day. Despite what drug users will say, even weed affects your body and makes it less functional. Reflexes slow down and thinking isn’t always logical or rational, and when you are planning, these processes are super important.
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There is hope though; I have a close friend who recently decided to move away from all the drugs he was taking. It is tough for him, especially when all his friends go off to smoke in a corner somewhere, but there are people around who will support him in every way. The drugs created a vicious cycle for him and he realized that he could do so much more and that he needs positive influences in his life.
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Taking drugs is an active decision at first but easily becomes an addiction which can easily take control of your life and become an obsession that you don’t recover from. Experiment if you must, but be aware that every experiment has a consequence and know that some experiments are more life changing than others.

Victoria Taylor

St Patrick’s Day is, as the staff of McGinty’s say, the “friendliest day of the year.”  And I could not agree more. I am a big fan of St Paddy’s Day, although I’m not the biggest fan of Guinness beer, as it’s quite an acquired taste. And so, luckily for me, St Patricks Day also happened to fall on the best day of my week; Date Night.
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My friend and I set out to find appropriate clothes to wear to our St Patricks Day/Date Night expedition. We searched for the perfect Paddy’s Day green shirts and ended up spending more money than we intended, but, we got our shirts and were even more prepared for the most epic night ever. We were headed to McGinty’s in Brightwater commons in Randburg, as usually, Brightwater Commons goes big for days like these.
Read the rest of this entry »

By Kenneth Davison
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This weekend I arrived home after a tough, but enjoyable, cricket match. I got to the gate where my mother was sitting and I asked why she was sitting out front. She normally never sits in the front garden but she responded to say that there were teenagers inside, working on a project. I thought this could be quite fun to watch, so I went inside, got myself some juice and waltzed into the study where they were sitting.
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The first thing I noticed was that my mother had used the word working very loosely. Their work consisted of watching videos on YouTube and swapping songs on their phones. Not really a great start when it comes to completing work. I then decided to find out what they were working on and what their project was on.
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If you are conservative you may want to skip the next few lines. Their project, as part of educating young people on life and sex at high school, was to do an experiment on condoms. They could choose any research idea on condoms, write why they should be allowed to test their idea and then ultimately do the experiment. One of the great young minds (sarcasm is so hard to convey in writing) in the group told me that they wanted to test how the pH of the woman affects the condom.
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It was at this point that being the big brother to a girl as well as a gentleman and a scholar kicked in and I decided to tactfully destroy their idea. Granted, if all you think about all day is woman bits, then it seems like a great idea. But then you grow up. I asked for some general background on their research up to that point. These questions ranged from “How will you do it?” all the way to “How will your experiment account for variability in the acidity, particularly in response to the hydrophobicity of the latex material?” (That is a bit of a made up question but their blank faces told me that I had shot them down)
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They went out to dance for a bit after that assault while I asked the more intelligent people in the group about their project. I then pointed out that they cannot test their idea with the methods they described. They wanted to use water to soak the condoms at various pH levels. As a scientist, if your question is to test how apples fall out of trees, you can’t use peach trees. This raised an interesting point in my mind and that is that research ideas and execution don’t always go hand in hand.
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When you are deciding what research to do, you need to first assess what resources you have as well as what you are legally allowed to do (or within school rules). From there, you can decide what you would like to research. You then do background research to verify that your idea is plausible as you will be wasting time if you are on the wrong track. You need to know what the variables are in your experiment (what you will be changing or testing) and you need to know how you are going to test. Those boys left not knowing how to test the strength of a condom. I found out you pump air in till they pop, so I can’t wait to watch them blowing up condoms (they are quite elastic).
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Research is not easy to do, particularly when the people giving ideas are just talking about the first thing that comes to mind. But it is possible as long as you do background research, know your limitations and proceed accordingly.

By Victoria Taylor

I am a very picky eater. I always have been and I probably always will be. There are a lot of things I don’t eat because I simply do not like to. Either I won’t like the smell or the texture but most often I just will not like how it tastes. And so, when my work colleagues suggested that we all go for sushi one night after work, my instant reaction was “Oh no, this will end badly.”
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I once went to a Chinese restaurant with my family and my brother’s girlfriend’s family. I remember ordering ribs and receiving a tiny, sickly sweet and sour clump of meat that looked like someone had stuck their fingers at the top of the bone and simply shoved the meat to the bottom.
Never the less, I ate it.
And I was horribly sick for about two days afterwards. Read the rest of this entry »

Victoria Taylor

On Saturday night, I went with a bunch of friends to the club out in Kempton Park called Angels and Demons. I’d never even heard of the place before so of course, I’d never been, but a friend of theirs was doing a DJ gig there and we all went to support him.
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As we arrived, after driving past the airport, (who goes past the airport to go clubbing, ha-ha!) I realised it was not going to be what I had expected at all. The place was packed! You could hear the music before you even approached the entrance and everyone was jumping and eager and ready to go. And so I got a little band attached to my wrist and we made our way inside. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kenneth Davison
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South Africa is a country blessed with many things. We have amazing weather, wildlife, heritage sites and people. But our blessings do not stop there but instead continue into our schools, job market and universities. The high quality of universities in our country has led to South Africans gaining good international reputations, and one that is striving to uphold that reputation is the University of Johannesburg, or simply UJ (pronounced you-jay, not oodge as I like to call it).
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When I was starting matric, I applied to several universities in the hope of advancing myself in life. There were two places I was hoping would accept me and they were Wits and UJ. Luckily for me, both these places accepted my application so I had to choose, and even now I wonder what would have happened if I chose UJ.
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Many of my friends ended up going to UJ and they were always having such a good time. The lecture structures at UJ are quite different to Wits’. Wits will have you attending three lectures and a practical for each subject a week, whereas UJ has one lecture per week. Because of this approach, people from UJ have more time to work, or more commonly, party.
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If you ask most people from UJ what they do between lectures, they will tell you they go to their day house, or sit on the lawns for hours. Some might even tell you they use the time to work and then there are the diligent ones who study in that time. It is because of this free time that other students from different universities perceive UJ as being a bit slack. However, the reality is that their courses are on par with the best, and many people fall into the partying trap and if they don’t study hard enough, then they fail.
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People with a degree from UJ have had to be extremely disciplined in achieving their degree as it is very easy to get caught up partying or using all that free time for anything but studying. Wits do have a structure that keeps you working, but UJ makes you very accountable for your actions. At the end, it is the same work being done, and the degree is just as valuable.
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Where UJ has really makes it’s name is on the sports field. UJ cricket and rugby are recognized by the provincial teams as being ‘talent hotspots’. If you are very good at sport and want to be noticed, go to UJ. Their rugby team is known as being one of the toughest at the Varsity cup and their cricket team frequently sits at the top of the premier league log. And these are not the only sports that they excel at and produce great athletes.
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Another department UJ has a strong reputation in is their commerce and arts degrees. Many people will tell you that if you want to do a BCom or BA, then UJ is the perfect place as they have excellent facilities and world class educators. They are also improving their other departments and I have noted that their sciences are on the rise.
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UJ was formed in 2005 when the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) merged with Wits Tech. In those years, UJ has developed a reputation as being a strong, yet diverse university and they are always aiming to reach greater heights. UJ is certainly a university you should consider attending, but make sure that you work while you are there.
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University of Johannesburg:

• www.UJ.ac.za

• Student related enquiries: 0861 00 00 85

• UJ Call Centre: 011 559 4555

• Address for Main Campus: Bunting Road, Auckland Park, Johannesburg

By Kenneth Davison
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As you go through life, you are given quite a few choices on what you want to do. Sometimes your choices are more limited than other peoples but you still have a hand in your destiny. This is particularly relevant when you finish school or university and decide if you can start working or keep studying. If you choose to work, do you find a job at some company or do you start your own?
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I was faced with these options and I decided it would be nice to do more studying but start a company that I can run in my spare time (Effectively ruining spare time for me, forever). I started an e-commerce site as it is low maintenance and allows me to work at all sorts of other things while it gets visited and orders get placed. Easy enough, then you process the payments and orders, create the paperwork and give people what they want. This seems simple enough.
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But as is typical of life (and the cosmic conspiracy if you subscribe to that idea), nothing can just be simple and happen the way you plan it. In my case, the business started to pick up even with a small amount of advertising. This in itself was only useful and not tough as it was exactly what I expected. However, the problem came in when I started to trust return customers and help them out a little, only for that to go down badly.
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I had a customer who bought a few things once, and he got his items and was quite impressed with the efficiency and convenience of the matter. He told me he had a few friends who also wanted to buy, since Cyber ConneXion is quite a bit cheaper than most shops. No problems there, so his friends bought a few items.
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However, this customer bought quite a few items, including two laptops and two video cameras. I then decided since he was such a good customer, I would try speed his delivery up by taking the stuff to him personally on the day I got everything. So I spoke to him and he asked me to take the items to a specific hotel in Pretoria. This is when my alarm went off.
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On the site, a person gives a delivery address (so we can get them their items). This person has a delivery address in Pretoria already. So I took the items to the hotel hoping for the best. The manager of the hotel told me they were probably Nigerians using his hotel as a drop point as they were booked to check in as visitors from Cape Town.
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The story gets significantly more complicated and I am praying like hell that the cards they used to buy are legit, or that the bank doesn’t screw me for them processing false cards. But this made me think a bit, you often hear of people being scammed, conned or defrauded, but you never think it will happen. Even worse is that these guys are pleasant and they are Nigerian, so they make you feel comfortable before fulfilling the stereotype that their brethren have given them.
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And at the end of the day, I wanted to start a nice honest business that would help out people by getting high quality goods for a much better price. I was naïve and got burned. This is a terrible way to learn but I want to tell you to be aware of it when you are working. Friends tell me it happens all the time, and they see it happening to management and even the small shop clerks deal with it. Be aware of fraudsters, and make sure you protect yourself first.