Four pairs of uber-trendy shoes are lined up in a neat little row on the last shelf of an impossibly cool bookcase, filled with authors like Augustine Burrows, Tom Robbins and Hunter S. Thompson. Frozen raucous moments line his walls - his friends look happy to see him on the other side of the camera in every shot.
Nicholas (or “Nich”) looks like one of those kids in SL Magazine who seem to know every obscure band, every “so hot right now” art house film and who drink chai tea while wearing the latest in Indie-trend fashions in some hotspot that’s yet to be discovered (and is therefore infinitely more hip than the over-commercialised haunts of has-been awesome kids). He is all of those things; he knows enough about pop culture to have a full conversation with any acclaimed media critic.
Nich’s left out the pretentiousness of these typical hipster folk, however.
With a good heart, a great vocabulary, an impressive list of achievements and a penchant for speaking his mind, Nich is a genuinely interesting and multi-faceted person. He is a talented guitarist and a passionate Christian – believing that his faith in God is the one that thing that prevents him from “topping [him]self in the morning”.
Being religious, he believes, was one of the biggest challenges he faced in being a first year – joining a highly secular society that seemed to value trends more than faith. Atheism seemed to be perceived as fashionable, and he faced a great number of these trendsetters questioning and insulting his faith. While for some time he felt alienated, he came to realise that his faith could endure ridicule, making him a “more confident Christian”.
He admits to having struggled to adapt to first year life at Rhodes, and isn’t ashamed to confess that he misses his family, his old friends and the marshmallow-like comfort of home. Coming from a “moderately high-class homestead” in Durban, Nich loves and respects his parents for providing him with the opportunity to achieve a good education, and works as hard as a Japanese Prisoner of War to keep them proud.
When he’s not working, he likes to indulge in the “great unifier”; alcohol; professing that a good draught beer is not much unlike his perception of Heaven.
Nich turned to music as a creative outlet for his angst and confusion during first year, starting an acoustic “indie-folk” duo named “The Life of Riley”. Nich advises prospective first years to find a similar creative investment to “numb the crushing pain of it all” while they struggle to achieve an identity, make trustworthy friends and stay true to who they are.
Nich is fairly ambivalent to the ways in which his personality has changed while at Rhodes, but believes that he has done a fair amount of growing up, and that he has finally found a group of real friends that he looks forward to forming “long-lasting, almost intuitive” relationships with.
With a guitar balanced with professional precariousness on his knee, he summates his theory of the “First Year Experience”: “I’m a Self-Determinist, whatever happens to you doesn’t matter, but what you do defines you, you can’t blame God for everything; some things are just up to you”.
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