Celeste House
Head Student Report
Reaping the harvest at Celeste
Monique L’Oréal Senekal: head student report
| Multiculturalism, commaradie, bonding, laughter, and respect are the key words of my experience as head student of Celeste Postgraduate Residence. Indeed, the highlight of this year’s events was our ‘Fun Awards Evening’ held in October, in which we ‘certified’ (irony intended!) and celebrated the social and cultural fulfilment of Celeste House, made by the sum of every individual resident – their unique traits, habits or incidents we remember most. With the theme, “semi-formal, with a touch of insanity,” we encouraged all residents to accessorise with a bit of colour, craze, and flair. |
Our two hosts for the evening, Kim and Brittany (pictured right), went all out! Their fun, wild, crazy personalities is perfectly encapsulated by their insane attire; they were able to present the awards of every individual with equal amounts of humour and care, with approving bursts of laughter and applause from the audience. |
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What I appreciate most being part of Celeste house, is the consequential learning and bonding that takes place. It’s diversity in both race and creed provides unique opportunities for self-development and growth. Interacting with others, listening, and engaging in debate with residents on a range of topics has truly broadened my horizon, giving me indirect life experiences, and ‘food for thought’. |
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| One unique and much appreciated culture which emerged in Celeste House was the girls celebrating each others’ birthdays. This ‘tradition’ somehow naturally developed after we organised a congratulatory engagement party for Rejoice, who went home to Malawi to get married in July. I guess Rejoice’s engagement celebration made us enthusiastic to do it again and again, as we bonded, opened up, shared and educated each other on a range of subjects! |
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What better way, then, to have an excuse to have girls’ nights, than on our special days? On girls’ birthdays, we collected R10 from each other, and, depending on the amount we collected, go to Pick ‘n Pay to purchase cake (the main ingredient), chips, sweets and drinks. We would then either ‘surprise’ the birthday girl in the common room (Nondumiso’s), or ‘invade’ her private space when she least expected, at midnight (Carolyne), or ‘expose’ her special day at a public space, such as our third term braai Celeste-Oakdene braai at Kenton-on-Sea, where boys – some Celeste and Oakdene guys – were present (Brittany)! We kicked off our year with a res braai in our very own backyard. This created a great space for residents to interact and get to know each other. We started of with an ice-breaker in which each individual were given the names of another 3 residents from which they were required to obtain character and biographical information. After some time, everyone was asked to share some of the most interesting things they learnt about their ‘subjects’. This created some fun and laughter, and insight about each other. |
| We then created an informal, relaxing environment by playing music, dancing, eating, and braaing the night away. Pictured (left) are some of us dancing our hearts out to both traditional music provided by residents – like traditional Yoruba music, music from Zimbabwe and Rwanda – and the modern pop and hip hop beats. |
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During second term, Oakdene House – the other male postgrad residence situated almost right across the road from us – invited us to their annual International braai event. This was relevant to us as the only postgrad residence that hosts people from 26 different nations. Celeste residents had the opportunity to meet and network with fellow students from right across the globe, in an informal, relaxed setting. Being head student of a postgraduate residence is one tough job! Mobilising and actively engaging postgrad residents in res activities is a challenge, because individuals, coming from all walks of life, do tend to appreciate their personal space. There are thus a few key lessons I’ve learnt via experience and observation, for future head students of Celeste:
Ending off with a huge applause: thank you to the Celeste House committee for 2009 – the ever-efficient, organised Sylvester (treasurer/secretary), the strong-willed Eunice (sports rep), the extrovert Brittany (food/entertainment rep), and the compassionate Netsayi (community engagement rep) –for your effort and input; for striving to serve residents as best you could. We made it! |
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